STF

MPT-"Six Hours From Evil"- the other Leviathan

Posted Nov. 17, 2020, 2:50 p.m. by Lieutenant William Hampton (Chief Engineering Officer) (Samuel Stroud)

Posted by Crewman Jonathan Durheim (Engineer) in MPT-“Six Hours From Evil”- the other Leviathan

Posted by Lieutenant Casela Synthi-er (Counsellor / RTF) in MPT-“Six Hours From Evil”- the other Leviathan

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Surda (Chief of Security / RTF) in MPT-“Six Hours From Evil”- the other Leviathan
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻
(snip)
Bodies were strewn about the hallway. Several had phaser blasts in their chests, some appeared to be physically ripped apart, others were horribly disfigured. “You need a robot to tell the cause of death? Are you stupid?” Hampton said, standing before the team. The intermittent red lights illuminating his appearance for brief seconds. He smiled at the counselor. “Very Well.”

She didn’t even grace that with a response. He wanted a rise out of her, and she wasn’t going to give it to him. No she didn’t need him to tell her, she wanted it recorded so they knew the extent of what he was willing to do and could analyze the information later.

Surda frowned, but didn’t shift at all. She would give this strange, twisted creature no indication of fear.

Durheim was silent; mentally integrating Hampton’s sudden appearance with the events of the past day. Was this truly the Leviathan’s Chief engineer, or an anomaly in disguise? Hampton had been killed earlier that day - but no, that wasn’t quite true.... He had been struck by a bolt of energy emitted from an anomaly and his corporeal form… vanished, for lack of a better word.... And there had been a lot of temporal energy surrounding it - curious.

Suddenly all the final memories of the bodies before them rushed into Synthi-er’s mind. She could hear their screams, feel their pain, it felt as if her own body were being torn in half, and the memories kept repeating, so did the pain. She saw the three security members before her, and their deaths. They had tried to stop Hampton, but he had forced one the officers to shoot her comrades at point blank range with the phaser set to kill, before making her shoot herself. Her sadness at killing her comrades, followed by the fear of killing herself flooded the counselor’s mind, as did the sensations of being shot with a phaser being set on kill. It repeated over and over and over.

Casela knew pain, she’d lived it, over and over. This was different. She fell to a knee in the middle of the corridor, teeth grinding together. She may have screamed, but she never gave in or begged Mad Man, and she wouldn’t do it for Hampton. She held out a hand for Fenrir and pushed herself to standing, briefly, before she collapsed again to the floor. Her skin felt like it was melting off her bones, at the same time she could feel the muscles and tendons ripping apart across her body, her limbs refusing to work as they were ripped from her. The air, hot and boiling from the phaser blast, burning the air in her lungs, and there were no breaths left for her to take. Her instinct was to lash out, telepathically, to kill whoever was hurting her, the way she’d killed the Jem’hadar. But there were her crew here, and it would kill them too. She would. not. scream. She bit her lip so hard she began to bleed.

Hampton watched the Counselor’s reaction with a twisted grin, before turning to the rest of the team. “If you three have any common sense you’ll leave her where she is, it’s not going to get much better for her.” Hampton felt it again, the feeling of pleasure he first experienced on Einstein, and then again on his Leviathan, watching people he knew deserved to feel pain suffer.

Mr. Hampton
Lt Synthi-er, CNS (Hampton’s Voodoo Doll)

She spoke to Ryder, although she didn’t turn away from the crazed man in front of her. “She knows your mind. Give her something else to focus on.” Her voice was deceptively steady. She observed Hampton, latched into some strange version of a staring contest with him. “What does she need to be punished for?” Surda had to keep Hampton’s attention. Pique his curiosity and appeal to his pride. He had gone to all the trouble of making a show for them, surely he wanted to tell them about his work. “You want her in pain. What did she do?” Surda didn’t snap at him. She didn’t seem angry. She almost sounded apathetic, like she had no actual personal investment in the answer. That was all a lie of course, but she had long ago mastered her voice.
-Surda, CoS

“Hullo Mr. Hampton; I hope you are doing well today!” Durheim’s tone was bright and friendly; a disquieting contrast from everything that was happening. He wasn’t entirely sure what was happening; but small details were starting to make sense. Whispered conversations; half-spoken rumors. It would certainly appear that Mr. Hampton here was the cause of the bloody scene on this ship; Durheim knew him to be an angry man - it would seem there were some scores to settle. The question remained of how this was done; ‘clever transporter use’ wouldn’t quite explain it. Perhaps politeness could give them time to get more answers - if nothing else; it was earnest. Jonathan was a stickler for manners.

