"Testing To Destruction, Part 3"

Principle Characters

Lt (JG) Victor Krieghoff
Lt. Ella Grey

*****

Mirusa VI
Somewhere Inside The Temple Complex
Three And A Half Hours Ago

Ella jumped at the noise Victor's body made as it slid out onto the floor, and then closed her eyes. She wanted to imagine that it had been just another part of the box breaking but grief always seemed to amplify those more morbid realizations. Wiping back the tears, which just kept coming damn them, she turned and looked over at the body.

Ella didn't think she could walk so she half crawled, half scooted towards him. Thankfully (thankfully?) the water had pushed him closer to her so she didn't have to go far. She forced herself to keep breathing because she'd seen dead bodies before (but not the people that she'd loved of course) and likewise had been the cause of them.

"Victor." Ella said in a low tone, reaching out a hand to touch his clammy cheek. "I'm sorry I failed you." She moved to kiss him lightly on the lips.

Without warning, Victor coughed once, a spray of water spattering Ella's face, and then sucked in a great lungful of air.

"Victor?" Ella succeeded in saying without stuttering although her eyes were as large as they could be.

His eyes snapped open as he exhaled, and then took in another gulp of air. "Damn," he observed tonelessly.

She gave a small cry and then practically slammed into him for a hug. "You son of a... how.... thank God!"

"Damn," he repeated, and then coughed again, his hands reaching out to hold Grey still.

She kissed him hard on the lips, any promises she had previously made herself be damned.

He coughed, frowned, and pushed her away. "You can stop now - I don't need resuscitation or CPR, Grey."

Definitely Victor. Ella pulled back laughing and gave him a hand. "Why damn?"

He sat up and frowned down at his chest. "I said 'damn' because they're going to have to cut this lung out, Grey. I couldn't hold my breath a fifth of that time on my best day before it was put in. It must store and extract oxygen far better than anything that a human would grow naturally."

"I won't tell if you won't, Tiger." Ella said. "In fact, I have it in mind to track down whoever put that thing in you and give them all my father's credits."

"I'll ask the Attendant the next time she shows up who it was," Victor promised. "But it still is going to get cut out - the doctors will figure it out anyway, even if I don't tell them."

She was about to comment when there was a groaning sound from somewhere. Ella looked up to see two pieces of wall moving to reveal a passageway. "Ready for a change of venue?"

Victor stood up and shook himself like a wolf, water shedding off of the suit. "It'll be a while before its safe to turn this thing back on," he observed as he extracted the Phaser II from its holster on his side and checked the charge. "We're low on firepower until then. How's your phaser?"

"Half power."

"Better than nothing." He smiled suddenly, and the water dripping from Ella's uniform felt like it turned to ice when she shivered. "Hope we meet the people that designed this - I want to talk to them."

"I bet." Ella said, wanting to hold on to him- because he was really alive and because she couldn't see what was behind door number one- but made herself keep her hands away. "Let's hope this leads to warmer climates."

*****

Mirusa VI
Somewhere Inside The Temple Complex
The Present

"I've got something to say." Ella announced as the wall of spikes continued to move closer.

"Don't worry, Grey," Victor said from his position two meters away, examining another section of spikes. "I've already told you..."

"No, Victor, it's really important."

"What then?" He looked up at her.

She took a deep breath. "I wish I had stayed in bed this morning."

He looked at her for a heartbeat, nodded once, and turned back to what he was doing. "That would be better, yes." If she'd done that, then she wouldn't be here, about to die. That would be... very good.

"Sorry." Ella apologized. "I hear that humor in these types of situations is supposed to ease anxiety, fear, etc." She thought about it and then frowned. "I don't really feel much better."

"I wouldn't know, Grey," Victor replied as he straightened up and stepped back over to her. "I don't have a sense of humor of which I am aware." He stopped and studied her for a moment, and then stepped up to her and measured her profile with his hands.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking to make sure you will fit between them if you turn sideways and stand on the second row of spikes.

Ella looked past him, suddenly hope, at the spikes. "You mean, we really can fit in between them?"

"Not me, Grey. You."

"But where will you...." Ella started and then shook her head. "Out of the question."

"Questions have nothing to do with it, Grey. Everything is binary, simple, but most people can't see it like that, they let things get too cluttered. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Up or down. I'm too big; you're not. You live, I die. It's as simple as that.

*****

Mirusa VI
Somewhere Inside The Temple Complex
Two And A Half Hours Ago

"I think that they're mad this time, Grey," Victor observed calmly as he looked down into the pit beneath Ella's head at the flaming inferno that filled it.

"Yeah, well maybe you shouldn't have blown at the wall in the last room." Ella said as she looked into the pit of flames and gulped hard.

"It was stupid. What was strapping you to a table and having a big curved blade drop lower and lower at you supposed to prove?" Victor shook his head. "Easier to just blow out the wall and move on. I didn't think that they really understood what the higher settings on the rifle would do."

"I think, Tiger, that the creators of these rooms really could give a rat's ass about proving anything." Ella said as she stared at the flames. Really, they were quite hypnotic; she couldn't take her eyes off of them. "I think they were the invention of a sadist with a bit too much time on his hands. I'm starting to get a headache here."

He looked up at the ceiling six or seven meters above his head and four meters in over the pit, where the chain anchored to the manacles about her ankles vanished into the ceiling. "I think this is supposed to lower you into the fire, Grey."

"Or a sadistic cannibal who liked his food well done," she muttered.

"Well," he pointed out, "you did say you hoped that we'd find someplace warmer a while back."

"I was thinking someplace akin to Tahiti."

"That's an island on Earth, right?" Victor stood and moved to one side of the pit that extended wall-to-wall in the room, and then moved back to the other. "Why would you think the people that designed this place would send you to someplace you wanted to be?"

A faint grinding sound sounded above them and the chain suspending Ella jerked once, making her hair snap. "They're starting," Victor observed unnecessarily. "They must have gotten bored watching us talk."

As if the slice and dicer hadn't been enough, Ella thought as she started to be lowered. She closed her eyes. "Anytime you want to rescue me, White Knight. I'm good and ready."

"I'm working on it, Grey," he replied tonelessly. "There's something on the shackle at you ankle - is it a release?"

Ella grunted, took a deep breath and worked her stomach muscles to "sit up" and grab hold of her ankles. "This might be a release but I don't really feel like dropping into the flames to test it out." Victor frowned and looked down at the flames. "Hold still for a moment and I'll do something about that," he said as he flexed his hands and sent the standard rifle back into the pattern buffer and started to call the sniper rifle out. "Then we can... unnh!"

The human body could do miraculous things under pressure, Ella realized, as she made her body twist to be able to see what was going on. If they lived through this however, she knew that she was in for a lot of pain since her body was not meant to be bent around like a pretzel.

An arc of violet energy sprang up out of the floor with Victor at the apex, and pulsed once. Muscles locked from the power running through them, Victor could do nothing but stand there as the telltales on his suit monitor flashed red and blew out one by one, in a chain reaction that culminated with the epaulet-mounted microshield generators literally blowing off the suit to spin away like slices of toast dropped to see if the butter side really would land down, and the waist-mounted pattern buffer throwing off a line of sparks that made it appear Victor was being cut in half with a thermolytic charge.

******

Mirusa VI
Somewhere Inside The Temple Complex
The Present

"But I can't lose you again," she whispered. She'd seen him 'die' too many times today, like they had been trial runs, rehearsal nights, for the big event, the opening night.

Frankly, she didn't think her mind was up for the real thing.

"I'm not lost, Grey," Victor replied. "I'm right here. Why would you think I was lost? You know where I am, and if someone knows where you are, then you're not lost."

How could she lose someone with that kind of twisted logic? Ella wanted to smile but thought she just might throw up. "Because. They're must be another way."

"I don't see one, Grey."

"I'll think of something."

Victor suddenly wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her up.

"No!"

"Stop squirming, Grey," he said with a frown as he pivoted and pushed her into the wall of spikes. "Duck your head... right there."

"I can't... I don't want you to die!" Ella said, trying to pull away from the spike but finding her head being held firmly in place.

"Everything dies, Grey. People die. Stars die. Trees die. Planets die. Mountains die. Galaxies die. Nothing lasts forever." He shrugged, but refused to let her move, to let her wriggle free of where he held her. "Someday you'll die too... but not today. Today you don't have permission to die."

It would be over soon and there was nothing she could do about it. Was that the purpose of this room, she wondered in the fraction of a minute she had left. To tell you that life, overall, could just really suck.

Victor looked at her as the walls compressed closer and the spikes started to indent the fabric of his now-tattered battle uniform and frowned. Grey would live, that was a good thing, so why did he feel... sad? He considered the notion for an instant, and then, as the spikes pushed past his uniform and started to penetrate his skin in a dozen places, discarded it. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more - if indeed it ever had - except that he do this one last thing and keep Grey alive.

"I love you!" Ella cried and closed her eyes.

"Eclipse"

Lt. (jg) Naranda So Roswell

Lt (jg) Saul Bental

Ensign 8-Ball Hunter

The voices of the three Galaxy crewmembers echoed from wall to wall in the spacey 'Sun In Shadow' chamber.

The mural after which Doctor Kathryn Langford named the room covered an entire wall, surrounded by alternating light and dark rays, and colored in hues none of them could name. It dwarfed the three Starfleet officers, which were also 'outnumbered' by three, mean-looking Hydranoid-shaped statues.

Saul Bental neared the mural, and with a slight anxiety and awe touched it with his finger tips. Then, he drew a tricorder and began to scan the hall.

"I'm no Archeologist. Right now, the only thing I can deduct about the people who lived here is this : They're dead."

The other Lieutenant in the group, Naranda Sol Roswell, rolled her eyes, "Well, we figured that much." Nara was still lightly running her fingers across the mural.

"I say let's try to repeat Langford's steps and recreate the ceremony.", Saul suggested.

Nara looked at him, "You're forgetting one fact." Her hand dropped to her side, "She disappeared. Doing what she did would likely cause the same effect."

"Of course we will be extra careful and monitor the situation far better than she did. Plus we're three - if anything happens, we can help each other.", Saul replied.

8-ball looked back and forth at Saul and Nara and then raised her hand.

