<USS Avalon> "Shall Not See the Shadows"

Shall Not See the Shadows
By Senior Lieutenant Elissabeth Marksbury, Ensign Sussanna Jameson, 
Ensign Ffej Harak, Ensign Kyle Fenner, and Yeoman John Forester

 

Rounding the corner, part of the team sprinted down the corridor toward the 
room Matthews had indicated. Retrieving the Romulan scientist had been the easy 
part. Beaming him back off the ship was going to prove more difficult, as the 
Ferengi had cuffed him with a transport inhibitor. It was an older model, 
nothing that couldn't be removed, but they needed time... and a place to hide, 
while the Avalon made its pass back through the Marauders.

While the rest of the team guarded the corridor, Fenner was trying to force the 
door open. A torpedo hit the Marauder, sending him sprawling. Could they maybe 
blow up a different ship for a bit? He picked himself up and continued poking 
at the door circuitry. 

Elissabeth gave a mental sigh of relief when the door slid open and Kyle began 
sweeping the room. Their efforts at masking their signatures must have worked, 
as the Ferengi didn't seem the wiser. Of course, they were in the middle of a 
fire fight with the Avalon, which gave advantage to her team. 

As Fenner gave the all clear, Marksbury and Forester turned and sprinted to 
their hideout. Jameson and Harak had just cleared the door when Forester cried 
out loudly. Spinning, Elissabeth, saw a Ferengi on each side of the corridor 
they had just left, peering around the corner with a gun-like object raised. 
She didn't even see what had lodged into her skin, just felt the painful prick 
as it pierced her arm. She fired and hit the first one, hoping Forester would 
take out the second. A quick glance, however, told her John had frozen.

The pain was ridiculously high for such a little wound and the sight of the 
Ferengi had him rooted to the spot. All of his training dissolved in the face 
of the sneering little dwarves before him. They were taking aim again but he 
still couldn't move, like his legs had turned to rubber and his mind to 
feathers.

He was jolted out of the moment as Marksbury pushed him through the doorway. 
She fired once again and missed, allowing the Ferengi to hit her with another 
one of his darts. Elissabeth pushed the pain away, concentrating her aim. Her 
second shot left him lying in the corridor. 

She stumbled through the door as the ship rocked again. Her companions were 
taking up defensive positions in the cluttered looking storage room. As soon as 
she passed through the door, Fenner activated the heat strip which instantly 
welded the door shut. No one was opening it anytime soon.

"Ai ya, Kyle, tell me these aren't what I think they are," she cursed, tearing 
the uniform around the dart in her arm.

Kyle looked up from removing the transport inhibiting cuffs off the Romulan. 
"Another kind of inhibitor, only worse," he confirmed. "Anna, not only are 
those darts inhibitors themselves,  they're also flooding their bodies with 
nanobots. They move through the bloodstream toward the heart, lungs, and brain, 
then they set up tiny inhibitor fields. You could transport out of here, but 
you?d leave your organs swiss-cheesed in the process." Fenner shuddered. 

"Released in a poison to slow you down while the little fuckers do their job, I 
know," Anna added. "I?m on it."

In the meantime, Marksbury looked at John, more concerned with removing his 
inhibitor first. "Where?"

"Left shoulder." The sting from the dart was numbing his whole arm and he could 
feel the poison using his treacherous blood to pump itself around his system as 
his heart pounded out a frantic rhythm. He'd failed the team and despair 
threatened to topple his failing control over his emotions. He couldn't 
formulate any way to say he was sorry, that he let his commanding officer down 
by allowing her to get hit with the darts.

Elissabeth felt a surge of compassion for John as she gently pushed him down 
onto his knee against the wall, bracing one palm against his shoulder. "This is 
gonna hurt like hell," she warned. The dart had embedded itself like a tiny 
grappling hook under the skin with four little prongs.

Marksbury's hand was warm against his back and the wall was cold. He focused 
all of his energy into feeling the difference between the two sensations, 
trying not to think of the pain in his shoulder, nor of the pain to come. He 
squeezed his eyes closed, small tears escaping down his cheeks, but he pushed 
his face into the wall so that no one would see his weakness.

Elissabeth leaned over and whispered to him, "It?ll be okay," in attempts to 
comfort and reassure. She glanced up at Ffej, knowing he could help.

