Break on Through

Posted on Tue May 16th, 2023 @ 8:29am by Lieutenant Sky Jansen-Carey
Edited on on Tue May 16th, 2023 @ 8:42am

Mission: Starship Side Quest
Location: Abandoned Asteroid Mining Station
Timeline: Continuing from; "Staring at the Abyss"

***Warning Potentially Disturbing Content***


Last time...


“Where is Sky?” Soran asked.

“She is in the next section, third level! Now let me out!” Ichatha shouted.

“I Will, " Soran said. “Out the other side like you’ve done for so many you had no further use for.”

“Your Starfleet. You can’t. You have rules!” Ichatha pleaded

“Right now I'm every bit the monster you created,” Soran said as he operated the door controls. “And Starfleet isn’t here.”

The door opened. To the vacuum of space. Ichatha’s body, a rag doll amongst the stars.


And Now...


Soran made his way down the corridor and opened the bag of tools he found on one of the 'mercs.' Yes, they weren't people they were 'mercs,' targets on the way of his mission. That's how he had learned to think in these situations. It was the palace to make what he was doing easier… That was the story anyway.

He found the tool he needed to remove a panel from the bulkhead. He climbed into the maintenance space. If the station was built like others he had been in before he'd be able to get into the next section undetected. He climbed the ladder to the deck he’d been told Sky was being held.

He heard someone else in the tunnel below him they hadn't reached the latter yet. He looked at the exposed wires and circuits in the maintenance tunnel. These old stations didn't have the same safety standards as federation facilities. Making things easier for people like him to do things like this…

Soran pulled a large wire from a junction box, then he ducked into the corner so he couldn't be seen and waited. Two came out of the tunnel and began to climb the ladder. He pressed the wires to the run of the ladder. The metal sparked and heard the men scream. Their bodies convulsed as the voltage pulsed through them. The emergency lighting in the hatch began to blink before going out leaving Soran darkness… He could smell the burnt flesh of Pursuers as they cooked. That smell was about to fill this whole fucking place damn it. He thought as he pulled a small light out and put it between his teeth. The Angosian moved to the lift shaft, he cut the cable and severed the circuit to the car's emergency brakes. He didn't know if anyone was in the car and didn't spare any thoughts for that. He just cut off access to half the base; it would buy him time. He hoped it would be enough…

He crawled into a small space above the ceilings on the deck. He moved as quietly as he could, he had to find Sky. Sky had to get out of this alive… He was expendable… As always… She doesn't sign up for this, she doesn't deserve this…

Soran grinned a grim smile as he heard one of the Orions shout."What the fuck? The lift it's gone."

"Call it in," He heard the Orion woman say. "I'll go check on the bitch."

Well that'll make finding her easier, Soran thought. He watched through a grate as she moved to a secure door. He quickly scrambled to the grate that would give him access to that cell. As he got there he realized it was welded in place. He drew a disrupter, but Sky was in the field of fire.

"If you can hear me move to the corner, I'm coming to get you." Soran explained.

For a moment Sky thought she was hearing things, but she couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t real. She slowly moved to the corner of her cell, cowering away in the corner.

The Angosian fired twice at the grate and kicked what was left of it out his way. He saw the cell door open as he dropped into the room. Maris charged into the cell grabbing the weapon, they began Grappling for the gun. Soran quickly got the upper hand, he threw the Orion woman to the deck. She landed next to Sky and lunged for her.

Sky scrambled as far up against the wall. Maris screamed as Soran's first shot disintegrated her arm. His second shot silenced the Orion as it burned straight through her chest and set fire to her hair.

Sky winced from the heat of the shots, turning away so she didn’t have to look at what was left of the Orion woman, the smell of burning flesh and hair was pungent. She turned to look at Soran, her eyes filled with fear.

"We need to move." Soran's eyes were cold and his pupils were dilated. He turned suddenly and fired the weapon at another Orion at entering the room his neck and upper chest evaporated into red mist. The remains crumpled to the deck and the man's head rolled free of his body. Soran checked the hallway before turning back to Sky.

Sky was frozen, the sights she’d witnessed had her paralyzed with fear. That and having been shut in isolation for so long.

When she didn't answer the Angosian scooped her up in his arms and whispered "Don't look at them."

Sky closed her eyes, but it didn’t help with the smell radiating off Soran’s clothes. He smelt like rotten flesh, his body covered with blood and dirt. She simply curled up silently against him.

As Soran moved to the door, he shifted her weight to one arm so that he could keep his weapon ready. He said something in a soft soothing tone in a language Sky had never heard before. Somehow she knew the meaning of the words;

"Fear not Little Sister, for the Sentinel guards the path."

The Angosian stepped over the bodies and moved into the corridor. A fowl smoke filled the air from the bodies of the men that had fried in the maintenance tunnel. A door hissed open ahead of them and Kara and Mangath entered. Soran fired a shot but missed and they both dropped back through the doorway. Soran cursed and set Sky on the floor.

“Don’t leave me!!” Sky held out her hand not wanting Soran to go after them. “Please!!!”

Soran dropped to one knee and looked her in the eye. "Don't be scared, be angry! These bastards have no right to keep or hurt us. I'll keep you close, I need you to walk. If I'm going to keep us alive I need both my arms."

Sky nodded. Getting to her feet she had to put all her concentration into trying to keep the input from her senses at a minimum level. After being cut off in the isolation room she was overwhelmed by everything. “I...I’ll try.”

"Stay one step behind me," Soran said as he moved cautiously down the corridor.

He moved to what seemed to be a dead-end, Soran handed the disrupter to Sky and opened a tool bag. "Watch my back for a moment."

Sky took the disruptor in shaky hands, she’d use it if she had to. She looked around hyper-aware of what was going on around them.

He quickly removed an access panel that revealed an old mine shaft. There was a cable for a dumb waiter. He looked down and smiled if they could get into the mine that would be a place he could defend. He didn’t know when or if help was coming, so he would do what he could to keep them alive. There was a ladder leading down into darkness, he looked to Sky and took back the weapon.

“We’ll have to climb down,” Soran explained.

“Anything to get out of here.” Sky nodded before looking down into the darkness. “It’s...so dark! I just got out of the dark Ren, I don’t know if I can face that again!” She paused. “But I have to don’t I?”

Soran took a cylinder out of the tool and slapped it against his hand it lit up and he drop it into the shaft and it gave enough light for them to see the ladder. He could hear distant voices from the other end of the corridor. “You’ll have to start the climb, I’ll be right behind you. I promise."

Hearing the distant voices Sky nodded and started the climb down. It was that, or sit and wait to be recaptured, or killed. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ladder until she eventually reached the bottom, cautiously stepping off to wait for Soran.

The Angosian stood at the opening to the shaft the mercs had found a way around the trap he’d set; he only had a few shots left in the disruptor. Soran saw Sky was at the bottom waiting for him, he pulled the spare power pack he found and realized it was the wrong tech. Damn, these mercs and their unstandardized equipment. The Angosian rigged the power pack to the circuit box above the opening to the shaft. Then ripped the sleeve off his jacket and use it to slide down the dumb waiter cable, he landed near Sky. “Run!”


TBC…