The Alpha Centauri Mystery - Part 9 - "The Loss" by Ben Versteegt
Summary
It seems as if everybody in the Alpha quadrant is after some mysterious samples, which emit radiation that, so it seems, happens to be an incredible source of power. Ensign Sandra Burke, who carried the samples, beamed over to the USS Aquinas after her base in the Alpha Centauri system was attacked and destroyed. The Aquinas had to flee from a Prometheus class Starfleet vessel, who was firing at her to obtain the samples. Finally, in a desperate attempt to slow down their enemy, and when the Aquinas was forced to drop out of warp, Captain Ayer ordered Chief Engineer Zjavick to eject the warp core and detonate it.
The warp core detonated, resulting in an explosion that tore the ship apart. Now, the Engineering section and the saucer section are separated from each other, and the ship is in ruins. Not only is the damage irreparable and the death toll immense, but Sandra has also disappeared... she has been transported to the Prometheus class ship.
And now the continuation...
Sandra fell down on the cold, hard floor. The person who had tossed her into the room snorted briefly at the Ensign's lack of resistance. After being beamed away from the Aquinas onto the Prometheus class, she had been given some sort of drug. She felt weak. Weaker than ever before. She vaguely remembered the container with samples being taken away from her. She had clamped onto it, protecting it with a fury which had reminded her captors of a mother protecting her young.
Finally, she had been drugged. Unable to stop whatever her captors were going to do with her, she had been dragged to this room. She had no idea where she was. The world was spinning around her. She couldn't get up, and when she tried to put her hands on the floor and use her arms to rest on, she lost her balance and hit the floor again. After several failed attempts to get up, she just stayed down, laying on the floor. But even the floor was unstable. She saw it spinning around her, and had the distinct feeling that the floor was tilting to one side of the room. She tried to tell herself that it was all an illusion, just an effect from the drug she had been given, but her body wouldn't listen. She rolled over the floor automatically, producing only a slight squeak in protest. It looked pathetic and she knew it, but she couldn't help it.
Finally, she managed to lean on her elbow and look up. Her hair hung in front of her face, but she saw enough to be blinded by a bright light which was directed at her. She could make out a silhouette of a man sitting behind a desk, but that was all she saw. The man, the light and the desk all seemed to be spinning, along with the rest of the world. When she finally tried to speak, her words came out slowly, unclear. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper.
"Who... who are..." She blinked at the bright light, as the room spun even faster around her.
The man in the shadows ignored her question. "Damage report?" Sandra heard the mysterious figure say.
The man who had thrown Sandra into the room started to speak. He spoke in a dark voice, in words Sandra couldn't understand. She was pretty sure the words he uttered were English, but she was too dazed to understand everything that was said. She strained to listen, and could make out a few words. There was talk of a maximum speed of warp 2, severe casualties and damage to weapons systems.
The memories of the Aquinas, the shockwave, Zaag and Uncle Pete came back to Sandra. "Aq... Aquinas..." she muttered. She looked into the light, to where the shadowed man was sitting. She was begging him to tell her whether or not her ship had survived. "Please..." She reached out with her free arm to the light, but it made her loose her balance. She fell to the ground again.
The man answered in a clear, harsh voice. There was a hint of pleasure and sarcasm, as he delivered the finishing blow; "The Aquinas has been destroyed. There are no survivors."
The sentence filled Sandra's head. It began to spin, just as the room did, through her head. She heard it over and over again. "...no survivors." Sandra wanted to scream out, cry, tear this place down in furious anger, but she couldn't. She had no control over her weak body. She didn't even have the strength to move her legs. Instead of tearing down the room, she just lay there, her face against the floor. Tears flowed uncontrollably along her cheeks, onto the ground. She didn't care. She let her tears flow freely.
She didn't care about the samples anymore. They were suddenly not important at all. Nor did she care about the fact that she was laying on the floor, looked at by two unknown men. She kept thinking about her friends. "Uncle Pete," she mouthed. "Zaag..." with the mention of these two names, the flow of tears intensified. She couldn't control herself anymore, even if she wanted to. They were gone now, the Captain and the little Ferengi. Gone.