Ffej knelt down and placed his hands upon John?s temples, closing his eyes and 
building a bridge to his mind. He opened his mind allowing John to go from the 
here and now, to a then and somewhere else. Ffej knew that pain is a powerful 
enemy, but it pales in comparison to one?s fears or dreams.

Anna was already tapping furiously on a tricorder, finding the solution to 
their dilemma. Time was against them now that the Ferengi knew they were here. 
Her fingers flew over the buttons, ideas forming and flying into the tricorder 
before they'd even fully materialized in her mind.

"Got it," Kyle said, as the cuffs came away from the Romulan's hands.

"Get the hell outta here," Marksbury ordered them. "Anna, I need-"

"I'm staying and you'd be bloody crazy to think otherwise." 

Ffej nodded in agreement, letting his choice to stay be felt.

Fenner and Matthews, flanking their prisoner, beamed back to the Avalon in a 
swirl of blue particles. Marksbury used the distraction to rip the little probe 
from John's shoulder. To his credit, he only cried out softly as an inch of 
flesh came away with it, blood flowing freely.

She nodded a thank you to Ffej and looked at her right arm, which was just now 
starting to tingle with numbness. Lissi didn?t think she?d have the strength in 
her left hand at that angle to pull the dart from her own arm. "Can you do it?" 
she asked Ffej. 

Ffej met her eyes and nodded curtly. Gripping the barb with one hand and 
bracing her shoulder with the other, he asked, You want the same treatment... 
or just get it out? 

"Out," she told him, clearing her own mind and channeling the pain to someplace 
far away. It wasn?t enough, however, as the skin pulling away brought tears to 
her eyes and she ground her teeth together.

The ship shuddered again as it abruptly changed direction to ward off the 
Avalon?s fire, causing the group to grab something in hopes to steady 
themselves.

"I got it!" Anna proclaimed, holding a tiny cylinder she?d dug out of the med 
kit as it slid across the floor. It took only a moment to input the results of 
her tricorder readings and calculations. "It's a high dose of radiation and 
it's going to make you sick, but it'll get you back to the Avalon." She stepped 
over and knelt beside John, pressing the device to his skin. "Eight seconds."

"It burns," he said quietly, not as a complaint but as an observation.

"I know, sport. Hang in there, the bots feel worse than you do." She felt so 
cruel doing this, wanting to make it quick and get him home.

Even through the burning, John felt better that Anna was there with him. He 
knew that she wouldn't leave him, that she would always be there to save him. 
Nausea clutched at his stomach, but he bit it down while the cylinder was still 
warm against his skin.

The second dart had embedded itself in Elissabeth?s abdomen, making her 
mid-section and legs fill with that odd numbing sensation. She felt as though 
she couldn?t move her legs, even just to kneel in the floor. Again, she looked 
to Ffej, despising the moment of weakness. She needed his help.

He nodded again. Moving behind her, Ffej wrapped his arms around her waist, 
bracing her and getting a better angle on the barb. Speaking softly into her 
ear, he said, "On three. One, two..." With a sudden pull, he ripped it from her 
skin, knowing she wouldn't be ready for it. The extra pain from shock would 
prevent massive muscle tissue damage, and the extra adrenaline would do her 
good. "Three."

"Thanks," she whispered, panting from the pain. She felt faint, blood already 
soaking the uniform over her stomach. Ffej released her and Elissabeth leaned 
back into the wall, letting it support her. She wasn't sure how much longer her 
legs would do the job. 

"That should do it," Anna told John, who promptly threw up in the floor. 
"Sorry, sport." She turned and began re-calibrating for Marksbury who'd 
received a double dose of the nanobots, according to her readings. "This much 
radiation is going to be bad. Hair loss, lesions, and-"

"Anna! Just do it. No medical expla-" Marksbury's words were cut off by the hum 
of a transporter in the room. Two more Ferengi appeared, only this time 
carrying phasers instead of dart guns.

"Having problems beaming away, hewmons?" The first one asked with a leer as he 
aimed his phaser at Sussanna. She didn't even have a weapon out because of her 
medical equipment.

Palming two of the darts upon hearing the voice of the Ferengi, Ffej knew they 
would be of little real use, but the scant seconds of distraction they could 
provide would be worth more then a few bricks of gold pressed latinum.

