Everything Old

[Shria Hst]

On::USS Excelsior-2000: Stardate: 2956.4249 (January 16th, 2320)

Acting Captain's log: The Excelsior continues on her current search pattern for the missing freighter Gizes. This is our 3rd day of searching this section of the nebula. The Gizes was reported over due to New France from Trill, via Pi 1 Ursae Majoris, a week ago. A search team of Star Fleet vessles and civilian freighters have so far reported nothing. The good news is there is no wreckage. The bad news is there is no wreckage.

The increased activities of pirates operating in this area have caused many shipping companies to divert via Kessari, driving up the cost of goods to New France. The fact that the Gizes is the 4th ship in the last year to go missing without a trace has raised the speculation that these freighters are being hijacked and their crews and passengers spaced. We will continue our search in hopes that all are found alive and well, but time is not on their side.

T'zel hit the pause button on the arm of the chair and rubbed his eyes. He was hoping that there would have been some news from the captain by now. Left on the larger civilian freighter Fitzgerald, the captain was helping to coordinate the search efforts with two smaller freighters. The XO was on the Wellington Maru to liason with that task force of civilian ships.

This left T'zel with the unexpected command of the ship. His tail whipped back and forth as he thought of the possibility of having to beam aboard 600 bodies of crew and passengers. He hoped he or the crew would never have to come across such a grizzly scene. His Catian nerves were already as raw as a winter morning of his birth region.

“Mr. Greck, anything?” he asked as he turned to chair to the science officer’s console?

“Nott’en yet, suh. Scans still have not picked up any traze of the warp signature. But, suh. I need to point out the obvious. After a week, it’s not likely. Der’s been allot of degradation to any signature that might have passed through this nebula.”

“Thank you Mr. Greck. Have the torpedo tubes loaded with three more probes, each on a separate course, 90 degree separation on the z axis. Set for long duration. Longest possible that the fuel cells can maintain. I hope this is where they came. If it was a simple break down, they still may be in there. The gasses in this nebula are playing havoc with long and short range sensors.”

“Wid our sharing probes wid the oder search parties we are now down to 10, after these 3 suh.” Greck reminded him.

T’zel was grateful for the Saurian, even if his smell was somewhat off putting. Time was running out. They needed to find this ship soon, or the radiation of this nebula would surely fry any ship without proper shields.

One week ago, Freighter Gizes, 3 days to New France, Warp 6.8


The floor to ceiling windows showed the blurring of the stars as the ship moved through the vastness of space to New France. The ornate decoration of the dining hall had been tarnished over many years of use. She was old, this ship. Almost as old as Miram felt.

Miram sat at the table with her assigned seating guests. Dr. Lin Cho Lu, of New Manchu Prefecture, New Hope, Mr. Hoool, a large grey humanoid, immensely strong of physical stature and weak on conversational skills, Mr. and Mrs. Llowh, Boca Raton, Florida, Earth, and there two sons, Giles and Osgood, good looking boys in their late teens.


After 3 days of eating two meals together, the conversation was getting a little stilted.

“You must be looking forward to seeing your grand children Mrs. Hst?” Charlotte Llowh asked, the inflection in her voice moving towards the sappy end of syrupy.

“Oh, yes, my dear. I am. It has been three years, and they were but grubblings then. Gia will be 6 and Marcum four.” Miriam was feeling old. She had had a good life. She had sought and received permission from the Board for this trip. But they had made it known it would be the last.

“We’ve never been to Trillus Prime, are there many interesting things to see?” Benedict Llowh asked, less out of true interest and more to keep the silence out of the conversation.

“Well, the oceans are purple for one. Not something you see on many worlds. Mineral deposits, phyto bacteria and spectrum of the sun. There are several interesting geological sites, but our tourist and hospitality industry is sorely lacking by the standards of most…”

The water goblets, pitchers, plates and cutlery on the table all started to shutter, chatter and shake. Every thing seemed to be magnetically attracted to Mr. Hoool’s side of the table.

“What’s happening?” asked Giles, his youthful eyes wide with surprise at what they were experiencing. There was a general rise in tremor from the conversations around them as everyone seemed to be experiencing the same effect.