To Sandra, it didn't matter anymore what would become of her. The Aquinas had been destroyed with all hands. Through her closed eyes, she saw Ayer, sitting firmly in the Captain's Chair, surrounded by dead crewmen and explosions. She knew he had stayed in his chair until the very end. The Bridge would explode in a mighty burst of fire, but Ayer would make sure he stayed seated. He would go down, leading the ship into her unavoidable doom. No matter what, he would have made sure he stayed in command. In the Captain's Chair. Where he belonged.
And Zaag... Perhaps the Ferengi had finally shown bravery in battle. Perhaps he had taken over the helm station when Sandra was abducted. Perhaps he had cried for his mother at the end. Or maybe he was killed early in the battle. But all these possibilities didn't change the fact that he was dead. So was Uncle Pete. Sandra felt she was drowning in her tears... She would never see either of her friends again.
"Oh stop crying, you're making the floor all wet," the unknown man behind the desk said, sounding annoyed. "Now, if you decide to co-operate with us, and tell us everything we want to know, you won't be hurt." he paused to let this sink in. Sandra barely heard it, and understood it even less. The drugs were still having effect. "From where did you get these samples?"
Sandra looked up with a lot of effort. Her eyes were wet, and she could barely see. The combined influence of the drugs and the terrible news about the loss of the Aquinas had brought her to the brink of unconsciousness. She was treading a fine line between sleeping and waking. She didn't know in which world she now belonged.
Still, the message had come through, albeit distorted in a fuzzy, blurry kind of way. As she struggled to comprehend what exactly it was that this man was asking her, she looked directly at him. Although she had trouble keeping her eyes open, she wanted him to know that she was still here, and that she wouldn't give up. With a shock, she came to realise that there had to be someone to tell the story. Someone had to survive, and now that the rest of the crew of the Aquinas was gone, she had to be the one to get out of this mess alive. She would fight the drugs, fight her fatigue and fight the pain of her loss. But most of all, she would fight her captors.
"What do...?" she hissed, as she finally understood the question she had been asked. Her voice was still soft. and she didn't know for sure if what she said was understandable, but she didn't care. She tripped over her own words a few times, and after speaking a few sentences of half English, half gibberish, she managed to get her sentence out with force. "What do you mean?"
She was infuriated. Why couldn't these people leave her alone? She had lost her best friends in the blink of an eye. Couldn't they just leave her alone and let her grieve?
Apparently, they could not. "You know exactly what I mean!" the man shouted and slammed his hands on his desk. The silhouette rose from his chair. "I'll ask you once more... where did you find these samples?"
"Go to hell." Sandra spit out.
"Why isn't the truth-serum working?" the shadowy figure shouted to the man who was still standing in the dooropening.
"We had to sedate her," came the brisk reply of the other man, who was clearly the shadow's subordinate. "She was becoming too furious for her sake... and for ours," he added. "It's interfering with the truth-serum. I suspect that it will work..." he gulped, "eventually."
"I don't have time for that!" thundered the shadow. "They're on our tail! Don't you know that?" Sandra couldn't see much of what was going on around her, but she did notice that the shadowy humanoid had moved from his desk towards Sandra. He knelt down beside her. Now that he was in the light, Sandra strained to see his captor's face.
He was human. His face was grim, and scarred from battle. Sandra could see, even in her semi-conscious state, that this was a man of war. A man who got what he wanted through bloodshed. He wore some kind of Starfleet uniform, but instead of the normal grey and black, the uniform was entirely black. Concentrating, Sandra saw that he had a red collar, decorated by four pips. "A Captain..." she said softly.
He didn't respond. He just grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her up. "Tell me what I need to know!" he yelled, as he shook Sandra violently. This was too much for Sandra. She was too weak to stand, the world was spinning around her and this violent shaking wasn't helping. Her eyes rolled backwards. Sleeping seemed like a good idea.
"Don't you dare pass out on me, damnit!" the Captain shouted. With great force, he punched his fist into her face. A different kind of pain made itself known to the poor Ensign. She fell on the ground, as blood trickled from her nose onto the floor. "Great, now I have to get a crew in here to clean this mess!" the furious voice of the Captain sounded through her head. It was the last thing she heard before she passed out.
