U.S.S. Corsair - NX-011979
Nebula II Prototype
“Sic Parvis Magna”
(Greatness From Small Beginnings)
“The Key To Hell’s Gates – Part I”
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[USS Corsair – Ship’s Armory]
Grabbing a phaser rifle and pulling a marine issue belt of flash and photon grenades over his torso, Captain Ramius stood arm and arm with over fifty fully armed Starfleet Marines who were eager to beam aboard the station and exact retribution on those who had so callously attacked the Corsair and claimed many of their comrades lives. Ramius had every intention of giving them that chance. NeoDyne had wrecked his ship, killed and injured members of his crew, and now they would feel the crew’s wrath as the cold, harsh winds of fate and fortune turned against their attackers.
“Set weapons to kill”, Ramius ordered the troops checking his own rifle. “Expect heavy resistance and violent retaliation. NeoDyne employs highly skilled mercenaries in addition to its own well disciplined security forces. You are authorized to use deadly force until the station is completely secured. We will be beaming into the station’s operations center en masse. Once secured, we will divide up into Alpha, Bravo, and Delta teams. Bravo team will secure the station’s engineering sections and prevent sabotage or destruction of key systems. Delta team your job will be to secure the station’s crew quarters and security deck. Alpha team will remain with me as we will spearhead the attempt to enter and secure the station’s laboratories and scientific personnel. Once each team has secured its objective proceed to the lab decks. We will meet up there and proceed in force into the station’s core.
You can expect to see human experiments and other such atrocities which may be violent, powerful, and hostile. Again, and I cannot make this point more clear, you are authorized to engage any hostile force with extreme prejudice. Report any contacts and do not hesitate to request backup from the Corsair or emergency EVAC if the situation warrants. Be prepared for anything – there’s no telling what NeoDyne is hiding aboard. Are we clear?”
“YES SIR”, came the marines resounding reply.
“Good, mount up and head to the transporter rooms”, Ramius said turning toward the transporters.
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[ NeoDyne Research Station ]
Captain Taverain Ramius and three platoons of Starfleet marines materialized in the center of the station’s operations center their weapons drawn and ready. It was a shock to find the nerve center empty and abandoned. The stench of burning electrical and electronic equipment hung heavy in the hazy air. The Corsair had exacted a telling blow to the station’s command center which was evident by the smoldering fires, destroyed computers, and lifeless bodies.
“Fan out”, Ramius ordered as his men swarmed the large room searching for anyone living or dead. After several moments it was clear the ops center was indeed empty except for the dead.
“Those bloody cowards”, a nearby marine said loudly as he spat. Ramius couldn’t agree more, but he had to get below to the labs. That was where he would inevitably find the evidence he needed to bury NeoDyne as well as Dr. Artimis Ballentine who he desperately sought as a prisoner for interrogation.
“Ramius to Corsair. Operations center secured. No sign of the crew. We are breaking into assigned teams to search for NeoDyne personnel and to secure the station. Ramius out.”
“Bravo team, head for engineering. Delta leader, take your men and secure the crew areas. Alpha team, come with me, we’re going for the labs. Once you’ve secured your objectives, beam any prisoners to the Corsair for identification and processing. Link up on the laboratory deck once you have secured your objective. Alpha team and myself are headed to the labs now to scout the area. Let’s move out!”
Ramius motioned with his rifle for his troops to follow. NeoDyne was probably engaged in destroying evidence even as he spoke. If he wanted to find his smoking gun he would need to be swift.
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Lab Deck – NeoDyne Research Station
The lift doors parted as Ramius and roughly thirty marines quickly stepped out and took up defensive positions. Now on the lab deck, the marines quickly filtered out as the immediate area was secured. Ramius got a non-verbal nod from Alpha Team’s commander that the area was clear. Moving forward to the front of the team, Ramius checked his rifle and headed out. Ahead of the team was a long, narrow hallway that seemed to stretch onwards forever. Its walls were solid white interrupted only by an occasional sign, warning, or the large NeoDyne corporate logo.