"Excuse me," she said. "I mean, I'm all for adventure and fun and stuff, but can I please say that I don't particularly want to be vaporized. I mean, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Am I the only person who finds this mural thing creepy?"

Nara nodded looking at Saul, "Yea, there's a weird vibe to this thing. I don't think it's the telepathy talking either." She looked at 8-Ball to confirm. Nara was half Betazoid and 8-Ball half Vulcan. Even so, Nara was sure that Saul--a non-telepath--could sense the creepiness being omitted from the painting.

8-ball nodded at Nara. She hadn't tried using her telepathy in a very long time. She didn't think the creepy aura vibe was from her Vulcan side.

"We don't even know if she vanished here, and IF she vanished here." Saul said eagerly. "The way I see it, unless we actively try to recreate the circumstances leading to Langford's disappearance, we might as well return to the Galaxy. Again, we can do it under much more controlled environment than Langford had, knowing - unlike her - the full risks of the situation. If you'd like, I can ask Lieutenant Heloi for her approval..."

He directed the final comment at 8-Ball. He assumed that the fact that the new Science chief was an outsider instead of one of the science department's own subdepartment heads, probably bothered the department's members, and made them feel underestimated.

8-Ball wasn't a powermonger in Saul's opinion, but surely she would be teased by his suggestion to ask her new boss for permission.

"We don't need to ask Heloi any damn---" 8-ball started to say and then broke off with a rueful grin. "You're a bad man, Saul Bental. All manipulative and tricksy like that."

"Bedankt.", Saul thanked her slyly, making a tiny bow.

"All right, all right. You win, I lose. I say we can do your ceremony shindig whatever." She continued, crossing her arms. "But," she said, "I still think this is a bad idea, and when we all end up transported to some alien vessel to be dissected or something, I reserve the right to say I told you so and blame everything on you."

Nara smiled, "Oh, I do that anyway." She winked at Saul. She put down her gear and sighed looking at Saul, "Ok, what do we do?"

Saul lowered the tricorder, and thought for a moment. "Both Steele, Ashven and Langford remarked in their notes that 'order' was most important in the ancient ceremonies. Also, most ceremonial objects came in threes, sixes or nines."

He glanced at the statues. "Here we have five statues. That means at least one is missing. I wonder how they are related to the mural."

Saul lowered his eyes to the tricorder. "Nothing abnormal so far..."

Nara looked around again at the statues and their relation to the mural.

"Wonder why they're facing away from the mural? The Sun too bright for them? Maybe it disappeared because of whatever 'it' they found."

Saul came near one of the statues. As he leaned forward to check it out closely, he noticed his reflection on the statue's face.

He narrowed his eyes with concentration, moving a little to the left.

The reflection was nearly gone.

He moved to the right again.

The reflection became less and less blur, more and more real.

"Mirrors!", He prompted.

Nara came closer to one of the other statues opposite of Saul. What she saw confirmed it, "Interesting." She wasn't quite sure why Saul reacted to it as it if it was an epiphany, but she did want to know.

Saul spun toward the two ladies. "Do you remember the Morrellyq model from scientific history at the Academy? I flunked the quiz but I remember the principle."

"Of course, I remember," 8-ball said brightly. "I ACED that quiz." She didn't bother mentioning the cheating that had went behind the good grade. Like Saul, theoretical physics had never been her strong suit.

She did recall the basic material well enough, though. The Morrellyq model was one of the Bolians' first attempts to reach space traveling capability. For the span of twenty Bolian years, they constructed six huge mirrors in the space orbitting Bolarus II. The mirrors collected the sun's power, and implementing a theoretical physical model where mirrors reflected light rays onto each other, they managed to boost and concentrate a single, intense light beam that was used to power solar sails.

The result was impressive, but still well beneath the light speed barrier.

Nara shrugged looking at Saul, "And you think that's what these people were trying to do here?"

"Physical laws aren't copyrighted to the Bolians. I won't be surprised if they did something similar here. The relative locactions and distances between the statues seem to fit except for the missing statue of course. Hmmm... The statues are too heavy to move, but I suspect that we can rotate them.", said Saul.

Nara put her hand up, "Whoa. I have a theory about what happened to the missing statue. It was turned..." Nara looked around again and then at the sun. "My guess is that when the mirror was made to reflect the sun," She pointed to the sun on the mural, "Something other than solar energy being harnessed happened." She furrowed her brow, "And my guess is the missing statue was possibly turned to reflect the sun and that has something to do with our mystery."

"We won't know if we won't try.", Saul told her.

"Bad idea," 8-ball said. "But we might as well get it over with. Let's get rotating."

"But..." Before, Nara would had been all for it, but now, she was worried about Saia. What if they DID disappear? What would happen to Saia? Nara's face contorted into worry. Then it took on determination as she walked over to the statue where Saul was. They came here to solve a mystery. "Ok, but if we end up in some nether realm, I'm gonna kick your butt to the other nether realm." Nara mumbled.

"Agreed," 8-ball said and moved over to where the other two were standing. She looked at the statue. "I don't like you," she irrationally told the statue. "But I'll kiss you if you don't hurt me." She glanced over at Saul and Nara. "So, what? Count of three? Be dramatic? One. . .two. . ."

Saul rolled his eyes, and simply strode toward the statue and began rotating it. After a few moments of shoving, a tiny moaning sound slipped his mouth. Beads of sweat began to form on his forehead as he drove the statue farther. The girls, surprisingly, seemed to exert less.

Finally, after several more pushes, the statue began to move slowly. A creaking sound echoed across the hall as the statue was turned steadily to face the sun, then rotated ten degrees more.

Saul quickly cocked his head to look at the mural. Was it his imagination, or did the shadows and light hues on the mural shifted?

8-ball looked at it as well. "Did you guys see that?"

"Ja"

Saul drew his tricorder. Everything was normal. No abnormal energy level, no sudden signs of radiation, no life forms other than the three Humanoids occupying the room.

He chuckled. "Eight, Princess - everything reads OK, I think the butt-kicking will wait for another time."

Nara let out a long breath and laughed, "We'll see about that." She winked at him and went to the next statue.

8-ball helped her rotate that one, as Saul moved over to another statue.

With every statue that they turned, the mural seemed to coincidingly shift and change just slightly, yet none of their Tricorders picked up anything different. It didn't make 8-ball feel any easier but that wasn't the point. She wasn't just moving all these dumb things around just the chicken out on the last one. For one, Saul would whine his head off, but also. . .well… she was curious.

She knew that was always a bad sign.

Saul, Nara, and 8-ball all went to the last statue. "Okay," 8-ball said.

"Ready, steady, go."

They pushed the statue forward and rotated it to its right. At first, the statue didn't want to move, firmly embedded in its spot, but slowly it gave way as it turned to face the mural. The mural seemed to ripple with sunlight for a moment, as if the light was trying to burst through, but then it disappeared and everything was silent. For a moment, they all just stood

there with the statues staring at the stupid sun painting, waiting for something that appeared to have ditched class.

Saul scowled. There went the theory. Well, they did have a missing statue.

"Well," 8-ball said finally, "maybe we did something wron---"

The room suddenly filled with light; the sun awoke and shone as any sun would do. 8-ball shrieked and covered her eyes in pain. ~The lights too bright, the lights too bright~ she thought incoherently as pain coursed through her body. She could feel herself falling, and a darkness rising to reach her, and she was grateful for it, to take her away from that light. ~Hello, darkness, my old friend~ she thought, and passed out before she hit the floor.

Not three feet away from 8-Ball, Nara had turned away when the light got bright. In the split moment they had, she called out, "Saul?" She could had called out for 8-Ball for what she needed. What she needed was to know she wasn't alone. What she needed was someone to say it would be ok. Why she chose Saul for that assurance she didn't have the chance to question.

A few minutes later, the statues moved of their own accorded. They rotated back to keep their eyes from the mural, and the sunlight receded from the room. As it did, it took the three Starfleet officers with them, through its own doors that could not be seen. When the room was silent and dark once more, there was no one in it but the statues.

"Alice and The Looking Glass"

Ensign 8-ball Hunter

8-ball woke up in a blue room with no windows and only one door. Near the door was a severed hand. Blood had dried around the wrist and the fingernails.

Upon seeing this hand, 8-ball let out a little screech and sat up very, very quickly. The floor was some form of marble stone and apart from the hand, there was nothing else in the room. 8-ball had no idea how she got here. The last thing she remembered was turning the statues in the sun mural room. . .and then the mural coming to life in a very big way. There had been so much light, and now. . .

Now blue rooms and bloody hands. 8-ball stood up and stayed very still for a moment. Then, knowing it was pointless, she called out, "Saul? Nara?"

There was no response. Other than her breathing, there was no noise at all. Somehow, 8-ball found that particularly ominous. Of course, the bloody hand didn't help. 8-ball stared at it. She took a step towards it and then literally slapped herself on the wrist.

"Don't go near it," she hissed at herself. "What's the matter with you? You've watched enough ancient freaky horror movies when you were a teenager to know how this works. Dead parts of body mean DON'T GO NEAR." Which sounded good on paper but the hand was right next to the only way out of here. The door did not necessarily lead to something good, but on the other hand, what choice did she have? Staying around where people left their sliced off hands might not be the best idea either.

8-ball stepped closer to the door and then, against her better judgement, leaned down to have a better look at the hand. It appeared to have been severed fairly precisely and most likely quickly. The skin wasn't ragged like it had been torn or chewed off, and there wasn't enough blood for that kind of damage anyway. 8-ball pictured a little hand guillotine blade that sliced through the wrist in an instant. Somehow, that wasn't a comfort in any way, shape, or form.

"Well," she said to herself as she examined the hand, "I guess I know what happened to the other scientists who went missing."  That didn't ease her mind either. She was rather attached to her hands. In fact, she was rather attached to all of her limbs.

8-ball stood up again and was relieved to discover that the hand didn't come to life and try to choke her or anything. She looked at the door. It didn't appear to have any kind of knob or opening device. "Here goes nothing," she said and stepped towards the door.