Raauhl had already gone to Casela, crouching next to her and speaking softly into her ear. Intimate things, professional things and anything that would pull her out from the nightmare she was dealing with. He held her, “Casela, focus on my voice” He repeated over and over, scared for her more than himself. He was beginning to doubt his decision to come here.

Hampton smiled at the security chief. Surda realized her voice was now gone. She could open her mouth, but anytime she tried to talk, she would not make a sound. “Shut up, and go find a poll on Rigel V to swing on with the rest of your friends Orion.” He smirked. “You think you are some sort of expert or capable officer? You are nothing but a pathetic bug. I do not have to explain myself to you.” He paused for a moment, “It’s a shame your captain has condemned the four of you to death.” With a chuckle he was no longer standing before them, but his laughter echoed throughout the ship. After a few moments, Synthi-er’s mind was cleared of the memories and sensations, but Surda’s voice was still gone.

Mr. Hampton

Surda flicked her fingers irritably. That was a setback. Casela could still read her mind of course, but she highly doubted that anyone on the away team would have any hope of talking with her now. She flicked her fingers again. Silence was for spies and traitors, and she was operating as neither at the moment.
-Surda, CoS

The pain receded replaced with an overwhelming sense of joy and sadistic pleasure. Casela had seen it in others, she had even vaguely felt it through her empathy, but not like this. And it was a feeling beyond her ability to comprehend. Casela had done dark and awful things in her time, but she’d never taken pleasure in it and the if not for her iron will she would have vomited over the corridor floor. That feeling, of sadistic pleasure was more painful to her than the dyeing memories of those around her. She clamped that down and refused to give it the chance to form in her mind. She breathed deeply of the cool air gasping as if she hadn’t actually been breathing for the last, however long it had been, and then looked around, finding Ryder next to her. She’d felt him approach, such as was the strength Hampton now wielded, though she’d vaguely from very far away heard his voice. Through deep breaths she shook her head at him. Her voice strained like she’d been breathing through smoke and her lungs and throat were burned raw. “Crew first, not me.” They’d talked about this, about having to make hard choices when the time came. And honestly she needed to be the hard-ass everyone thought of her. It was the only way to move past what Hampton had forced her to live through. She tried to raise her voice for the others to hear. “Don’t…don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing this bothers you. He craves it, he finds intense pleasure in it. He wants to torture us, and he’s going to.”

At that same moment, the XO would find his commbadge chirping for attention and the anxious voice of the captain bursting forth.
=^= Commander Raauhl. Report in! =^=
Clearly the situation on the Prime Leviathan was not as relaxed as they might have hoped…

  • Captain Zachariah Cobb

Relived that Casela was coming back around and Hampton had gone despite leaving his laugh he was delighted when Cobbs voice broke the silence. =^=We are currently making our way to the bridge, our transport had been intercepted and we found ourselves in what I can only describe as a satanic ritualistic decorated room. We’ve just had an encounter with Mr. Hampton who seemingly attacked Lt Synthi-er on a physiological level, she seems stable and we’re going to continue for now=^=

  • Lieutenant Cmdr Raauhl

Satanic? Hmmm, perhaps from a descriptive or metaphorical perspective.... I do not believe that Mr. Hampton (or the anomaly masquerading as him) is a worshiper of the Judea-Christian devil… Again, Durheim left those thoughts unspoken - nothing but conflict would be gained. Instead he approached the freshly-mute Orion Security Chief. Rooting quickly through his bag; he produced a small fob with several switches and buttons, offering it to her. “Miss Surda; I call this a ‘tone box’ - it’s synced to our comms, and can produce a variety of clicks, beeps, and tones. It can provide more variety, and thus convey more information than a finger snap or clap. And there’s a lanyard, as well; so as not to get lost. And if you’ll give me a moment, I believe I have a spare PaDD in here as well…” Digging through his bag once more, he produced a small, battered PaDD, along with a friendly smile. “Messages can also be typed; though it’s a bit slower.”

Crewman Durheim; helpful and polite! [and not at all disturb(ed/ing)]
(OOC: small edits that will bug me if I don’t fix them)

Surda nodded, fixing a small smile on her face as she took the devices. She signed “thank you.” absently, then realized he wouldn’t know what it meant. Orion had many dialects, including a nonverbal one, but she was certain it was not something Starfleet officers would have learned.