Moving out, the team passed several small labs that connected to the hallway on either side. Red alarm lights spun above the marines indicating the station’s alert status as they slowly and methodically cleared each laboratory. As Ramius had feared, the scientists were already hard at work destroying evidence and covering their tracks. Lab after lab revealed computers which had been disintegrated, experiments that had been destroyed, and equipment that had been sabotaged. Fires raged in two of the labs which the station’s computer had sealed off. Ramius and the marines could only look in through the heavy protective glass as equipment and experiments burned from the intense flames that engulfed the two research rooms.
Pressing forward the hallway curved to the right. Ramius’s scans of the station revealed a design based on several outer habitat rings connected to a central area which originally had housed the original station’s mining and ore processing operations. This internal area had seemingly been converted by NeoDyne into a massive laboratory, but as of yet the team had found no entrance to the internal, central structure of the station.
A yell suddenly filled the air as a door quickly opened. A man in a white coat emerged running frantically as six elite NeoDyne security officers followed him. The scientist, frantically screaming for his life, ran down the hallway as the NeoDyne guards opened fire behind him. Dodging a hailstorm of weapons fire, sparks, and explosions the scientist ran until a single red beam penetrated his chest. The man fell forward instantly rolling several times before coming to a stop near Ramius’s Alpha Team.
Ramius took the first shot at the NeoDyne troops yelling to his men, “ENGAGE!”
The marines opened fire at the group unleashing a hailstorm of coordinated weapons fire at the small group of NeoDyne soldiers. While the battle was fierce it quickly ended as numbers and firepower quickly suppressed the NeoDyne forces. All six of the soldiers were quickly dispatched. Ramius ordered several marines up ahead to secure their route and check for any additional NeoDyne activity.
Ramius made his way to the scientist who was still alive his white lab coat damp and stained red with his own blood. Dropping to his knee, he ordered the marines to perform first aid while he sought answers.
“Who are you and what do you do here”, Ramius asked with a tough bedside manner.
“He’s…he’s insane”, the scientist said with fear. “I, I never signed up for this. I just wanted to make a name for myself. That’s what they promised me! I never…” The man stopped coughing suddenly as several trails of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Ramius looked up at the medic who shook his head. There was little he could do for the man. If the captain wanted answers – he would need to get them soon.
“Who”, Ramius asked. “Who did this to you”, taking a lighter tone.
“That monster Ballentine”, the man coughed. “You have no idea what he’s capable of, what he’s been working on!”
“Tell me and perhaps we can end this”, Ramius said quickly.
“No, save yourselves and get off the station while you still can. You men are from Starfleet. Just use your starship and blow this place back to hell. Please!” The man coughed and convulsed his injuries taking their toll. Ramius watched as the medic administered something for pain, but the man’s injuries were too severe. The medication could only ease his suffering. Nothing more could be done to stop the inevitable.
“Help us”, Ramius asked. “Help us stop Dr. Ballentine and end his madness.”
The scientist nodded. Reaching into his jacket he produced an access card. “It’s a Level One card. It should get you into lab one. If you hurry you might be able to stop him before…”
The man coughed and convulsed on the floor. “Before what”, Ramius shouted at the scientist gripping the man’s blood stained lab coat with both hands. The man looked up at Ramius with a pleading glance trying to speak, his lips quivering, but his eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp in Ramius’s grasp arms unable to reveal any further details. Ramius laid the man down on the deck and closed the man’s eyes. He stared at the scientist in silent prayer. Another life had been lost to NeoDyne ambition. How many more lives would be sacrificed? How long would the killing continue?
Determined to find Ballentine, Ramius took the ID badge from the man’s now limp hand and wiped its sticky surface on his sleeve. “Let’s go”, he ordered as the marines stood. The scouting parting Ramius had sent ahead earlier reported back as the marines prepared to move out. “Sir, we’ve located an entrance to what appears to be the inner station, however the door is locked. Without the proper codes it would take us sometime to bypass or cut through it with tools or phasers.”