Instantly, the heavy steel door slid open and 8-ball peered inside. It wasn't a large room, maybe half the size of her quarters, and the walls were painted a shade of crimson that reminded her a little too closely of blood. There was another door on the opposite wall, a narrow, wooden door with a little gold knob. On the other walls were large mirrors, reflecting each other quietly. The ceiling also had a large mirror somehow attached to it, echoing the same marble floors in this blue room. On instinct, 8-ball didn't like this room, but then, what about this situation did she like? She had been whisked away to god knows where with nobody around except for a fucking severed hand. And at least this new room didn't have body parts just lying around nonchalantly on the ground. 8-ball took a breath and stepped into the room. The heavy door slid shut behind her.

8-ball stood silently for a moment, blinking at the mirrors around her. Considering that there was nobody else in the room save for three reflections of herself, she should have felt alone, but she didn't. She looked at her reflection in the mirror on her left and blinked in surprised. The reflection looked like her but not---it was all stretched out and thinned like a funhouse mirror, only for some reason 8-ball just couldn't quite bring herself to laugh. Her lack of amusement was partly caused by the memory of the hand in the blue room, or the knowledge that there was no one around to help her, but mostly because her reflection didn't just look tall and skinny, but gaunt and stretched, as if something was slowly pulling her apart.

"That's creepy," 8-ball whispered to herself.

8-ball looked at the other mirror on her right. She had half expected to see some kind of squashed, minaturized version of heself, but the other image appeared quite normal, with all proportions in the right place. 8-ball didn't feel particularly comforted by that either. This room was just as silent as the last one, and 8-ball couldn't shake the feeling that there was something watching her behind the glass, something waiting to attack. "The man behind the curtain," she murmured, "or maybe the thing behind the looking glass."

Because that's exactly what the mirrors reminded her of, not just mirrors but looking glasses, like the ones from the Lewis Carroll series. Only every time she glanced at the glass around her, she didn't get the feeling that Wonderland was waiting beyond it. Maybe the Queen of Hearts and her scythe. That might account for the severed hand.

8-ball closed her eyes and tried to tell herself that this was not the time to decide that she was Alice in some fucked up Wonderland. She also silently told herself that she needed to get a grip. She needed to be thinking rationally, not in acid-washed literary metaphors. Unfortunately for her and her quest for lucid thinking, 8-ball didn't think this was the sort of place for rationality.

8-ball stepped closer to the mirror on her right, while one part of her brain started screaming about red alerts and death imminents. She tried to ignore the voice as she looked at the reflection in the mirror. "See," she said to it, "you aren't some creepy evil death looking glass sort of thing, are you? You're just a mirror and this is just my reflection. And I'm only talking to it because I'm a little weirded out, not nutso or anything, just a little spooked after waking up in some fucking blue room with a godamned bloody hand in it! But you're not so bad, huh? You're just a nice little reflection. Nothing to be freaked out about. . ."

8-ball watched herself in the mirror and was in the process of taking another step closer to it when her reflection suddenly winked. 8-ball shrieked and jumped backwards. She halted herself before she was ready to stop moving because she didn't want to jump all the way back into the other mirror. The result of this mid-motion stop was that 8-ball landed ungracefully on her ass in the middle of the room, looking up at the reflection of her in the ceiling.

The reflection was grinning.

8-ball didn't have to touch her lips to know that they weren't parted in a smile of happiness.

8-ball leapt up from where she was sitting and ran to the door which had led her in here. She stepped close enough to it for a doorway dirty dance but it wouldn't open. She banged her hands on the steel and screamed at it in frustration. "Door! Let me the fuck through! Open godamned fucking sesame!" The door wouldn't budge.

The lights in the room flickered. 8-ball froze once again in midmotion, her hands above her head, stopped in the air from assaulting the door. She turned, very slowly, and looked up at the ceiling. In the shadows, the glass had turned dark but her own reflection was actually glowing. The phantom 8-ball's grin grew wider and then, slowly, the flesh around her jaws began to ooze off, dripping down her throat like drops of rainwater, leaving her bare jawbone exposed for any to see.

8-ball screamed. Ignoring the locked door behind her, 8-ball ran across the room the wooden door and seized the knob. She swung the door open wide only to stare at complete blackness. There was nothing to see at all. If 8-ball stepped into that room, she'd have no idea what she was getting herself into.

"Oh, fuck," she whispered.

She looked back at the other mirrors quickly. Now all of the reflections of 8-ball were rotting away, their skin peeling back or just dropping from their face to the reflected marble floor. 8-ball turned quickly and slowly put one feet into the room. There seemed to be a floor, at least, and that was a start. 8-ball wasn't up to running away from freaky reflections only to fall a thousand feet to her imminent and very bloody death. Still, she hesitated as she tried to get some kind of idea about what could be in the room ahead of her. From frying pan into the fire. . .from death to more death. . .

8-ball looked behind her again. The lights were flickering again and the mirrors all around her seemed to be rippling, as if something was trying to come through. Alice's looking glass didn't appear like it was going to be only for looking anymore. Rotting and skeletal hands scratched at the surface as if it was a pool of water, and bony fingertips appeared slowly through the glass, searching blindly for something to snatch.

8-ball wasn't about to wait. "Fuck this shit all to hell," she swore, and stepped into the dark room. She moved to her right, clutching at the stone wall behind her, and she heard the door swing shut. But when she felt for the knob, all she felt was stone, and in the darkness she knew that the door had somehow vanished as if it was never there.

"The Gothic Chamber of Horrors"

by Lt. Jasmine Heloi
Chief Science Officer & Vanguard XO

& Cmdr. Karyn Dallas
Chief Counselor & Second Officer

------ Location Unknown ------

"Sam, I swear, if you don't shut off those drums I'm going to kill you," Jasmine complained as she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. With the sound on the outside echoing the pounding in her skull, she felt like the fifth day of a three day leave. "Samek, damnit," she repeated when the drums only grew louder. Her Vulcan co-star had a habit of playing music early in the mornings and her dressing room was next door to his. She was going to kill him.

That is, of course, until she opened her eyes. "Oh..." she said in the obvious brilliance of anyone who had just found themselves in an unexpected location. "This certainly isn't Hollywood," she muttered as she glanced around what could only be described as a gothic chamber of horrors. She looked down at herself and fingered the fabric of her uniform. "Of course!" she exclaimed as memory came flooding back. "Counselor!" The Science Chief looked around the room before spotting Karyn crumpled next to the wall.

Without bothering to check around for more booby traps, she scrambled across the floor to crouch next to the counselor, "Counselor?" she asked, pressing her fingers against the other woman's neck, "Are you okay?" A heartbeat fluttered reassuringly against her fingers and she sighed in relief. "Can you hear me?"

Jasmine was greeted by a faint moan that gradually grew louder as the counselor stirred. Karyn's eyes slowly fluttered open and like a woman trapped in a nightmare, her body suddenly jerked in fear, as she was just realizing where she was. "Where...where are we? Are you hurt?"

"We're..." Jasmine's voice trailed off as she glanced around the room for inspiration, "Not in Kansas anymore. Looks like a horror vid gone horribly wrong, but that's just the actress in me talking. Besides a headache to rival the Federation Symphony's drum section, I'm fine, but the question is - are you hurt?"

Dallas took a moment to determine whether she felt any pain in her body. Other than a dull headache, Karyn was relieved when nothing felt broken. She shook her head. "I don't think so. If you can help me up, I think we should try and contact the Galaxy." Not for the first time, Dallas was grateful she decided to use her mechanical legs for this Away Team mission, rather than her gravchair. The biomechanical stilt like devices had taken some getting used to, but now that she had, they were much more functional in tight places.

"Right then," the Science Chief helped the other woman to her feet, "First order of business is to try and get ourselves out of here." She tapped her commbadge, "Heloi to Galaxy."

Nothing. Karyn didn't panic at first. There were any number of reasons why the ship might not be in communications range.

"Heloi to Henderson."

Nothing. Karyn felt her throat go dry.

"Heloi to DiMillo," she tried again, but the commbadge remained stubbornly silent. Muttering a curse - in English, since a Betazoid curse tended to sound more musical - Jazz reached for her tricorder to see if she could figure out what what interfering with the signal. However, her fingers grasped at air. Her tricorder was gone. "Do you still have your tricorder?" she asked her companion hopefully.

Inwardly, Karyn cursed. She had been so concerned with her own needs that she had forgotten all about her tricorder. Praying silently, she searched the ground around her and discovered her tricorder was nowhere to be found. "It's not here, Jasmine. Someone must've taken it along with your tricorder."

"Ah, wonderful," Heloi muttered, "Well, looks like we're stuck with no way of contacting anyone nor with anyway of trying to figure out where we are in the complex or even if we're still in the complex, etc. Nothing like a little adventure to spice up the day."

"So Ms. Optimist," answered Dallas dryly, "What should we do now?"

"I guess we explore, and keep our fingers crossed that we'll get out of this gothic chamber of horrors," Jasmine suggested. The large room had four doors - each one was rimmed with a different symbol. The largest door was rimmed with a water-like motif, the smallest something reminiscent of flames, one had no symbol at all, and the last had something that reminded the Betazoid of stones. "Why do I get the feeling that not all of these doors lead to places we necessarily want to be?"

Karyn's laughter was low and tinny sounding as it bounced off the walls. "Because that would be just our luck."

Heloi smiled slightly as she decided to try for the 'watery' door. Maybe there would be something useful in there, like a way out. Somehow she doubted she would be that lucky.

"Alice in the Dark Room"

Ensign 8-ball Hunter

(takes place right after Alice and the Looking Glass)

When 8-ball was four years old, she had been subjected to one of those babysitters from Hell---the kind of sadistic, twisted fucks who agree to watch children less for the pocket money than for the pure joy of terrorizing the little ones. 8-ball's SIM (sick mother fucker) of a babysitter had been named Eddy, and he had been a fan of shutting her in the basement whenever he felt like it because he knew that she didn't like the dark. Everytime he locked her in, 8-ball would try frantically to open the door, and Eddy would taunt her for the next five minutes before leaving her alone to go play video games. She could still hear his voice, shrieky and high-pitched, come through the wall as she clutched at the door.