“I’m not going to the command center.” She came out harsh and probably disrespectful. She was processing quickly and still dealing with the after images of Hampton’s little party trick. “Commander I recommend we go straight to deck 13 containment . The whole point of going to the command center was to intercept Hampton. It’s too late for that now. We need to know what this crew did wrong with the anomaly so our Leviathan doesn’t repeat that mistake. And honestly, look around you, he doesn’t need to be in the CIC to do whatever it is he has planned.” She wouldn’t put the thought out there but she had no problem feeling her own death, but there were people in the CIC she did not want to feel die. And Hampton could probably move her there himself, or make her feel it anyway. But she wasn’t going to just waltz in there like some puppet. She would not play his game.

She pushed herself to her feet calling Fenrir to walk with her. If Hampton decided to come after her again Fenrir would catch her. She walked over to Surda and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t let him get to you. We’ll manage just fine.”
Lt. Synthi-er, not broken, yet…

Surda smiled at Casela and placed her own hand on Casela’s, tapping twice in agreement. She turned back to the PADD, typing quickly. “I agree the containment deck is far more important now that we know the full extent of Hamptons abilities” She skipped punctuation in favor of speed. Surda handed it directly to Ryder to read, sighing lightly. This was going to be very tedious.
-Surda, CoS

“I can’t argue with that logic, how soon can we get there?” He looked up and down the corridors and back to the group, “I’m beggening to feel like a mouse in a Maze and think it would be wise to leave here as soon as possible and in one piece.” Raauhl didn’t doubt thier ability to handle the situation but thus far thus situation was the most grim they had faced, as if someone took it straight from a nightmare.

  • Lieutenant Cmdr Raauhl, XO

Casela looked around, “We’re on deck 8. We can take the turbolift down there” she pointed, “or there is a jeffries tube hatch here” she pointed a few feet behind her. “Five decks, shouldn’t be hard to get to either way. Both have the potential for getting us trapped, I don’t think it matters one way or the other, we just need to get there. Turbolift would be slighly faster and we’re against his clock.” =^=Synthi-er to Cobb. What’s are time at?=^= It would be just their luck that Hampton had done something to alter the amount of time they had. “What do you think Surda?” It would be easy enough for Surda to point to either option without having to get frustrated explaining. But they needed to move.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS/RTF

Silence as Cobb attempted to calculate their current countdown position. Then finally the reply came on stunned and trembling voice: =^= Three hours to go. =^=

Casela didn’t even pause. =^= Acknowledged Captain.=^=

Surda gestured to the jeffries tube. The turbolift could be disabled easily, and they couldn’t afford to be trapped inside.
-Surda, CoS

“I am not sure that either route is exactly safe… but I agree with Miss Surda. Someone with ill intent could theoretically accelerate a turbolift enough to liquefy its… contents, shall we say. That is not to say that Jeffries tubes are without risk; but they are less susceptible to vengeful engineers.” Durheim failed to point out that it was likely that they only lived on Hampton’s whim; after all, morale was still important!

Crewman Durheim, Engineer

Casela started pushing the team faster. “We had 5 and half when we beamed over. He’s stolen time from us. Move!” She didn’t yell but her voice was forceful. She was sure Surda probably felt the same way and since she didn’t have her voice…”Don’t stop. If something happens to one of us keep going. We need an answer.” She swore in several languages, cursing the ARU, RTF, Hampton, this Orb thing, and anyone else she could think of.

Surda laughed, silently as it was. Casela was apparently ordering people around for the both of them, but she was grateful for it. If she could, she’d be issuing the same commands.

Casela nodded, walked over to the panel and popped it off. “Alright let’s get going. We’re on a timer. Who knows how long he’s kept us here. Surda, after you.” Casela stepped back and waited for everyone to file in. She climbed in after them and replaced the panel. Hampton knew where they were, but there was no point in being careless. Moving as swiftly as the tights space would allow they moved down the ladders. She sent Fenrir in front of her. If Hampton decided to attack she’d fall on him instead of the rest of the away team.
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS/RTF

  • Captain Zachariah Cobb
    Lt Synthi-er, RTF

Surda moved down quickly, glad she had taken the time to study the layout of the tubes. It should only take around 15 minutes to get to the command center through the tubes. It would take more, but she was the chief of security, not the chief of safety. She was taking the most direct route.
-Surda, CoS