“I may have found a key”, Ramius answered casting a brief glance at the dead scientist who lay motionless on the floor in a pool of his own red blood. The bloody pool, dark red in color, was a sharp contrast to the sterile, bright white of the hallway.
Ramius ordered his men to fall out. He could spend no more time here. Dr. Ballentine had to be apprehended and stopped. Even if the doctor managed to destroy his work, Ballentine himself would hold up as state’s evidence as well if not better than any hard evidence Ramius could gather with the threat of a lifetime of imprisonment hanging over his head. Getting to him would be the problem – he would almost certainly resist. Oddly enough, Ramius was almost looking forward to the challenge – almost.
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Some Minutes Later
Ramius stopped at a large tightly sealed metal hatch that appeared to lead into the station’s main laboratory and research facility. A small sign outside the door simply read, “Organic Maturation Lab #01”. Ramius noticed a small keycard reader and retrieved the dead scientist’s access badge.
Sliding the blood stained key card through the door’s security lock caused its flashing red light to go dark. The light turned green and with a sharp hiss of air the heavy containment door opened upwards revealing a darkened lab. The room was dimly illuminated by an eerie, blue tinged light as red alarm lights swept the room like a lighthouse beacon. Little did the team know the blue lights indicated the release of biohazardous materials.
The eager marines seemed hesitant to enter the unfamiliar and foreboding lab lined with unusual equipment, medical implements, and machinery. An odd stillness and quiet filled the room interrupted only by the occasional buzz of an overhead light or the mechanical sound of the station’s life support systems.
Pressing forward, with time against him, Ramius stepped inside weapon ready as the other marines followed his lead. As they entered the room took on a new and horrific identity as the men rounded a corner. Arcane medical equipment and stainless steel operating tables lines the room as did bubbling canisters of organic body parts, brains, and other organs Ramius couldn’t distinguish. The room was like something from a bad horror holo only with high production values and sickening realism.
Another door blocked Alpha team’s path, but once again the scientist’s access card provided entry. Tthis time the remaining half of the lab was far more disturbing. A narrow walkway ran the length of the room lined on either side by massive mechanical cylinders each filled with bubbling blue fluid. Strewn across the walkway’s path were the lifeless bodies of dozens of scientists and researchers who had met untimely ends as a result of someone or perhaps something. Bloody handprints smeared the glass walls of the mechanical cylinders and random spatters of blood dripped from surrounding equipment like a hellish Jackson Pollock painting. Every surface of the narrow hallway seemed to be covered with the fresh remnants of the once living.
“What the hell happened”, one of the marines unconsciously asked as they team strained to see the room from the narrow opening of the doorway.
Alpha Team’s commander was keen on keeping his men and their imagination’s in check. “It doesn’t matter”, he said sternly. “Keep moving and cut the chatter.”
The foul stench of death hung heavy in the air as the marines begrudgingly followed the major over the bodies of corpses as they pressed on toward the back of the large laboratory. Body bags filled corners like cord wood. The chilling sense of immediate danger was made more poignant by sparking wiring, unfamiliar and menacing mechanical noises, and flickering lights. A damaged fan squeaked noisily on an abandoned desk only adding to the thick tension.
Ramius, although sickened by what he saw, was the least impacted. He had come to expect this level of vileness from NeoDyne. As they progressed through the lab the true nature of NeoDyne’s horrific activities were now painfully clear to him. Ramius and his men cautiously moved forward toward the exit at the far end of the room as countless giant tubes of liquid mechanically fed by dozens of wires, hoses, and pipes surrounded them on either side. The tubes were empty – up to a point. What the team saw next caused the entire platoon to halt its advance to a crawl.
Like a house of horrors, the marines stepped through rows of clear cylinders containing the naked, suspended bodies of teenaged humanoids. Many appeared to be alive within the bubbling liquids in some form of stasis. Other tubes, their liquids cloudy and brown showcased death, the bodies they housed rife with decay and neglect.