“We’re entering the perimeter of the Arachnid nebula. The pilot has failed to trim the warp field for displacement caused by certain high energy particle in the clouds. It tends to shake things up a bit.” Miram said. The shaking of the dinner service stopped. “See, they’ve altered the field.”

“I did not realize you knew so much about warp mechanics Mrs. Hst?” Dr. Lin said. Her youthful Asian face was pretty by the standards of beauty on several worlds. That beauty would be enhanced if she learned to smile once in a while, Miram thought.

“I’ve made this run more then once, Dr. Lin.” Miram said. Lin thought there was more to her comments then she was letting on.

An announcement came over the comm. System. “Ladies and gentlemen, there will be some entertainment and dancing tonight on the Lido deck provided by the glorious refrains of”

The muffled explosions racked the starboard side of the ship as she heeled in that direction. The tables and chairs of those who were sitting all spilled in that direction. Miram felt herself being raised up and then thrown to the floor. ‘Great’ she thought, ‘broken hip so far from home, or clavical, or arm.’ She landed on Mr. Hoool, who was sprawled on his back on the floor. There were cries of astonishment, relief, some pain from the sound of it. Miram looked at the hooded eyes of the big grey man.

“You ok grandma?” he asked in a voice that sounded like tectonic plates moving over top of each other.

Miram wiggled her toes, her fingers and flexed her arms. “Only thanks to you Mr. Hoool. I am most sorry. I apologize.”

“I am glad you are not seriously hurt.” He said as he gently lifted her off of him, and then stood to his full 2.5 meter height.

“Look!” said someone. “The stars!”

The spectral chase of warping stars was replaced by the blue white clouds of the Arachnid nebula. They were in normal space, a drift from Miram’s best guess.



To be continued

(Star Date -2955.1824) January 17th, 2320

T'zel had heard from the captain. The Fitzgerald task force was moving onto the next search quadrent. The Excelsior was about to do the same. T'zel was about to give the order when Williamson, the Beta shift Science offier said

"Sir. Probe 12 has something. Picking up organic compounds, bearing 213mark 43mark32. Distance 50,000 kilometers."

"Helm, change course. Best possible speed considering the pea soup out there."

Three hours later as the clouds were still swirling and knotting around each other, the ship came to the designated coordinates.

The screen came alive. Unfortunately what it viewed was no alive. None of them were. The bodies slowly rotated in a grotesque free fall ballet. Slowly circiling each other. T'zel counted a rough 100 on the view scree. They had been suffocted and flash frozen by the depths of space. What always amazed T'zel was how well preserved bodies that had been spaced looked. Like no mark had befallen them.

"Beam several to the hanger deck. Tell the doctor I need a full run up on anything he can come up with. ASAP." T'zel finished.

"Sir! I'm picking up a ships or ships out system. They willl be here in 30 minutes.
I'm also picking up a ship dead ahead. And I mean dead." Lieutenant Kyle McAllister, helm officer said.

[Shria Hst]

USS Excelsior-2000, Arachnid Nebula

(Star Date -2955.1824) January 17th, 2320


Cmdr. T'zel flicked one of his ears. A sign the Catian was puzzled.

"How can you be picking up a ship or ships inbound if our sensors are so badly befuddled by this quagmire of a nebula, lieutenant?"

"I don't know sir. I guess...it could be false readings. Sensor echos."

"Williamson. See if you can confirm. And get me a reading on that ship out there."

"Working on it sir." Williamson replied. "Sir. It's the civilian frieghter Van Graftte. It went missing 5 month ago from Kessari."

"Send an away team over. Space suits. We will assume there is a biological hazard present there." T'zel felt the fur on the back of his neck go up. A ghost ship, her occupants floating outside her like some macabre model of a planetary system.

(Frieghter Gizes, 8 days ago)

As the ship dropped so abruptly from warp, she heeled to the right. The whole dining room was abruptly jerked in that direction. With in seconds everyone got to their feet, mostly everyone, the table that Miram Hst sat at counted their heads.

