U.S.S. Corsair - NX-011979
Nebula II Prototype
“Sic Parvis Magna”
(Greatness From Small Beginnings)
“The Key To Hell’s Gates – Part XII”
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Through a haze of dust the NeoDyne scientist slowly turned to look at the captain screaming at him from afar. He persisted against Ramius’s impassioned pleas. Without warning a force grabbed him from behind as the doctor in a mere instant was pulled back into the opaque cloud behind him. A gut wrenching cry filled the cavern shortly thereafter bringing with it nervous anxiety to all who had heard the chilling, sobering shriek.
“Captain”, one of the marines suddenly said.
“BE QUIET”, Ramius snapped his blue eyes aflame with anger. Tav was carefully weighing his options. It was clear they had not dispatched NeoDyne’s experiment as he had hoped. If the combined firepower of his marines was unable to stop the Doctor’s genetic abomination their fates would soon shift to a path where few if any of them would survive. Unless…
Ramius took several deep breaths. He was at a crossroads with two unpalatable options. He could either attempt to destroy the beast conventionally which would undoubtedly cost many men if not end in ruin for them all or he could attempt to take on the experiment himself. Fighting the experiment would force him to expose his dark secrets in front of dozens of people. He was fearful that once he opened his pandora’s box in front of so many he would be unable to keep quiet the specters he would undoubtedly release. For his entire life he had closely guarded the secret of his abilities fearing the reactions of the public or rather what some might attempt to do with him to further their own agendas.
He had only seconds to make a decision. The ear splitting screams of the scientist somewhere before him was proof enough they had been unsuccessful in stopping Ballentine’s monster. Ramius looked at the faces of his men spread out around the edges of the underground cavern. Their eyes made the decision for him. They had risked their lives to pursue NeoDyne this far and to get Ramius closer to his life long dreams of stopping the men who had forever altered his destiny and ruined the ones of so many. He had to answer their courage and bravery by doing everything he could to protect their lives even at the expense of his own.
Checking the power cell in his rifle, Ramius discarded his restrictive uniform top leaving him clad in only his thin red undershirt. Pulling his belt of photon grenades back across his chest, he tightened the belt and borrowed a nearby Marine’s K-Bar knife which he strapped to his chest. The madness ended here. He had to end it here, once and for all.
Stepping out from behind cover, Ramius gripped the trigger of his rifle as his footsteps slowly, methodically propelled him toward the center of the cavern.
“CAPTAIN RAMIUS”, a voice shouted out its syllables soaked in concern. Ramius made no attempt to acknowledge them. He hadn’t heard them. His mind was focused with the entensity of a laser on the task before him. He had to prevail. The cost of failure was too immeasurable to possibly calculate.
The shouts behind him grew in fervor and intensity as he carefully laid one boot quietly in front of the last as he drew closer to the wreckage at the center of the room. He slowly inhaled and exhaled with the same practised movement. The noise around him vanished replaced only by the steady rythmic beat of his own heart.
“RAMIUS GET AWAY FROM THERE”, Major Britane shouted from his position. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”
One of the nearby marines grabbed the major and pulled him back as the man’s concern seemed tantamount to insubordination. Britane resisted his men’s actions, but eventually relented. He had known the captain long enough to experience his unorthadox behavior which time and again beat the odds no matter how dire. Cavalier and reckless were words most would associate with the captain, but Britane had nothing but respect for the captain. He could never hope to understand the man, but his bravery and loyalty to the fleet and to those under his command were beyond question.
“STANDBY TO COVER THE CAPTAIN”, Britane yelled at the marines. His words had barely left his mouth when a deafening roar resounded from the center of the chamber. Seconds later a large metallic cargo container sailed through the air toward Ramius as everyone sucked in an anxious breath as time seemed to slow to a standstill with seconds ticking by at the pace of minutes.
Britane filled his lungs with air in preparation to yell additional commands at his men. The marines fingers tightened on their weapon’s triggers. Whiteclad NeoDyne scientists closed their eyes in preparation for the worst. A sadistic laugh from Dr. Ballentine spewed forth from the cavern’s loudspeakers. Ramius…Ramius stood motionless like a fine marble statue unmoving and unflinching at the danger that was only a milisecond away.
In the blink of an eye the cargo crate slammed into the obsidian floor in a shower of sparks as its doors flew open spewing medical supplies in all directions. The wreckage tumbled several times before coming to a violent stop against a rocky stalagmite protruding from the cavern floor. All eyes shifted from the container back to the captain’s position a split second later only to find no evidence of his presense.
Britane’s orders finally left his lips after what seemed like an eternity as the elasticity of time snapped back to its normal pace. His own eyes scanned the room searching for the captain’s wherabouts only to find him sprinting in a blur. Britane’s jaw dropped as the major struggled to grasp what he was witnessing. The impossible was playing out before him.