~Awww, are you scared, 'ittle baby? Are you afraid of the dark, dark room?~

Now, frantically trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness, 8-ball stood rooted to the same spot she had been standing for the last ten minutes, her hands clutching at the stone wall behind her. She listened to Eddy the Evil's voice in her head for a couple minutes and had a brief, irrational moment of wanting to throw him into this dark hellhole and see how he liked it. ~Are you gonna cry, 'ittle baby? Gonna cry?~ If Eddy the Evil had been stuck in this room after finding severed hands and rotting reflections, no doubt he'd be bawling like a baby for his momma to come home.

8-ball wanted to bawl like a baby to, but she needed to think. Tears wouldn't help her now. Neither would memories of evil babysitters long since gone.

~Focus, Alice~ 8-ball thought to herself. ~You need to get out of this room. No one's going to find you here~.

8-ball tried again to make shapes in the darkness, but there was nothing to see. She touched her hand to her face, her fingers brushing gently across her cheekbone and nose, and she still couldn't see them at all.  Something was keeping her eyes from adjusting to the darkness; she'd have to find a way out of this room blind as a bat.

~And to think all Alice had to deal with was strange food that said 'eat me' and 'drink me'~ 8-ball thought to herself. ~Stupid bitch gets all the luck.~ Then she shook her head. ~That does not count as focusing. Stop being bitter that you aren't a fictional character. You need to find your way out of this; there aren't any knights in your tale, and you aren't going to wake up to realize oh, auntie emm, you had such a wonderful dream.~

8-ball took a breath and then moved slowly to her right, her hands keeping contact with the wall behind her. She had to keep moving. . .she knew she wasn't going to be found in a room where you couldn't see two inches in front of you, much less two feet. Still, she wasn't going to move forward in the dark room without anything to hold on to. There could be snakes or fire pits or man-eating bunny rabbits awaiting her in the center. There could even have been a Duchess with a screaming baby-pig or a funky tea party with a really mad Mad Hatter. It was a much better idea to hold on to the wall and walk around the edges of the room until she found some door or window or secret tunnel to escape in. Here's to hoping it wasn't a gigantic, ballroom sized chamber.

8-ball inched to the right slowly, her breathing loud and too fast in her own ears. Her thoughts seemed fast too, slipping from subject to subject like water spilling down stairs, and she found herself thinking of how she got into this mess, that stupid sun mural ritual with that stupid Saul Bental.

"Surely find fun stuff to do on the planet, he said," 8-ball muttered to herself. "Archeological dig sites are more fun than theme parks, he said. If I make it out of here alive and I find that Saul made out okay too, I'm going to kill him. I'll throw him back in the room with the wacky evil mirror things. I'll throw him out in a vaccuum of space. I'll put him in a holodeck simulation with twenty Klingons who think he's killed their favorite auntie."

Plotting ways to murder Saul made 8-ball feel a little better, and her breathing started to slow down to something closer to normal. She had taken her third step and was thinking about shoving Eptgac down Saul's throat when her foot moved to the right, only to discover there was no ground there. 8-ball shrieked and moved backwards quickly, throwing herself off balance. She felt herself starting to fall and worked her arms like crazy in the darkness, trying to keep her center of balance. She ended up falling against the wall where she stayed frozen for a minute, her hands clutching at the stone and her breathing back to a state of hyperventilation.

When she got her breath back again, 8-ball swore. "Fucking Christ. So there are actually are parts of the room where the floor just sort of goes away. That's helpful." She stayed frozen, leaning against the wall for a minute, wondering what the hell to do. Suddenly waiting around for somebody to find her was  much more appealing. Still, she didn't think she could do it.

"All right," 8-ball said, "all right. I got about nine mini-mini steps from the door, so it should be three regular steps back to where the door ought to be." 8-ball took in a breath and then stepped three steps to the left. "Okay," she said. "Let's trying going this way." She slowly put one foot out towards the left and quickly discovered another lack of ground. "FUCK!" she screamed in frustration and pulled her foot back.

She tried tentatively to put her foot forward into the darkness. Again, there was nothing there. It looked like the only way to go was right. But that way ended in a dead end too.

She moved back over to where the door once was, tried to feel for it again as if it might have magically reappeared, and then moved over right to where she had been before she found the first gap of floor. Safety was three steps right from the door. Four steps and you got to drop. For all 8-ball knew, the drop might not even have been a long, plummeting kind, but 8-ball wasn't about to jump down and find out. Slowly, carefully, she tested the step in front of her.

There was ground.

"Thank Jesus Fucking Christ," 8-ball said and stepped fully forward once. She tested the edge again, and there was another step in front of her. She stepped onto it and started to count. "That was two," she said outloud, and then took another step. "Three. . .Four. . .Five. . ."

She tested the edge of the sixth step, found ground there, and started to put her weight on it. Instantly, the ground started to tremble and immediately gave way. 8-ball shrieked and pushed herself backward, windmilling her arms again in the darkness to try to keep herself on her feet. She manged to stay steady but only barely. If she had fallen a little too much to the right or left, she'd probably have died.

"Fuck!" she screamed. "Godfuckingdammit! Somebody help me! HELP ME!!!!!"

Nobody came. The room was silent. 8-ball clenched her fists and willed herself to calm down. When she got out of this fucking room alive, she could have all the hissy fits she wanted. Until then, screaming wasn't going to help, and if she managed to throw herself off balance by freaking out too much. . .well, that would just the dumbest way to die. She had to think. There had to be some form of. . .of. . .of fucking LOGIC, to it.

8-ball knew she was in dire times when she wanted logic on her side, but that was okay. If being logical would keep her alive, she could deal with a little rationality.

Of course, her idea of rational and other people's idea of rational wasn't exactly the same thing.

"Broadcasting all stations," she muttered in the darkness, trying to keep herself calm. It had been a habit of hers since childhood to talk to herself when she was alone and nervous; it was one of the things that kept her sane when Eddy the Evil had stuck her in the basement to fend for herself against whatever boogey-men might have been in the room. Now that she was alone and terrified in some alien, fucked up, torture chamber, she figured she was entitled to some definite freaked-out talkage.

"This is little lost Alice coming to you live from KXBX Weird-Fucking-Upside-Down-Wonderland. Currently we're in everybody's favorite dark room, where you take too many steps one way and you fall to your death, and when you take too many steps the other way, you likewise fall to your bloody demise. We're currently trying to come up with any kind of scenario that will get us out of here alive; those possible scenarios seem to be rather limited in number, however, so this happy ending idea seems a little less than likely."

She shook her head, as if such a thing could clear it. "There's gotta be some reason to it," 8-ball said. "There's got to be some kind of logic to it, some method to its madness, or likewise bullshit." She laughed drily in the dark. "Maybe there's a pattern to what steps you take. Three steps to the right, five steps to the front. . .do a little cha-cha, maybe some swing dancing while you're at it. I better hope I'm not supposed to be following steps to a dance, otherwise my ass might as well go down right now. I know about as many dance moves as I know Starfleet Protocol BS. Box step and Auto Destruct Sequences. Moshing and the Prime Directive. . .Prime Directive. . . three steps to the right. . .five steps forward. . . .seven steps right? Prime Directive. . .prime fucking numbers?"

8-ball inched her foot towards the right. There was nothing there. The only way to go was left and backwards. 8-ball tested the ground to the left, found it supposedly solid, and transfered her weight on to it. The ground didn't give way.

"Okay," 8-ball said, "okay. Let's pretend that maybe whoever built this dark room, this freakish pit without pendulum, nightmare that is my life. . .lets say it was built by a bunch of math geeks. All math geeks love prime numbers; like most English buffs like Shakespeare. The next prime number is seven. Six more steps."

8-ball took six, slow steps to the left. She tested out the next one. It seemed solid, but if her prime number idea was right, the step was a fake one. 8-ball bit her lip. She did not feel like taking a wrong step.

8-ball slowly stepped forward. Then again. Again. The floor did not cave under her. "Okay," she said. "Prime numbers it is."

8-ball moved forward the eleven steps. Then she moved 13 steps to the right and 17 steps forwards. When she put her hands out in front of her, trying to see if there was anything around her to hold on to, she was surprised to find a wall with a thin metal bar attached. After feeling around silently in the dark for a moment, 8-ball realized she was at a door.

If she pushed the bar hard enough, the door should open, and a new room should await. There was, of course, no way of telling what pieces of bodies or abyss-like floor planning she would find in this new room.

On the other hand, staying in the dark room with seventy-five million mini-pits wasn't appealing either. And she'd rather not wait around to see if the creepy reflections from the last room had learned to open doors.

She pushed the door forward, hard, and it swung open. Instantly light filled her eyes, blinding her, and she threw up her hands to cover her face. If a space-monster dragon thing was to charge her at that instant, she'd have no way of seeing it and protecting herself.

Luckily for her, no space-monster dragon awaited. Instead, as the light began to fade, a loud voice called out, "Welcome, to the next test."

Ensign T'Ashaya

The Aquatic Ruin Zone

= = =

The voice had told her it was a test. It seemed very much the voice of Poseiden to the Vulcan Tsunami. It spoke to her, only once, briefly, when she touched the base of the statue of the Water God after Jasmine and Karen Dallas left the room.

"Collect 100 rings and carry them to the finish line before time runs out. If you succeed, you shall gain your hearts desire. If you do not, succeed, this shall be your grave."

The Vulcan Tsunami then fell, as if from a great height, and landed amongst the ruins. The cuts and lacerations on her arms and legs were testimony to the seriousness of the situation.

All in all, T'Ashaya thought, things could be worse.

Sure, there were penguins in strange robotic suits with borer bits for noses and bunnies similarly clad as piranna chasing her through a combination Greek ruin, underwater labyrinth, and death trap. Sure, at every turn through the maze she faced spiked pits, precarious ledges that dropped away, and medieval maces twirling death through the corridors through which she swam. Sure, oxygen was always an issue as she swam along through the dimly lit ruined caverns, but in places oxygen bubbled up through the marble, black and white checkered, floor.

The place had it's patterns, though.

The maze itself proved reasonably straightforward, if deadly in its simplicity. The penguins and piranna bunnies, for example, could be deactivated by thumping them soundly on the head. The spiked traps operated on a timed schedule that could be observed within a span of several seconds, and generally allowed enough time for an individual to pass through, if they were quick about it. T'Ashaya also quickly learned to spot the places air bubbled up from the floor and breathed every time she found one.