Elissabeth was looking over Anna?s shoulder and moved to raise her phaser, 
fearing the poison had left her too slow. Ffej flicked the darts at the 
Ferengi, hoping they would reach the intended targets. One hit his hand, but 
deflected off his knuckle, while the other gouged into the lobe of his ear. It 
distracted the Ferengi just enough for Marksbury to get in her shot, stunning 
him. The Ferengi collapsed to the ground. 

The second brought his weapon up and prepared to fire. John had been overlooked 
in the floor and in that instant he knew what he had to do. His mind was clear 
as he stepped in front of the Ferengi and looked into his eyes. He knew that he 
wouldn't be quick enough as he raised his phaser up in front of him. He knew 
what it would feel like as the beam ripped through him. 

"No!" Anna screamed as the impact of the shot knocked John into both women and 
they fell to the floor.

The Ferengi laughed. "Hewmons," he spat, "when will you learn it is not 
profitable to stick your nose where it doesn't belong?" He was confident he had 
a room full of Starfleet prisoners.

Pulling John's phaser from his hand, Anna turned it on the Ferengi, and before 
he even registered what happened, the ruby beam dropped him to the floor. She 
wanted to jump to her feet and kick and tear the fucker to pieces. Instead she 
leaned over John's limp form. Maybe it was just set to stun, she thought, yes, 
that's it, just set to stun, he'll be okay because he's just knocked out.

The scene before her threw Marksbury for a moment, but she had to focus on the 
task at hand. "Is the device set for me?" she asked, as Anna tended to John's 
lifeless body.

Marksbury's voice pulled Anna away from her darkening fears and she tossed her 
the device. "Fifteen seconds."

"Good, now get him back to the Avalon."

"But sir!"

"That's an order, Anna. Take care of him."

Ffej looked at Anna, I'll cover her. Just hurry. 

Tapping her com badge, Anna had to only wait a second before she and Forester 
disappeared in the shimmer and reappeared on the transporter pad. The second 
they reformed, Anna started CPR, knowing the futility already, but she had to.

The medical team that was standing by rushed over and tried to help. Anna tore 
John's uniform away from the wound on his chest, the damage was appalling. 
Checking his pulse one more time, she knew it was already too late. John 
Forester was dead.

***

Ffej moved over to the Ferengi bodies and gathered up their weapons. He looked 
over the room they where holed up in, seeking the best line of defense. He knew 
they?d have to wait until the Avalon made its next pass before they?d have a 
chance to beam out. Sealing the door only worked for a few seconds. They will 
just transport in again and with more force next time.

Ffej didn't have to read her mind to know that Elissabeth was grateful he'd 
chosen to stay. There was no way she would've asked any one of her team to, 
though any one of them would have stayed without thought. 

She was scared. She hid it well under a facade of calm determination, but the 
psychic energy radiated to him. She was about to give herself a dose of several 
thousand rads of radiation and it was more than unnerving. Not to mention going 
to leave her weak and defenseless. 

Ffej helped her to a more defensible position and took up place next to her. 

"At ten, hail the Avalon," Elissabeth stared into Ffej's eyes for a moment as 
she pressed the little device to her neck and activated it. She began keeping 
mental count to occupy her mind from what she was doing to her body.

One...

It took until the count of five before she had to swallow the bile back from 
her throat.

Seven...

She was clenching her teeth together, pushing back the dizziness and nausea. 
Ffej watched the strain on her face, wanting to help take the pain away, but 
knowing he had to stay vigilant.

Ten...

Ffej contacted the Avalon. 

"Standby," was their reply.

Fifteen...

The device fell from her hand, tumbling into the floor and she was too weak to 
move. It seemed as time stood still while they were waiting for the Avalon to 
beam them out. Elissabeth had tears rolling from the corners of her eyes, 
though she wasn't crying.

The hum of a transporter caught their attention as more Ferengi began beaming 
into the room. Ffej prepared to fire, but in that instant, he felt the familiar 
tingle of the Avalon's transporter beam.

They re-materialized on the ship, Ffej crouched down and preparing to fire, 
while Elissabeth seemed to be barely holding onto consciousness.

She tapped her badge, "Marksbury to Ketchum. Mission... complete." She looked 
to Anna hoping to find out about John, but instead, the darkness consumed her.




                
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