The captain had not only dodged the container but covered the distance to the center of the room before it had even hit the ground. No man was that fast. It simply wasn’t possible and yet…
Ramius fired his rifle at his mirror self which had emerged from the dust at the center of the room like a demon from the bowels of hell. There was no doubt left. Ballentine had forged the forbidden key, inserted it into the demonic lock, and broken the seal seperating life from the hellish fires of destruction. A black wind filled the cavern as everyone came to realize the meance they thought they had dispatched was not dead as they believed.
Ramius’s twin easily dodged the phaser beam moving at speeds no normal humanoid could even dream of executing. Only the Q perhaps were capable of performing faster feats of movement given their omnipotence. Realizing the rifle was now useless as he had feared, Ramius discarded it much to the marine’s horror. Pulling his knife from its sheath at his chest, Ramius concentrated his dark emotions in the pit of his stomach like a lens harnessing the sun’s energy and concentrating its effects. Anger, hatred, and pain coalesced into a malestrom of negative energy which grew within him with the fury of a tempest. Like uranium under extreme pressure and heat the negative furies within the captain suddenly imploded. From that chaotic reaction the explosive forces of alien phsiology were unleashed throughout Ramius’s bloodstream with the same force and power of a thermonuclear explosion. Gone was the cold steel blue of the captain’s eyes replaced by a pulasting crimson fury which knew no limits. With his humanity in retreat, Ramius had unleashed the full potential of the darkness within him granting him abilities no mortal could obtain at the high cost of logical thought. One purpose now drove him and that was to mercilessly destroy his enemy. Nothing else mattered.
Knife in hand, Ramius charged his doppleganger as the two moved in a high speed dance that the human eye was only just able to keep pace with.
“HOLD YOUR FIRE”, Britane shouted from his posiiton as Ramius and the experiment dashed about at the center of the cavern. “WE MIGHT HIT THE CAPTAIN!”
A seasoned marine veteran of two wars, Britane couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing let alone explain it. The captain was far more than he had ever guessed and this knowledge was both reassuring given the threat and terrifying at the same time. Such ability would no dount be of interest to Starfleet Command, yet the major knew that Ramius was attempting to prevent such knowledge from ever becoming public. So many things suddenly made sense to the major. Ramius was so invested in their mission not because of his dedication to duty, but because he himself was somehow one of the doctor’s experiments. The theory made sense, but was that assessment correct? He hoped he would have the chance to ask Ramius some day.
Ramius stabbed at his enemy as the two faced off. His double was fast. Faster than he had imagined, perhaps faster than himself. Ballentine had had nearly thirty years to perfect his work since injecting Ramius and his brother Aiden with alien DNA. Ramius was indeed the older model facing off against the lastest brainchild of Artimis Ballintine. The differences became clear when a hand he didn’t see caught him by the throat lifting him into the air like a ragdoll. Seconds later his body sailed through the air, but landed on the ground with the grace of a cat, coiled like a spring using his body weight and momentum to propel himself forward with explosive force.
Bodies collided in mid air like two rockets intercepting each other in mid flight. There was no explosion, but Ramius managed to ram the blade of his knife deep into the torso of his double illicting a satsifying roar of pain. Seperating, Ramius regained his footing back on the floor as his opposite slowly stood, but where Ramius expected trama, he found only a smile. His double pulled the bloody knife from his chest and flung it away into the dark depths of the cavern. Ramius was horrified as his attack seemingly had little effect and had cost him his last remaining weapon.
With a devlish smile still on his lips Ramius’s evil double charged him as the two engaged in hand to hand combat. Ramius was purely on the defensive unable to keep up with the raw speed of the doctor’s demon as it pressed home its attack. After several moments the two stopped fighting as their hands and arms locked together in a battle of strength. Ramius’s face was only inched from his opponent’s and their red eyes locked together in a bond of mutual hatred, loathing, and contempt. Taverain’s tiny conscious, supressed by the alien DNA activated around it, looked beyond the hatred in the enemy’s eyes and what it saw was far more terrifying than the beast itself. Taverain could see nothing there. No soul. No thought. The red eyes were devoid of all traces of humanity. Only the cold, burning fire of contempt and hatred were present. This person was no person at all. It was an empty shell simply carrying out it programming like a computer.
Locked together in a contest of strength, Ramius felt his own waivering. Maintaining this level of performance would become harder until the stress on his body killed him or this monster did the same. Suddenly the contest ended in stalemate, but not before the enemy landed a powerful blow to Ramius’s chest which registered in the air with a loud snap sending the captain backwards to the floor.
Gasping for breath, Ramius winced at the rib that had broken in this high stakes fight to the death. Pulling himself upwards to his knees his suddenly coughed spitting out a mouthful of blood. Undeterred, Ramius wiped his mouth and again stood only to be checked by his double and driven into a nearby generator. The machine whined in protest as its metallic cover buckled as Ramius’s body was pounded into its exterior. Wires suppliying power to the lights above snapped from their housing falling to the floor as did Ramius who seemed unable to keep pace with Ballentine’s latest acheivement. Perhaps the doctor was right. Perhaps even with his abilities, Ramius was obsolete. Even if that was true he couldn’t let it win. Ballentine couldn’t be allowed to escape. If he was going to die, then he would at least take this thing with him back to hell.