Yes, she thought. It could be worse. I could be here and not know how to swim.

In some ways, T'Ashaya thought of it as a game, if a deadly game. She grabbed brass rings as she swam through the ruins at the best speed she could manage. She could not afford even the hint of hesitation or panic. She just didn't have the time.

Dodge the cyborg penguin. Swim past the mace while there was still time. She grabbed more rings. There was no time to count as she went. She just had to grab every one she saw and hope they were enough.

Bubbles. She needed to breathe, but T'Ashaya knew she would be vulnerable when she breathed. Seeing none of the mechanical terrors in the nearby water, T'Ashaya breathed deeply from the source.

She completely missed the piranna bunny lurking in the shadows by the last spinning mace. It bit deeply into her calf. Startled by the depth of the pain, the brass rings in her arms spiralled away from her.

T'Ashaya spun in the water, twisting to get a grip on the bear trap like jaws that snapped into her leg. Her fingers pried at the jaws. Time was running out.

Slowly, with great effort, T'Ashaya pried the jaws apart. She deactivated the piranna with a crushing blow. She needed air, but there were no bubbles nearby and she needed the rings more. The Vulcan officer set about the task of picking up the scattered rings, like a child grabbing candy from a burst pinata.

Don't panic, Shay, she told herself. Don't panic. Just grab them all up.

Her body ached. Her lungs cried for air. Never before had she felt so out of her element. Never before had she felt so Vulcan. She swam forward. The way back was blocked. She could feel the world growing dim.

Up ahead she spied light, the sparkle and play of water on the surface of the water. The way looked clear.

She had to be certain this time. No time for mistakes. Don't panic.

She spun around and checked carefully in all directions for evil robotic penguins and bunny piranna. There were some in the distance, but if she was just quick enough, she could make it.

With a burst of energy drawn from her reserves, T'Ashaya swam upwards. Her blonde head erupted through the surface of the water. She could see shore, see the finish line.

She staggered to her feet in the shallows, up the shore. Her injured leg refused to hold her. T'Ashaya went sprawling across the finish line.

Was she quick enough? Did she have enough rings?

"You have done well," the voice told her. "One hundred rings and ten seconds to spare. Name your heart's desire."

A thought lept unbidden into the young Vulcan woman's mind.

"T'Ashaya of Vulcan, daughter of Sorrell and T'Lis, bond mate of Sef," the voice thundered, "Your will is DONE."

The world started to spin around the Vulcan Tsunami. She could almost hear her older brother, Samek. "What did you do, Shay?"

The Vulcan Tsunami did the only logical thing to do, given the situation. She panicked.

"Alice and the Not-Quite Sphinx"

(takes place directly after "Alice in the Dark Room")

8-ball Hunter

8-ball slowly lowered her hands from her face as the blinding light faded into something a little less blinding. 8-ball unconsciously stepped out of the doorway into the new room and the door shut behind her. "Dammit," she muttered. "It keeps doing that." Then she looked around her new surroundings.

The new room that 8-ball had discovered had neither mirrors nor pits, but it was nonetheless not a place one would hope to spend a summer holiday. It was depressingly cold, for one thing, and also had an aura of definite freakishness about it. The aura may have come from the very large statues around the room, all with very sharp looking swords in their cold, marble hands. The fact that all of these swords were blood-stained didn't help matters, and the bloody lumps that might have once resembled human bodies lying in the corners of the room definitely didn't help matters. 8-ball stayed very still as she watched the statues silently. Those long swords that were more red than silver gave her the definite idea that not all statues stayed still.

8-ball looked around the room, trying to pinpoint the speaker of the voice, but there was nobody else there. The room was much more rectangular than square, and the stone floor was broken into uneven, gray tiles. The tiles straight ahead of her, however, were multicolored, the first few blue, the next set red, then green, then white. The colored tiles led to a door not twenty five paces from where she stood. She got the uncomfortable feeling, though, that if she tried to cross those tiles and open the door, there would be some nice, red swords to give her a push.

8-ball decided not to find out. She waited for the voice but whoever had spoken earlier did not speak again. Finally she asked, "Who are you? And for that matter, where are you, and why am I here, and what test are you talking about?"

The voice laughed in a not entirely uncreepy manner. "Can you not see me, Little One? I can see you."

"Yeah, well that must be dandy," 8-ball said. "But I guess I'm just not as cool as you. Are you actually somewhere in this room, or does this place come handy with freaky statues and nifty secret video cameras?"

"I am in the room," the voice said. "I am everywhere. I am M'lshnok, God of the Underworld. And you are here to participate in a series of tests."

"I don't remember volunteering," 8-ball said sourly. She kept her voice calm, as if talking to some alien God of the Underworld (if that's who he really was) wasn't an intimidating idea. "Don't I get a choice about these things?"

"If you refuse the test, the game will have ended, and I am afraid your life will be forfeited. Do you wish this to happen?"

8-ball took in a breath. Threats to her life did that everytime. "Not especially," 8-ball said. "I kind of like living my life. What kind of test are we talking about here?"

"A test of intelligence, of quick-thinking, of creativity. You have already been through two tests, you know. The first test was in the room with the glass mirrors. It was a test of psychology, of seeing of what frightened you more. Whether you feared the unknown, of what you could not see, or what was coming for you, coming through the death crystal. . ."

"Death crystal," 8-ball muttered. "Neat phrase."

8-ball couldn't see M'lshnok but she had a feeling it was frowning because of the interruption. "There are many, you know, who wouldn't have entered that room of darkness, who would have been compelled to stay and fight enemies which could be seen. They also may have stayed because they wouldn't believe their eyes, and were determined to prove that they couldn't be fooled by cheap illusions."

"Well, I'm not one of those kind of people," 8-ball said. "I like to see my opponent, sure, but when they're coming out of a mirror all gooey and rotting, yeah, I'll run wherever the fuck I can. And maybe I should have stayed, to prove that I could take it, but hey, you know, I'm just a sucker for cheap illusions." She was quiet for a minute and then asked, "So, you've done this before, stuck people in that room? How many people actually stayed in that creepshow mirror place?"

"A few," M'lshnok said. "We cleaned up the remnants. Most of them, anyway."

8-ball remembered the severed hand she had seen very, very vividly. "And how many people fell to their deaths in the Dark Room?"

"More than a few," M'lshnok replied. "All logical people, understanding of mathematics and science, and yet their logical processes were shattered by simple fear. The Dark Room, as you call it, is both a test of mathematical intelligence and performance under pressure. It's very interesting to study what happens to the mind under pressure."

"Yeah, I'll bet that's a real hoot," 8-ball muttered under her breath. "So, what's next?"

"You agree, then, to the challenge?"

"What choice do I have?" 8-ball asked back. "Go play hop skotch in the fun, dark, death room? The only way I'm getting out is through this next door, and I suppose you won't just let me pass."

"No," M'lshnok said. "I won't." As if to emphasize the point, the two statues standing next to the door began to glow. Then, they lifted their swords above their heads. Then, they stepped forward.

8-ball immediately stepped backward. "Okay, okay. I get the picture. Tell me the rules of this test."

"I will ask you riddles that you must answer correctly; I will only ask five, no more. Each time you answer a riddle correctly, you may move forward to the next set of colored tiles. You will notice that there are only four sets of colored tiles; therefore, you may get one riddle wrong and still pass the test. However, if you guess wrong more than once, you will have failed, and no more chances will be afforded to you."

"What happens if I fail?" 8-ball asked, even though she had a pretty good idea. The bloody lumps of bodies around the room were certainly an indication.

"Then you will die," M'lshnok said simply, and though it was a predictable response from the god of the underworld, 8-ball felt like crying anyway. She didn't and took another deep breath.

"All right," she said. "What happens if I make it? Do I get to do some more wacky fun experiments?"

"No," M'lshnok said, "at least, not alone. If you are intelligent enough to answer my riddles, the door will open and you will find others of whom you should know. That is, assuming they are all still alive, of course. There are many who are not worthy of the life which they have been given."

"I may not be worthy," 8-ball said, "but at least I'm pretty." It was a nonsensical reply but M'lshnok seemed to find it amusing. He laughed long and hard. Long enough, actually, to where it got annoying. "Can the chortling and start the game, Milshy. Give good old Alice your riddles so she can get the fuck home."

M'lshnok only laughed harder. "This is your home, Alice," he said, apparantly not catching the allusion to the wacky world of Wonderland. "These are the last walls you will ever see, the last place you will ever know. Are you so eager to die?"

"I'm eager to get the fuck away from you," 8-ball said, trying to make her voice sound a lot stronger than she felt. "Ask me your questions, Bridgekeeper. I am not afraid."

M'lshnok was apparantly not any more aware of Monty Python than he was of Alice in Wonderland, so he missed the joke. Instead, he began on his first riddle. "This thing runs but cannot walk, sometime sings but never talks. Lacks arms, has hands; lacks a head but not a face. What is it?"

8-ball blinked. Twice. "Runs but cannot walk. . ." she said quietly to herself. "Sings but never. . .is there a time limit on my answer, Milshy?"

"There is none," M'lshnok said, "save the time it takes your body to dehydrate and wither. If this is the death you prefer, say nothing. There shall be no attack, and you shall stand there many days before you die."

"Somehow, that's not very encouraging," 8-ball told him and then went back to musing. "Lacks arms, has hands. . .what has hands without arms other than certain very unique species? They usually have faces AND heads, though, and this has a face with no head. . . .emotion, maybe, like greed, or. . .no, this can sing but can't talk, run but not walk. . .a face. . .headless face. . ." 8-ball tried to be grateful that she had time. There was no pressure to solve this riddle in under a minute. Of course, the pressure of getting it wrong was still very, very heavy. She was suddenly very glad that there wasn't some sort of clock in the room, ticking down the minutes, letting her know just how much longer she had to keep breathing.

Ticking down the minutes. . .runs but never walks. . .hands facing toward the hour. . .a face without a head. . .

"A clock," 8-ball said, and instantly cursed herself for not considering it longer.

M'lshnok laughed. "Very good, Alice," he said, and 8-ball breathed a sigh of relief. "You may step forward."