Bennet Llowh asked his wife and two boys, they were fine. Dr. Lin was brushing her self off. The giant Mr. Hoool looked like he was fine. Thanks to his massive frame Miram had been spared any injury beyond her pride.

There were several people in the room who were still on the floor. Waiting staff can over to help. "Are there any trained medical personel onboard, asked the Maitre Des from the stage. Several people's hands went up, save Dr. Lin.

"PhD." She said. "Astrophysics." she shrugged her head as if to say, 'The kind of doctor that is no good to anyone."

A high pitched scream came from a table by one of the large windows. The ship's shields were still operating, as evidenced by the fact that the blue/green shimmering-flaring showed that something was trying to penetrate them just outside the window. A something that was the same shade of black one would imagine the gaping maw of hell looked like. This caused an immediate and expected reaction. Unmitigated panic.

Inspite of pleas of calm from someone over the comm system, the crowd ran pell mell towards the aft exits of the dining room. There was an immediate jamming of people. Mr. Hoool looked at his table mates and said "Is there another way out of here?"

"Through the galley, but I would suggest we use the service corridore. It runs the length of the ship." Miram said. "I used to pilot a ship very similar to this one, many years ago, but the design is basically the same."

USS Excelsior-2000, Arachnid Nebula

(Star Date -2955.1824) January 17th, 2320

In the sickbay the doctor had taken scans, samples, swipes and serations from seven different bodies. She, along with half a dozen labs on the ship were running the analysis.

"This is highly unlikely, dont you think R'ses?" Dr. Emma Van Horlick said.

"Very unusual. I don't think we've seen anything in the data base like this." the Denobulan female said.

"I'm not sure. There is something that reminds me of... The Enterprise. Kirk's. It was a comet emitting some form of highly exotic radiation. Caused premature aging."

"Well that would do it, possibly." as R'ses looked at the body of what should have been a human toddler. Instead, it looked like the doll form of a very old centigenarian.

"The question is. If this affected everyone the same way, is anyone still alive over on that ship? How did all those bodies get placed in the air lock? Were they in there as a way to commit mass suicide?"

"Hopefully the away team will find something." R'ses said to Dr, 'M' as she called her.

Star Freighter Gizes, Arachnid Nebula September 14th, 2320

The screams and howls of agony were effecting everyone. Since they had made there way to the main service corridore, they had found what must have been once a freezer or cryogenic storage unit for perisable goods, either for consumption by the crew and passengers, or for food stuffs imported to various worlds.

Everyone had made it safe and sound. The neccesity of nature calls and the requirement for food had people in goups of two minimum searching for the required facility or resoure. After three days of scurrring about like volls on said same freighter, they had found recepticals and containers of water enough to permanately hold up in the Freezer.

Giles and Osgood had used the vetilation shafts as Miram had described to them to reconnoiter this deck and the one below them, which acted as the main thourgh fair for the ship. The crew had rounded up every one at gun point. The were all herded to the turbo lifts, and all the turbo lifts went down. Only the few crew who had searched this deck remained in the lobby by the banks of doors.

When the boys brought back this information Miram said. "They're taking them to the cargo hold."

"Why? For what purpose.?" she asked, feelng the three days of stress, and the claustrophobia and the stench of unwashed bodies, and waste, even if it was covered.

"Why would the crew kipnap the passengers?" Bennette Lhowl asked, a sense of deep forboding in his voice.

"Dad, they did not move like regular people do. They shuffled, dragged their feet. Like they did not know how to work their bodies." Giles said.

"Like they were possessed." Osgood replied. "Just like in Planet of the Dead: Dr. What Saves the Day."

[Neeva]

So, I meant to do this when I read it, but didn't get around until now:

This is pretty great. The writing is good--better than usual, if I may. Good plot, and characters.

Overall, thumbs up from me.

[Shria Hst]

Thank you. I am trying to improve my writing style, less postage stamp, more detail. I have several ideas where to go with this without making it sound like a Voyager episode.

BTW, is there an extablished captain in the Star Trek novels as to who was the last captain of the Excelsior 2000?