Laying on the smooth surface of the floor the monster, seemingly incapable of complex thought or speech, simply roared at its recent accomplishment. Seeing the twitching electrical cables on the floor before him, Ramius used his failing strength to rapidly grab them and touched their electified ends to his double’s feet creating a circuit.
A cry of pain erupted from the beast as electrical energy surged through him burning his flesh. After several moments it toppled over next to Taverain and uttered its final breath. Ramius’s head hit the ground as he sucked in a painful breath. His abilities were short lived and even now after such a brief time he had already pushed his body far beyond what nature had ever intended. The consequences were evident as he coughed up more blood willing himself back to his feet by the sheer force of his will. Clutching his chest which burned with an unquenchable fire, Ramius slowly limped back toward his men broken, but still alive.
He passed the center of the room thankful to still be alive after the horrific ordeal, but his thanks was short lived as a marines shouted from nearby in warning. Ramius only just turned as the genetically modified human slammed into him like a train at full steam ramming him into the side of a steel cargo container. His arm snapped under the stress as the metal of the container tore brutally into his back. Seconds later his double lifted the broken body of the captain into the air by his uniform as blood ran from multiple wounds quietly tapping on the ground pooling beneath him.
Ramius had finally been bested. For the first time someone had beaten him in a contest of skill and physical might. In a funny sort of way it felt good to lose. The top was a lonely place and for an instant, Ramius felt normal for the first time in his life. Unable to continue to fight Ramius know knew he could not defeat Ballentine’s creation alone. It was simply too powerful as the doctor had perfected the techniques that had given Ramius himself his abilities. With thirty years of experiements to show for it, Ramius could not contest the result. Turning toward Major Britane, Ramius sielntly mouthed a parting command. It would probably be his last.
With every pore of his body screaming in pain, Ramius willing his muscles to react one final time. Firmly held in the monster’s grasp, Ramius gripped the material of his shirt and pulled with the last vestiges of his strength as the material tore. Gravity did the rest as Ramius fell to the deck leaving the experiment alone and exposed to a room of agitated and blood thisty marines who upon the orders of Major Britane opened fire.
Phaser beams from over a dozen rifles and hand phasers sliced the air impacting the humanoid male in a deadly crossfire. It roared in pain, but the beams alone only stunned it. Somehow the experiment was regenerating its damages in an accelerated process that phasers were unable to overcome. The marines, undaunted, continued to pour on the fire as the experiment slowly began to succumb to the power and fury of the concentrated beams.
Ramius, pulled himself upright into a sitting position beneath the beast as the marines opened fire. Their beams were slicing through the demon, but like the Borg, this hellish phantasm was healing the damage faster than the marines could inflict it. Fighting the waves of sleepiness that tugged at his eyes, Ramius knew that if he fell asleep he would never again wake up. His struggled to right himself slipping in his own blood until his fingers made contact with something long. They tightened around its surface and despite the horrific pain coursing through him he pulled the object into his lap. His phaser rifle.
His arm broken and of little use, he had neither the capacity nor the strength to aim it. However, perhaps he could put it to another use. His fingers quickly found the controls and within a second had set the weapon to maximum while sealing its ability to discharge. The result was an overload of the weapon’s power cell. With the rifle beginning a slow whine which accelerated every few moments increasing its pitch, Ramius used the very last of his strength and stood. The experiment, under fire by the marines, was slow to react, but Ramius was already in motion. Using every ounce of ability left in him, the captain drove the tip of the weapon into the torso of the beast impaling it.
“GO BACK TO HELL”, Ramius shouted at the beast as he twisted the rifle into its flesh as far as he was able.
Turning, the marines continued their attack as Ramius threw himself as far as his legs were able.
The creature attempted to pull the weapon buried within itself as the high pitched whine reached its maximum amplitude. In a blinding flash the rifle overloaded in a violent explosion which vaporized the genetically altered menance scattering atoms and more in all directions ending its threat.
Ramius felt the shockwave pass over him and then heard nothing but quiet silence. Victory had been acheived. He wondered if Akina could somehow pick up where he had left off. Then man was resourceful. He had nearly destroyed NeoDyne once. Perhaps he could do so again. Such thoughts lost their cohesion as pain and loss of blood sapped the captain of consciousness. Ramius tried to remain lucid, but as darkness closed in all he could make out were the sounds of footsteps and the blurred images of black boots. He hoped he would be judged for what he was trying to achieve and not the ends he had undertaken to meet those goals. Someone else would take up the torch. NeoDyne would answer for its crimes, but another would be its slayer as it seemed that he himself would soon become the company’s lastest victim.
With that painful thought darkness closed in on the captain and all went silent.
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Captain Taverain Ramius
Commanding Officer, USS Corsair
Major R. Britane
Marine Commander
Dr. Artimis Ballentine
Neodyne Research Scientist