8-ball stepped on to the blue squares. "Next question," she said, still trying not to sound as shaky as she felt. "I'm all ready for you."

"We shall see. Here is your next riddle: Walk on the dead, they don't even mumble. Walk on the living, they mutter and grumble."

The riddle caught 8-ball by surprise "Hey!" she said. "Hey! I know that one, I know that one! Yeah, that was one of the riddles Big Man stumped me with, and I told him it was stupid, and he said yeah, but it sounded cool. Oh, man, I so know it, it's leaves, no, I mean, it's fallen leaves. Fallen leaves."

"Correct again," M'lshnok said, his voice still smug. "Very impressive. The last scientist that walked your steps guessed incorrectly. He shortly lost his head after that. Literally."

8-ball wanted to say that she felt herself grow cold, but infact the opposite happened. She felt warm, as if suddenly aware of all the blood in her body, mortal and waiting to be spilt. Sweat started to bead on her forehead. "Intimidation ploys aren't fair," she said as she stepped to the green tiles. "Next riddle."

"No sooner spoken than broken."

"Huh? I mean, that's the riddle?"

"It is." M'lshnok sounded very pleased with himself. 8-ball wanted to find his little underworldly god head and break it in half but since that would most likely only result in her own death, she kept still. No sooner spoken than broken. Spoken then broken. . . .

It sounded like some kind of metaphysical, new-agey, happy life force kind of riddle to her. Love, maybe? If you talked about love, it wasn't really love but broken? That didn't make any kind of sense at all but she didn't get this riddle. Words were said but couldn't be broken by saying them. Objects were broken but by heaving them into a brick wall, not by saying the name of the object. A wish, maybe? 8-ball's father had always told her that if you said your wish out loud, it wouldn't come true. If the wish was spoken, was it broken? It kind of made sense.

That, of course, did not mean it was the right answer. 8-ball closed her eyes and thought of her father, long dead for all these years. He had been kind. He had been generous. He had meant the world to her.

She wished she wouldn't have to see him for a very, long time. She did not want to die anytime soon.

She didn't speak her wish outloud. Wishes spoken soon are broken. She took a breath and then guessed, "A wish,". She kept her eyes shut.

"Incorrect," M'lshnok said, and 8-ball could tell that he was grinning. "Silence is the true answer."

~Fuck~ 8-ball swore in her mind. Then, ~Fuck, fuck FUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKK!!!~

She should have known that. How obvious could it have been? If you speak, there's no silence. Silence is broken with sound. GodFUCKINGdammit! How could she have been so stupid?

M'lshnok was laughing. "You have used your only free riddle," he said. "If you guess incorrectly again, you shall die."

"Stick your riddles up your immnipotent ass," 8-ball replied, still too angry to be cautious. She expected deadly silence or more death threats but M'lshnok only continued to laugh. ~You laugh more than any God of the Underworld I ever met~ 8-ball thought to herself but she kept quiet and counted to ten. When she realized that wasn't going to help any, she counted further, and by 45 she was calm enough again to not insult the god holding her prisoner. "Give me the next riddle," 8-ball said, "and let's get this over with."

"It will be over with sooner than you wish," M'lshnok said. Before 8-ball could come up with any kind of witty reply, he spoke his next riddle. ""The man who made me didn't use me. The man who bought me didn't want me. The man who used me didn't know it."

8-ball blinked. Again.

~Oh fuck~ 8-ball thought. ~I'm going to die.~

"A Heart in the Dark"

Lieutenant J.G. Saul Bental

The darkness was a sharp contrast to the searing light the mural cast.

Saul was half awake, half asleep. For how long, he didn't know. But after only a couple of hours of sleep yesterday, this wasn't such a bad thing.

Maybe he ought to sleep forever.

A short time and an eternity ago, he promised two special ladies to make up his mind about them. He promised to sleep over it, and didn't. Now, as he was half lying, half floating in darkness, he had all the time in the universe to think of them. At first, he tried to resist, and to devise a way to escape where he was.

But, despite all efforts, and against his basic instincts of survival, he became more and more groggy, and his mind kept traveling back to two beautiful faces, two souls who were so different, and yet so much alike.

Naranda he knew first. When he asked to accompany her to her homeplanet of Sakaria, he couldn't imagine what it may lead to. Somewhere during the trip – perhaps in her house in the village, perhaps in his solo trip to the trade center, perhaps during the cruise he took her to – she stole a piece of him, god knows how.

Be practical, Saul told himself. This girl wasn't for him. She was zealous to her people, her beloved Sakaria (And she wasn't even Sakarian for Q's sakes!, Saul mentally remarked) cherished by her more than any love she could ever have. Plus, she could get so irritating, so unpredicted. Like she was trying to pick a fight, or at least ending up in one whenever Saul did something she didn't completely like.

She was stubborn alright. Like a true princess is ought to be.

And if that's not enough, Saul's connection with her got him to a pile of Yridian Frostmole excrement. He came out relatively well from his complex maneuver between those who wanted her dead and the need to keep her alive. Maybe, for the sakes of their careers, he should severe the connection between them, not to make it look as though their love – was it love? – clouded their judgment. Already rumours were starting to spread throughout the Galaxy, rumours he didn't have the will to face.

Ah, and she had an adopted daughter now, sort of. Saul never saw himself as a father. He was still a teenage kid in the streets of Utrecht III, trying a new stunt in order to keep his head above the slimy sewers. He wasn't going to take responsibility of another person, let alone a kid.

Well, that was it, no? Quite simple, decision by elimination?

Only that it wasn't. He thought he had every chance to turn his back on Naranda, but he didn't. In their last conversation between beaming down, something new happened. The princess stepped out of the palace of her soul, removing the robes of zealousness, stubbornness and anger, and became something else.

She told him.

After everything was uncertain between them, and after months they kept it that way, she opened up and told him.

It took her effort, but it was genuine and true. Saul knew it was true. He knew for a while now what the she felt toward him, but the cards were never put on the table.

Yes, she was zealous, but wasn't Saul too, about his own agenda? Yes, she was stubborn, and not as easy going as Branwen. She could be a headache, and other different kinds of pains, but even the sweetest chocolate could make your teeth ache.

And you would still eat it.

Maybe the difficulty is what drew Saul. Nara was much more difficult than Branwen, no doubt, but perhaps that's what drew him to her?

It wasn't a fair thing to say toward Branwen. Saul thought about the situation in which they met; The young marine appeared even younger in their dream as Saul emerged in it. She was what, thirteen, twelve? In her house in Wales, alone in her room, moments before her father came in and hit her.

Saul was her knight on the white horse then, literally. He and Tizarin took the marine-to-be outside that horrible house, to enjoy her Christmas at least a little.

Saul always told about himself in psychological interviews, that beneath all the layers of scheming, devising and other funny traits, there was quite a simple romantic fellow. You can't expect to put a romantic guy in armor, on a white horse, with a lady that needs saving – without him falling in love with her.

So what was wrong with Branwen?

She was bright, a fully certified psychologist in her young age. She was beautiful, stunningly beautiful, more beautiful than anything Saul could ask for himself. And she loved him. Unlike Nara, she told him from the start.

He remembered sitting with her on the beach, or in that castle on the Holodeck where she played the harp for him. The delicate notes mixed with the delicate strands of her sily hair as it moved with the music. Unlike Nara, for her love was simple.

But was it too simple?

Maybe Saul really needed to get it the hard way. Maybe life got him used to not gaining anything valuable without effort. Maybe he just couldn't appraise gifts given for free.

When they were on the beach, when she kept telling him that she was his girlfriend, she seemed obsessed. It was almost as though she didn't see him, but the concept of having a boyfriend. Did he really want that? Someone who didn't really see him? Who was in love with what, with a knight from the legends?

Saul knew that he wasn't a knight. In his opinion, the only chivalrous thing he ever did was joining Starfleet, and even then it was because of his wonderlust, and the freedom and protection being a Starfleet officer granted him. And indeed, for two years he was free from the chains of his agenda, his family.

But he was chained again. The meeting between the fish restaurant on Trill accelerated him on an unavoidable collision course. Some would say it was fate.

Saul didn't believe in fate. He believed in taking actions and getting a result. Perhaps, indeed, that's what scared him with Branwen. He did nothing to gain her affection; Perhaps that meant he could loss it as easily.

But did it bother him that much?

And Nara, was it that difficult to say no to her, after all that happened on Trill? After saving her nearly made his career hit rock bottom?

And worse, was it such a good idea to tie himself with any of them, now that the autumn was getting close?

He knew that eventually, if he chooses one of them, he'll either abandon her or let go of everything that pushed him forward in the last seven years, if not more.

Was it really that bad? To lose your purpose, your agenda, for a new one? To drop everything for love?

Saul sighed inwardly.

You needed to know which love was it first, before you decide to let it go or not.

In his mind's eye, he portrayed Branwen. Her pretty face slightly furrowed as she concentrated in playing the harp, yet the eyes were two lakes of tranquility just asking for the visitor to drown himself in.

And then it shifted, and it became's Nara's face, shadowed by the hood of her cloak. The two brown eyes peeked at him, curious and bold, righteous and loving, and all he had to do was to take a step forward, remove the hood and kiss her.

And then there were the third face in their place, or perhaps a face wasn't the exact description. How can an idea have a face?

And Branwen again.

And Nara.

Soon, the colorful flashes before his eyes became too hard to bare. He became dizzy, and moved from side to side like a child lost in nightmares.

Until finally, everything slowed down and a portal opened up in the darkness.

And Saul made his stupid decision of the day, and stepped forward.

Bravo Team: "Continuation"

The blue man finally sprung forward nearly choking Klaus, "Run...RUN!" He started convulsing and fell back to the ground on his chest, revealing another grevious wound on his back. He was completely limp, and scans showed that every last life function had ceased. It was as if he survived only long enough to give that final message. The question is though, "Why?"

"Shit." Branwen said softly. This did spook her a little. "We have to stay together, people. Any other life signs, doc?"

"One step ahead of you. I'm getting...a Human, slightly different. Probably from a colony world. His lifesigns are stronger, so I'm very surprised I didn't pick him up early." Klaus tapped his combadge, mumbled, and the body dematerialized. He then motioned tot her to continue.