It only took a few minutes at a steady pace for the hatch to deck 13 to appear. Casela, familiar with this layout from when Dave escaped moved to the hatch opening it with sure hands, “Fenrir” she sent him through and then followed behind, the gun they used to neutralize Dave in hand, just in case. But The anomalies were gone as the scans had shown and she put the gun away. She moved out of the way for the rest of the team. Spotting the area where the crew had been working to contain the temporal anomaly, she moved towards it trying to get an idea of what was going on. “Durhiem you were working here before we headed over, can you tell what they did? What happened here?”
Lt. Synthi-er, RTF

Stepping through the hatch for Deck 13, Durheim moved out of the way and paused, taking a brief moment to confirm his bearings and take in the view; before following Casela over to the anomaly in question. “I have some ideas, Miss Synthi-er. It could be as simple as accessing the cameras placed around the deck; but we can try to tap into the more specific sensors and see what they have to offer as well.”

the containement field which had kept the orb had been completely shattered, the orb in split open, as if it had been an egg and something had hatched. The Durhiem’s body lay close by, his limbs missing, blood still draining from his torso. Bog lay a few more feet away, his body looked fractured. A medical scan would show that every single bone in his body had been snapped in half, and his ribcage had been shoved into his lungs.

Storyteller S

As Durheim approached the remains of the orb and containment system, it was obvious when he spied the remains of the two engineers. He immediately sped up, not quite jogging over towards the bloody remains. As he neared the terribly familiar-looking corpse, others could see Jonathan’s posture visibly sag; his pace slowed and he knelt over the corpse; his hands gently probing the empty sockets where his distinctive mechanical limbs should have been, muttering indistinctly. He didn’t seem to notice the spreading pool of blood that soaked into his trousers.

“Oh of all the fragging luck… of course the limbs are missing. Destroyed, likely as not!” As he would phrase it, Durheim was displeased; angrily muttering to himself in a rare display of anything but cheerful optimism. Unceremoniously, he ripped open the corpse’s jumpsuit, probing none-too-gently at the rapidly-cooling and blood-soaked body’s upper chest and shoulders; frowning as his metal fingers sunk into the spaces where metal and bone should have been; finding only charred meat instead.

With a small grunt, he carelessly flipped his lifeless body onto its face; pulling the goggles off of the blankly staring eyes almost as an after thought, hooking the strap on a handy clip on the waist of his coveralls. He could go over the recordings in a moment; assuming any remained. Going off of what he’d already found, he had little hope that the spine remained intact; but it was worth checking. Again he tore away the coveralls; exposing the source of the pooling blood. It looked like Durheim’s spine had been physically ripped out of his back; leaving a massive gaping channel lined with charred stumps of ribs. It was a miracle that he hadn’t been decapitated; but then, it was blatantly obvious that nothing remotely ‘normal’ had taken place here.

Sighing to himself, Jonathan leaned back onto his heels in disappointment. “Oh well. I suppose it was a small chance, anyways. Back to business!” While he had been denied the opportunity to salvage his corpse for backups, there still remained the intriguing mystery of what exactly had happened on this dark copy of the familiar ship Jonathan called ‘home’; and that mystery quickly brought back the typically cheery tone to his voice.

Durheim the Disappointed

Casela stopped and took a long analytical look at the bodies of Bog and Durheim and then at the other officers around the deck. She doubted it would decrease the pain the next go round, but she’d know what was coming. She felt a cold burning rage building, slipping through her veins and giving her mind a scary clarity. She moved to an equipment locker, her biometrics still opening it, and took out tricorders and other diagnostic equipment. She moved to a control panel inputing her RTF codes pulling up the feed, scrolling backwards until she got the feed from that point where the orb took Hampton. She played it, hoping to find what this ship had done wrong. She moved out of the way so that the rest of the team could see as well.
Lt. Synthi-er RTF

The security footage was intact. The away team watched as Bog and Durheim worked to analyze the orb. The two could be seen setting a tachyon pulse and firing it into the orb, where they appeared to be sending and receiving signals. This continued for about an hour until the whole room shook and went dark for a second, everything except for the orb, which continued to glow. When lights were restored, several minutes later, the room looked badly beaten up. Bulkheads were laying on the floor, conduits were ruptured. Durheim and Bog could be seen attempting to channel the orb’s energy into the navigational disk. They appeared to be successful, but then the orb imploded. The screen was blinding white for a moment. When the image was restored, Hampton was standing where the orb had been.

