24150226: Cwm Sizb Personal log: Interlude: A date with a book

Posted on Thu Feb 26th, 2015 @ 11:42pm by Ensign Sizb
Edited on on Fri Feb 27th, 2015 @ 7:05pm

1,416 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Shakedown: Taking Flight
Location: Crew Quarters
Timeline: SD 241502.26
Tags: #Sizb, #shakedown, #parasites, #horror

I'm terrified.

If Sawar had been here he would have told her that her fear was illogical.

He would tell her to move past the fear by focusing on the mission, to break the task up in her mind into smaller, easily-managed pieces,

to be accomplished one at a time. Cthia is reality. Cthia is logic. Cthia is truth. Fear is the little death that brings total

oblivion. Your mind affects and creates your reality. Let go of your fear, let it move past you and beyond you, until all that is left in

your mind is total clarity, and then impose that clarity on the gross reality around you. Make the world yours.

Except Sawar--her friend, her mentor, her t'hy'la--was dead

(at your own hands except it wasn't really Sawar not anymore was it or are you merely insane which is it Kara)

and the truth was that she was terrified, almost giddy with it. Her mouth was dry, her hands were clammy with sweat, cold with a chill

that wasn't merely physical. If one's mind made one's reality, then hers was a snakepit that had turned her world into a funhouse

mirror-maze reflection of itself in the most literal sense of the term. She barked an involuntary laugh, deafening in the cold air of the

lift, and found herself marveling at the edge of utter madness she heard in it.

Small tasks. Check your phaser. She did so, 77% power. Her grenades. Her skin itched around the hypo injection site. She should be

resistant to them, for at least a short while longer, but she had two more hyposprays prepared, just in case. And one other, strapped to

her thigh and containing not the antigen, but a solution of neocurare, anesthezine liquid and enough potassium chloride to stop a mugato's

heart, keyed to a simple voice command.

Her way out, if it came to that. One word, and she would be gone. She would not allow herself to become like...like...No. She

terminated the line of thought. No. Not now.

The chill air of the lift

(we love the cold so down here we need the cold your world your flesh is so hot and dry and we bring to it such loving welcome chill)

burned her skin, and her breath plumed. 21 levels left. 20. The reek of decaying flesh grew stronger, and beneath it all that sweet

smell, like artificial strawberries combined with old, old lillies in a funeral home, cloying. It wasn't just olfactory,

(we want inside we need inside Kara why won't you let us in so dark down here so dry)

it was the psychic manifestation of their power. She swallowed, her throat clicking.

19 levels left. She checked grenades. Three to throw and one to hold if it came to that. 18. 17. She heard something skittering

across the top of the lift, the sound like old, dry leaves. 16. The miasma grew even stronger, thick enough to cut with a blade. 15. The

scratchy, rustling sound became louder, she heard faint chirping outside. 10.

Five. The lights in the lift flickered, died. The lift lurched for a moment and then continued downward.

She switched on the rifle's spotlight, checked the tricorder. They were all over the outside of the lift. Some of them were crunching in

the lift's tracks, being swiftly replaced by more as they died. There were hundreds of kilos of them now, on top of the lift. The lift

ceiling creaked beneath the weight.

(come to us kara time you became one of us we became you all we want is peaceful coexistence and we will be you and you will be us all

will be together as one forever and ever amen)

Two. One.

The lift door opened, and she stepped out on trembling legs into Hell, one of flesh and blood and bone.

The chamber...it had been hollowed out, expanded, widened, sheets of twitching greyish flesh covering the metal, and her eyes could just

see movement on top of it everywhere. Sheets of the tiny creatures hung from it, millions of them squirming and moving, tiny shiny

stalked compound eyes all swiveling to look at her as one. And in the middle of the chamber...

The face was recognizable. It was the only thing that was.

"Ad--" she swallowed. Her voice was tiny. "A-admiral?"

From the neck up, it was Admiral Remitz, her face swollen, smeared with blood and ichor and mottled bruisy-black and purple, but from the

neck down she had bloated into a great pus-grey sack, large enough to contain a shuttlecraft, and everywhere, everywhere, it pulsed and

moved as the things squirmed and moved just beneath the skin. Openings were everywhere in her skin, randomly, irising open and closed as

she watched--more of the wriggling, insectile things trundled in and out, more kinds than she had seen previously carrying eggs and larvae

and tiny bits of metal and food. Farther back in the chamber, she could just see more shapes like Remitz, hidden in the dark.

Remitz's eyes opened, and she raised her head. Her mouth moved, her voice a whisper, barely audible in the chamber. She didn't need to

hear it with her ears, since she could also sense it echoing in her mind, the chittering voices just behind and beneath it.

"There's...there's something wrong with me...inside of me.." she said, louder this time, her voice slurred. "S-s-

omething...something...hear them. I can hear them, can you?" She coughed and spat ichor. "Can you?" she repeated. The admiral--the

thing she had become--giggled.

"Tickles," she said, and giggled again, and somehow that tiny sound, so out of place in the abbatoir Starbase Ops had become, was the most

terrifying sound the lieutenant had ever heard. "It's saying...all we wish is peaceful coexistence. Peaceful..." Her voice rose.

And with that, the tiny scuttling things on the walls began to drop off, swarming toward her in a single mass. 'PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE!"

screamed Remitz over and over in a broken, bubbling wail. "PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE!"

***

Sizb nearly jumped out of his scales as the commbadge chirped.

*Oh Holy Eggmother shed Your grace on me. Okay, you know what? I think it's high time for a break. Right here. Really good place.*

Sizb marked his place in Savaj's "Swarm," put down the PADD, and tapped the commbadge. "This is Crewman Sizb. Go ahead," the Gorn said.

And his jaw dropped when he recognized the nasal, irritating yet officious voice on the other end. Oh joy. it's one of THEM.

"This is the EMH in sickbay. So at what point were you planning to come in for your baseline checkup?" he said.

Sizb found himself bristling slightly at the EMH's brusque, sarcastic tone, and forced it down. He'd had dealings with them before--at

least this particular mark, if he remembered correctly, and none of them had ever been pleasant. "I was under the impression that I had a

week to schedule an appointment," he said. "By regulations, since this is my first full day, I'm well under the wire."

"Regulations shmegulations," snapped the EMH. "Since they've made the oh-so-well-advised decision to activate me needlessly daily for a

complete duty shift, and the most boring and empty shift at that, I have little choice except to create my own makework. To this end, I

have been putting together a schedule of new crew, specifically those who have yet to undergo baseline physicals and examinations. You're

lucky contestant number one. I'll expect you tonight at [2230 Hours--is this the proper time for gamma?] on the spot so we can get this

thing out of the way. That way, I'm rid of you and you of me. Both of us are happy." The channel cut out.

Sizb growled under his breath. He started to pick up the PADD again, but thought better of it. He put it back down on the dresser.

*No. Just...no. Not right now. It's one of the best novels I've read in recent years, and frankly, it's Savaj's best work since "From

the Shadows." But..no. just not now. Later. The EMH is annoying, but the call really couldn't have come at a better time, this was a

good place to come up for some air.* His hide itched slightly, and he rubbed at it absently. Time for a walk. Explore the ship a bit.


He left his quarters, trying to ignore the itching of the back of his neck.

Crewman Recruit Sizb
Security Specialist
USS Endeavour

 

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