The sight caused a few of marines to turn and vomit as the sight of such horrors. Human beings being used as experiments validated Captain Zane Akina’s report on what he had seen at the NeoDyne facility on the Astate colony. That facility had been obliterated by a massive atomic blast to remove all evidence of NeoDyne’s illicit activities and research. No doubt the explosion was meant to destroy experiments such as this.
“What, what is this sir”, Alpha Team’s commander asked Ramius as the team stopped surrounded by bodies of the living and dead.
Ramius’s lower lip quivered as he fought back a sharp pang of vast, intense rage welling up inside him. His grip tightened on his rifle to the point its hard plastic exterior began to crack under the intensity of the pressure. His limitless hatred for the company was again influencing his actions as tiny amounts of his own dark secrets leaked through his defenses and exerted themselves on the plastic of his rifle.
“This is what we are fighting against”, Ramius shouted waving his hand before him. “This is the silent legacy of the NeoDyne Corporation and all of its corrupt ambition here for you on display! Now you men can see with your own eyes the reason I placed the Corsair in harm’s way. See now the horrific results when humanity tempts fate and takes a hand at playing God!”
“What are they doing”, one of the marines asked. “What would cause anyone to do such a thing?”
Ramius glanced at the marine. “It’s an old story and one that dates back to beginning of humanity itself. This, what you see around you, is nothing more than means to an end. And that end is nothing more than the quest for power and dominion over all. NeoDyne thirsts for power at every turn, in every business deal, and as you can see for yourselves at any price or cost. Intelligence has been suspicious of their activities for years, but here is the proof! Now you can see what we fight for and what we must stop!”
“Sir, we have to report this to Starfleet!”
Ramius smiled despite the horrors surrounding him. “Rest assured we will. However, I want NeoDyne’s head on a platter. Dr. Ballentine is beyond those doors somewhere. If we can get to him we can bring justice to the souls living and dead who have suffered as a result of this company’s quest for power.”
“What are we waiting for then Captain”, Alpha Team’s commander asked gripping his rifle. “Let’s go find this Dr. Ballentine so I can personally shove my rifle up that bastard’s ass!”
The marines agreed with their commander’s sentiment wanting some payback both for the Corsair and to avenge the gross misuse of science and dark knowledge that now surrounded them. That sentiment continued until it was rapidly interrupted by the sound of shattering glass somewhere nearby. An alarm suddenly rang out as a female computer voice filled the room; an electronic harbinger of events to come.
“WARNING – BIOHAZARD CONTAINMENT FAILURE. INITIATING LEVEL ONE CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL. ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.”
Ramius quickly spun and glanced at the door at the far end of the room. “RUN”, he shouted as he took off in a dash toward the door at the end of the dark room. Alarms filled his ears as his heart beat loudly in his chest as he ran his boots clanking loudly against the black metal deck plates of the floor. The marines, unaccustomed to running from battle, were not going to argue with their superior given the unusual and frightful circumstances. Dashing after the captain they sprinted toward the door.
Arriving first, Ramius quickly produced the key card and slid it through the reader only to find the light remained red. He slid the card again with the same result. More breaking glass and the hiss of mechanical equipment could be heard in the room and more alarms added to the sense or urgency and chaos. Ramius again slid the card only to again be denied. They were locked in. The computer had quarantined the lab trapping its occupants with whatever terror had escaped its confinement.
“FAN OUT”, Ramius ordered. “Setup a defensive perimeter!” The marines, using the inset door arch for cover and defense, formed a semi circle allowing a 180 degree field from which to engage any hostile force. Ramius and Alpha Team’s commander took up positions behind the perimeter near the door as more glass shattered in the darkness of the lab which now pulsed with unholy, reddish light.
A single voice cut through the noise as one marine suddenly shouted amid the chaos. “TARGET – TWELVE OCLOCK!”
All weapons faced forward back as a single, moving body emerged from behind the equipment that defined the long, narrow walkway.
“Oh my God”, escaped the lips of one marine as his eyes opened wide in horror and disbelief at what he now saw staring back.
[ To Be Continued … ]
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Captain Taverain Ramius
Commanding Officer, USS Corsair
Various NPCs
(APB Tav)