"Lead me to him. And everybody be extra careful." Branwen said softly.

"Around this corner...then down that corridor, straight down."

Branwen went in that direction phaser at the ready, they had no idea if this person was hostile or not.

The man's arm was bleeding considerably, but for the most part he seemed alert. And at first, rational.

"Stay Calm! We're here to help you!"

"THen why the hell are you pointing those infernal weapons at me!"

"Nobody is shooting." Branwen said in a soothing voice trying to calm him down. "We just want to know who you are, and how you got here. I am Lieutenant London, Starfleet Marine Corps."

"Professor Alexston Duval. Archaeologist, and professor of Xeno-Archaeology at Cambridge University on Earth. You wouldn't be able to understand the wonders I've seen Jarhead."

"try me, professor Duval." Branwen said quietly.

"You must understand...I barely understand what has happened to me."

"Please. Let me look at your arm."

Dr. Duval allowed himself to be examined....reluctantly.

"This is strange. Branwen, this wound is not an energy weapon wound. From the looks of it, it's from a projectile weapon."

"Very Astute...doctor."

Klaus sighed angrily. "May I ask if you have any medical experiance?"

Duval shook his head. "Then let ME make those assesments WITHOUT snide comments!"

"Professor, please tell us exactly what happened while the doctor treats you."

"Well, I found myself in a strange part of the temple. Insane wonders abounded...I can't describe many...but the wound..I'm not sure."

"Are there any more survivors?"

"Other than Tranax, a bolian, none that I've seen so far."

"Who did this to you? How many, and are they still after you?" She asked next.

"I don't Know! I don't know! It was...I can't describe it..."

"Take it easy. You are safe now." She looked at the doctor. "Let's have him beamed back to the ship, and then we can continue."

["Ok, One to transport, he has a wound from a projectile weapon on his left forearm.?"]

A beep and a verbal acknowledgement saw the professor dematerialize.

"And move on we shall."

Klaus whipped out his tricorder and went about scanning.

Branwen waited for a moment to see if the doctor would come up with something before they started to move again. And she informed baile of what had happened.

"Well. Thats strange." Klaus wandered off to the side. "Unusual readings...wait..wait. They're gone."

"What do you mean?" Branwen said coming closer. "Disappeared?"

"Not sure. Hold on a moment." Klaus peeked around a corner foolishly and rounded it completely. Before he could say anything, darkness overtook his eyes. He screamed out, but no one heard, and he fell into unconsciosness.

"Doc?"Branwen said as he disappeared before her eyes. "What the he...." Was all she managed to say before she also began to shimmer and disappear.

"Testing To Destruction, Part 4"

Principle Characters

Lt (JG) Victor Krieghoff
Lt. Ella Grey

*****

Mirusa VI
Somewhere Inside The Temple Complex
Two Hours and Twenty-Five Minutes Ago

"Victor!" Ella shrieked in a mixture of fear and frustration. Not that she didn't love the man, but she was sick of crying his name for the umpteenth time.

Victor coughed and waved his hands to clear the cloud of smoke that had surrounded him when whoever it was that monitored the deadly rooms had shorted out his battle uniform. He winced at the feel of the uniform abrading the burns he'd collected underneath it, and made a mental note to add some comments on the lack of shielding to protect the wearer in the event of a catastrophic systems failure when he filed his report to the Quartermaster Corps.

She didn't know where he was - he had to be okay; it all had to be an optical illusion - and she was still being lowered into the fire. What was fricking wrong with these people, her mind screamed in protest, as Ella really started to feel the heat of the flames.

She sat up again and drew a breath, thinking that this was a real bad idea but that her options were limited. She hit the release.

Like she thought, she started to fall.

Victor frowned as he stepped out of the cloud of smoke that hung there as if suspended in time. He wasn't certain why the masters of this death-maze wanted smoke to float in one spot without dissipating, and frankly didn't care; it was in his way, so he moved through it... in time to see Ella flying. Or falling. Or something like one of those. All six of her.

Like previously mentioned, Ella's internal narrator motioned, the human body could do some real funky stuff when the adrenaline kicked in.

Ella managed to somehow grab onto the lowering chain before she fell.

Now it was a matter of climbing up the thing. She wasn't sure what she would do once she reached the top. Hopefully not die.

"Victor," Ella yelled as she climbed. "I do NOT give you permission to be blown into little bits. You rearrange yourself right now and get back here!"

"I'm fine, Grey," he replied to the area roughly in the center of the six Greys that were climbing their chains. The burns didn't matter, they were second degree at most and he could ignore them if he needed to.

Pain was an old friend, after all. As long as he was your friend, you were still alive. It was only when he packed up and left that you knew you were in trouble.

"That's great, Tiger. Now what do I do, I'm running out of chain here!"

"It would help if I knew which one of you to save, Grey." Victor tried blinking, but that failed to reduce the number of Greys he had to deal with.

She didn't answer as she was too busy telling her muscles that they would continue to work despite the pain. Maybe he took that as she needed clarifying as he said: "I see... six of you, Grey. All climbing. All yelling."

All of her was going to be barbequed in a minute too, if she didn't figure out what to do. What, did they have an endless supply of chains up there? They just kept lowering. Gritting her teeth she tried to look around as she climbed. "I think I'm going to have to jump."

"Jump where?" Victor asked as he shook his head and tried to get his vision back under control. "You won't make the edge here unless I catch you, and I can't sort out which one of you is which."

"Focus your eyes." Ella said as she looked over her shoulder. "I'm right..."

Below her were six or seven Victors, all squinting upwards. "Right," Ella scowled.

"Right? You're one of the ones on the right?" Victor swiveled, causing all the other Victors to swivel. "Which right? Mine or yours?"

"I see multiples of you as well," she explained as she climbed. "Mirrors, maybe?"

Victor looked again and shook his head. "No. Projections of some kind, synchronized to us. Something like you'd see in the holodeck, except a bit cleaner - I can't see a delay the image processing is so clean."

"Well you can find the projector and shut it down but I don't know what I should do."

"Keep climbing," he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

All the Ella's shot him a look.

The myriad of Victors looked over the edge of the pit. "The chains seem to be pooling up down there," they observed. "Might mean they were finite in length and that you'll reach an end."

"Good because my arms are getting tired."

"Or they could suddenly let loose and start to run freely," he continued.

"I'd rather not think of that if it's all the same to you." Ella gasped, her arms screaming at her. Why oh why hadn't she been a triathlon contender as a child instead of an operatic prodigy? "I'm going to have to jump eventually."

Victor scowled and closed his eyes to think. He could... no, that wouldn't work. Maybe he could... No, that wouldn't work, either. He took a deep breath... and suddenly smiled. "No you won't."

"Care to explain that?" Ella panted, deciding that, should she survive, she was treating herself to a day at the spa and a longer day spending money in various department stores.

Without answering, the six Victors all shook themselves once, as if loosening their joints for action and stepped up to the edge of the pit.

She looked back at the man perched at the edge of the pit. "What are you doing now?"

"Coming to get you, Grey," they all answered - and stepped out into empty air.

"Uh....what?" pt.1

Lt.Dr. Klaus Fienberg
CMO, USS Galaxy

And introducing Lt.Cmdr. Andrew C. Arrigoni
Former Chief Engineer of the USS Hood II. Sort of a spirit guide.

Klaus slowly drifted to consciousness, his eyes opening. The Cave chamber was different than the one he'd seen before. In fact it looked like it was totally intact.

The red uniforms threw Klaus off for a moment.

"What the..where...Who?"

The gangly lanky man walked over to Klaus and helped him up.

"Hey. 'sup?"

Klaus was thrown aback by the absolute leisure the man had. "I have alot of questions, and all you have to answer is a very informal greeting?"

"Yea..I'm...kinda like that. I'll answer, but what the hell kind of starfleet uniform is that? I ain't never seen one like that before."

"It's standard issue field combat dress. They didn't want everyone running around in Tactical-armor, so everybody but Hazard team and Marine personel got these."

"Ok...But I have never heard of Tactical armor, unless you mean those gaudy armor vests and helmets security officers sometimes gotta wear."

"What? What in the world are you talking about?"

"I just thought of something name, Rank, and current years of Service."

"Ok. Lieutenant Klaus Fienberg, Service years as a commissioned officer are from 2374 to the current year, which is 2382."

This blew the man away. "Crap......Lt. Cdr. Andrew C. Arrigoni. 2268 to 2279."

The man seemed completely distraught. "I've been here over a hundred years...after what appeared to be my death. Well..anyways....ok..I figure...crap."

"Hmm..Well, ok. I...uh.."

They stood there silent for a short time. "Well, all I can figure Is I gotta get you out of here. To accomplish what I nearly did, but failed to do thanks to a fucking klingon raider....C'mon. I'm not sure where to start....but We'll see."

Klaus nodded, he wasn't sure what to do, so listneing to the guy who obviously knew the ropes long enough for them to rot right in his hands sounded like the right plan.

OOC: Sorry about the long wait for this post gang, I was working hard on trying to make it seem as ralistic as I could by going to two of my major influences for this post. So please, pardon the mess as I present..

"A whisper in the storm"

AKA part 1 of the Gamma Team's mission.

Featuring the GAMMA TEAM:

2Lt. Greg Ward (APC: Wil) Blue Team Commander/ARC Field Operations/SFMC-USS Galaxy

Cpl. Richard Simmons (NPC) ARC Operative/SFMC-USS Galaxy

LncCpl. Grace Waldron (NPC) ARC Operative/Recon/SFMC-USS Galaxy

PFC Leonard Church (NPC) ARC Operative/Sniper/SFMC-USS Galaxy

PFC Franklin Donut (NPC) ARC Operative/Infantry/SFMC-USS Galaxy

***************************************

Location: Mirusa VI

Second Lieutenant Greg Ward was standing with the other members of the ARC branch of the Galaxy's marine division. Each member was getting extra power packs as Tish and Johnson was giving out the rest of the team's orders and Greg watched the young andorian woman for a few seconds before turning back to Church who handed him three extra power packs. The small group of troopers then started moving towards one of the other entrances of the pyrimid, using the pelicans as cover until they reached the entrance, the five man unit then started heading down into the tunnel.