Even with the distance from the camera, the away team could see his grin. “Thank you Gentlemen.” He said with a smirk. Durheim was immediately ripped apart. Bog simply glared at Hampton, seemingly unphased by watching his comrade dismembered. When he charged the Chief Engineer, Hampton simply raised a fist, and the horrible sound of cracks could be heard as the Tellarite went down, choking on his own blood and groaning in pain. Hampton looked down at his fist. “Well, it is about time I get a say in what happens to this crew.” He said, stepping over Bog’s now limp body as he left the room. The feed did not pick anything up of interest until the away team entered.

Storyteller S

Having finished raiding his corpse’s pockets, Durheim rejoined the group, catching the ‘exciting’ portion of the security footage. As it concluded, he rubbed his chin in thought, absently leaving a red stain on his face. “My apologies Misses Synthi-er and Surda; I was a bit over-excited and lost focus. I don’t expect it to happen again; I don’t think we shall be so lucky to find more copies of ourselves.”

Surda frowned. She wasn’t technologically minded, but clearly whatever they had done had released this evil Hampton. She started typing quickly, and it was accompanied by an annoyed sigh at having to communicate so inefficiently. “We need to make sure we don’t do whatever that was. Call the captain and get him to make sure no one does it.”
-Surda, CoS

Casela nodded. =^=Synthi-er to Bog. We’ve found some footage over here. Apparently you tried to send a tachyon beam into this orb and after an hour everything went dark. We are still analyzing to see what that was, a power drain or something else. But then the energy from the Orb was redirected to the navigational array. And then the thing imploded letting out demon Hampton. So don’t do that, okay. I’m sending the files to you to analyze. Durheim is still analyzing what’s left over here.=^=
She played the video feed again watching from minutes before the room goes dark to the end in slow motion, looking for what might have been missed. “Durheim please tell me you have some idea of what happened?” She stepped away from the screen and opened a tricorder making scans of the remains of the orb/the space around the containment bay for any clues. “Fenrir, examine the area, see if your sensors and eyes pick up anything we might miss.”
Lt. Synthi-er, CNS

“I think I have some ideas, Miss Synthi-er. If I had to guess, it looks like Mr. Bog and I tried to… communicate, perhaps? With the orb, and/or it’s contents. After the power failure, I would guess that we began trying to siphon power out of the orb - which is indeed what I would try to do. Obviously, that failed; but exactly how, I do not know.” Durheim gestured towards the googles he’d scavenged off of his corpse, then towards where the orb had been. “I’ll investigate our remains and leavings further; and maybe I recorded something or some notes that could be helpful to us as well. If nothing else, hopefully we can get some idea of what not to do.”

Moving away from the security console, Durheim wandered over towards the remains of the wrecked engineering station; pulling out his tricorder and scanning his and Mr. Bog’s bodies to see what, if any energy residue remained. Perhaps it could tell them how Hampton had done this; though admittedly with anomalies, there was no guarantee - they didn’t tend to ‘play by the rules’.

After the scan was done, he focused on the engineering station, coaxing it back to life. Now having a somewhat better idea of what to look for, he ran a diagnostic on the Nav Disc; curious what exactly had failed and how. Leaving that to run, he moved over to the equipment scattered around the area, giving it all a brief visual inspection for overload damage. As he worked, he was assembling details and plans in the back of his mind… Why did siphoning energy away not work? Most likely, there was simply too much to work with; so something else would need to be done. Containment is the logical secondary choice after neutralization - maybe a stasis and/or damping field? That could possibly buy them more time, but then they could easily end up in the exact same situation. Hmmmm…

Pulling his goggles down around his neck and leaving them to dangle, he placed the scavenged pair over his eyes. Keying them to stop recording; he sent a command to re-play everything they had recorded, starting about 30 minutes prior to Hampton leaving the orb at 5X speed on the embedded HUD.

Crewman Durheim, Engineering

The bodies had faint traces of temporal energy on them, Durheim’s joints appeared to have been rapidle aged and then physically pulled apart. The Diagnosis would come back a few minutes later with readings that communicated that there had been in fact, no failure on the technological side of the draining. No malfunction could be detected, nor surge of power that was not outside the flow that the crew had initially been siphoning off.

Storyteller S


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