Grace was on point with Donut backing her up, the light-beacon on her BR-55 rifle and was using it to light her way as Donut followed up behind her, his own BR-55 had it's light-beacon off and his S2-AM sniper rifle that was stored in the mini-transporter buffer in Donut's "Sneak Suit". Greg followed up with his M7 at the ready, keeping the two ARCs ahead of him covered with Church behind him and Simmons behind Church with a M90 Assault Shotgun. The entire team was being very quiet with the only sound being the DC-12a that was softly slapping against Simmons left thigh. Suddenly, Grace held up a hand and then moved to the side while keeping her BR-55 aimed down the passage way which sloped down suddenly, then she held up one finger and then made a sweeping motion which made Donut move up as he changed from the BR-55 to his sniper rifle with which he aimed it down the corridor. Greg moved forward while Church and Simmons kept his six covered.

"What do you have for me, Wolf?" Greg asked, using Grace's sometimes nickname and the shorter woman smirked.

"My sensor picked up some DNA threads which means that some Hydrans came this way but the trail continues down that corridor, Snake. I wasn't sure if you wanted me to just amble down there or not, you know?" Grace explained with a wicked smile on her face which made Greg smirk in return. But before Greg could say anything, there was a clicking noise which made Greg snap his M7 up into a ready position.

"What do you have for me, Mantis?" Greg said as he moved over to the younger marine who pointed down the corridor.

"At the base of the corridor, I have spotted something that looks like blast marks, looks fairly recent also." Donut said which then made Greg do a snap with his fingers and that made the ARCs gather around him.

"Alright, I want to do this by the numbers. One recon with one fire and then we go two one two down that corridor. Which means Wolf and Raven followed by me then Mantis and Ocelot. Go." Greg said as he raised his M7 up and the small squad of troopers moved very quickly and quietly down the slope with their weapons trained and looking around and they saw a tremendous amount of energy damage. Greg looked over at Simmons who was already scanning thoe blast marks.

"Snake, it looks like these were made by a hydran weapon, about the same power level as one of their disruptors." Simmons said after scanning the blast marks.

"Hmm, good job Mantis. I still think that something strange is going on here and that we've only seen a small fraction of it." Greg said as he placed a hand on the sholder of one of his friends before he started moving down the hallway to where Grace was looking at her own tricorder. "What do you have Wolf?" Greg asked and the younger woman turned to regard her CO.

"Well, according to some of these glyphs and from what the Galaxy's database has records on, it seems that the Hydrans have some really weird connections to a massive holy icon base from what I can tell sir." Grace explained as she geastured with the hand that held her tricorder.

"Well...that's interesting, Wolf. But does it help to explain what the Boss wanted us to find?" Greg asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well basically what it means is that we are on what the Hydrans would consider holy land and while we may be on a search and rescue, but I think that they have a definate and understandable beef with us being here." Grace explained to Greg as Donut came ambling over.

"So us being in this place is kind of a major afront to them with Doctor Jenirco and his team taking all of the icons and such out of the tombs and temples is akin to those who started the Crusades back on ancient Earth during those dark ages over in the lands of Jerulseum you dig?" Donut said in one of his few moments of utter understanding which made the members of the ARC team look at each other and then they all nodded and Greg activated his secure com-link to the andorian senior marine.

"This is Lieutenant Ward to Lieutenant A'Akledoria. Ma'am, we still haven't found what the hydrans are looking for but we have found out a reason why the hydrans are so damn keen about keeping us out and off of this rock. It seems that we've trespased big time on one of their holy sites. That is probally why they have their panties in such a big fracking knot you know?" Greg said into the channel which was scrambled and encrypted so that it would only go to the First Lieutenant's comm and no one else's.

"However, we are still continuing our mission. Five by Five, ARC Command out." Greg said as he closed the channel and then motioend for his team to get around and head out as they started moving deeper into the temple in search of something that only the hydrans knew for certain was there.

"The Plan"

Maj Corran Rex
Flight Officer Teyri Jen

*****

Jen rubbed her temples in disbelief. "Okay, now wait a second. You're telling me that you want to -"

"Exactly." he cut her off. "What, Two, never done anything like that before?"

"You know, I've got to admit, I was told that you were a crazy son of a bitch. I'm gonna have to call my source and let them know that they were right about you. And hell, no, I've never done anything like this before, and I'm not going to believe you for a second if you tell me you have." Jen shook her head in frustration. "Well, at least it'll be a story. I mean, how many people you know can boast they've done this?"

"Uhmn, no one." he replied as he brought his fighter up to the flat portion of the nacelle strut, where it joined to the secondary hull. Before him loomed the rear collection of sensor embankments, viewing galleries, the fighter bay, and the aft torpedo tubes.

There was a soft thud as the fighters set down on Galaxy's hull. "Engage magnetic locks on docking gear and suit up."

His first plan had been to go EV and then use one of the airlocks to gain entry. But then, if the Hydrans had somehow taken or disable the ship, that wasn't going to be possible.

She flicked the appropriate switch and felt, rather then heard, the clunk of the magnetic locks setting in place to keep the fighter attached to hull of the Galaxy. She was already suited up, and all she was missing was the helmet, then she was good to go. She pulled on her heavy gloves, to insulate her hands, and then lifted the helmet up from where it hung behind her. She fitted it over her head, and then locked it into place.

Jen turned her head, checking her visibility, and making sure that the heads up display was working properly. All lights glowed green.

She hit the com switch on her suit, checking the connection over to Rex. "Okay, Lead, ready when you are."

"Opening canopy." he replied over the open comm. The cockpits of both fighters lifted up, the atmosphere that had been contained therein flowing out to the void in a rush.

Corran's breath felt heavy against his faceplate. As much as he enjoyed empty space from the cockpit of a starfighter, going EV was something completely different. One of his past hosts had been seriously crippled by a fear of it, and he'd be lying if he didn't admit that part of his symbiont was coming through pretty clearly right now.

Remembering his zero-gee training, he slowly maneuvered himself out of the cockpit, until his boots were resting against the Galaxy's hull. "Activating magnetic boots." he said - just a little too quickly, possibly betraying his nervousness.

Not a good thing, in front of the new kid.

Jen followed suit, making sure not to move too quickly and get a reaction that she was expecting. It was fairly simply to push herself out of the fighter and float down to the hull of the Galaxy, and then activate her magnetic boots. She took a moment to look around, savoring the feeling of being out in the black once again. She wasn't one of those who couldn't "hack the black" as she'd once heard it called, and she took every opportunity she could to go out into space. Admittedly, there were many. Captains and commanders seemed to frown on too many of their crew going outside the ship when it wasn't absolutely necessary.

She turned her head to look at Rex, having to move her entire upper body to work with the stiffness of the suit. She smiled, seeing that he looked just a little green around the gills - or would that be spots? - and was resolutely *not* looking out past the hull of the ship.

Deciding not to help prolong the space walk, especially since they still had no clue what was going on inside, she jerkily walked over to him.

"Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do?" she asked him, just to make sure.

"No other choice," he finally replied, as they reached their destination - the aft torpedo tube. "We don't know what the tactical situation is in the ship, so none of the normal ways in are going to be any good."

"We go up the tube though, and there's no airlocks. Just a magnetic containment field like shuttle bays use to keep the atmo in. So.. in theory... it'll just be a bit of a crawl. Then we can try to figure out what's going on from the torpedo bay."

"Yeah, see, it's that 'in theory' that's making me just a little twitchy. That, and I don't know if you noticed, but there is a Hydran battle cruiser hanging in space - right over there, as a matter of fact - and inside the torpedo tube is probably going to be the last place we are going to want to be, if push comes to shove with them. But, lead on, and I'll follow."

"Well, yes." he admitted as he entered the torpedo tube. "If they were to fire while we were in here, that would be a very bad thing. However, the Hydran ship is fore of the Galaxy, and not aft of it, so it's worth the risk."

"Yeah, well," she replied, crawling in right after him, "it wouldn't be that hard for them to come in from behind us.

"You always this negative?" Corran grinned as the continued up the long tube. "Trust me."

"Why does that phrase always seem to fill me with dread?" she said back. "Especially when it's said in that tone of voice."

The tunnel seemed to go on forever. Jen could peer around Rex and see that it didn't look as though they were making any sort of headway whatsoever. His helmet light lit up the immediate area in front of them - although it wasn't like they were going to get lost in here, she thought to herself - but did no good further up.

Her light was even more useless, as all it illuminated was the wall of the tube curving up and over her, and then Rex's ass and legs as he crawled. She amused herself for several moments simply by watching him crawl, and then began getting bored.

Bored, and just a little bit nervous. "Hey, boss man, how much longer we have?" she said, keeping herself from looking over his shoulder to the front of them, or her shoulder behind them.

They reached near the end of the torpedo tube, where a blue ring indicated the active magnetic containment field. Not far beyond that, the tube opened up into the loading assembly, where the bay crews loaded torpedoes when they needed to be used.

"We're there." he said, placing a hand on the phaser at his side. He hoped they wouldn't need it. The panel had an access form this side, for when maintenance crews had to work on the tube. A simple command opened it, and, slowly, he moved into the torpedo bay.

It wasn't abandoned, however. There was, though, a group of enlisted men playing a poker game on one of the tables in the room. "What the hell.." one of them, a Chief, started, even as two of the other men went for sidearms.

"Relax boys." the Chief said. "It's just Major Rex. Major... is there a .. reason you just crawled up the torpedo tube?"

Corran laughed as he removed his helmet. "Comms are down and the fighter bay doors wouldn't open. I take it the ship hasn't been taken over by Hydrans?"

"Not.... that we're aware of."

There was a loud crash from behind Corran, and he whipped around, his hand going to where his phaser hung at his hip by reflex. Jen stared up at him from the floor, shaking her head slightly from the impact of her falling out of the tube. "Way to be a gentleman, Rex." She got to her feet, grinning sheepishly at the men who stared at her, open mouthed. "So, we're pretty relaxed for a ship being taken over by the bad guys," she said with a nod at the interrupted card game.

"False alarm. Computer problems," Corran said, turning back to face the rest of the bay.

"Well, damn, that's embarrassing."

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