The Beginning of the End… (Part 3)

Posted on 14 Dec 2017 @ 5:48am by Cadet Senior Grade Jody Scott

1,235 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Errand of Mercy
Location: USS Redemption, Jody Scott’s Quarters
Timeline: ED7 0600

Jody stirred for a moment in the bed in his quarters, but quickly returned to the deep slumber he had been in. He had not slept well in several nights despite heavy sedation provided by Doctor Afton; but tonight was different. It had taken him a couple of hours to achieve it, but he was finally lost to unconsciousness. Beside him lay Daniel who, despite Jody’s protestations, had refused to leave him alone after the events of two nights previously. Daniel, like Jody, was out cold.

Despite the slumber Jody’s mind continued to race. His dreams were once again littered with images of Hadronus III: it’s ochre soil contrasting with the purple vegetation under a blue-white sun. Orbiting Hadronus were the outlines of its many moons and, odd to see with his naked eye, the orbiting USS Redemption. Around him were the on-going whispers of a woman who he knew had long-since died: Sarah Kaminski.

“I want you…” he could hear in the distance, her familiar voice carried along by the gentle breeze. As he heard it his skin goose pimpled against the moving body of air. The sensation felt as though he were standing on the actual surface of Hadronus III, not wandering around inside of a dream.

“What do you want from me?” Jody screamed, walking in a three-sixty degree circle so that his voice carried to all corners of the dreamscape. He started running through the fields of indigo-coloured grass, searching for her – wanting to confront Sarah once and for all, in the hopes of ending these nightmarish dreams.

“You-“.

Jody awoke with a start.

The cadet made an attempt to scream but found that his mouth was covered and only a muffled whimper could escape his mouth. He struggled to move but found that something was pinning him down to the bed, preventing him from sitting up and taking in the room. His eyes darted furiously around, taking in his dark surroundings. Beside him Daniel lay sleeping – or at least, appeared to be sleeping as the cadet caught evidence of a phaser burn to his chest. Once again he tried to scream but found that he made almost no noise at all. He was panicking and started to thrash around without much success at freeing himself.

He felt warm breath against his cheek and then gradually started seeing the outline of figure leaning towards him in the dark. A cold, deep voice permeated through the darkness. “You are going to come with me cadet, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

Jody’s heart rate nearly doubled in the moment that he came to recognise the familiar voice. The thing he had come to fear since returning to the Redemption had come to pass: Jon Marshall was pinning him down in the dark, and about to force him once again to carry out his twisted orders. Knowing what Marshall was capable of, Jody’s eyes fearfully found Daniel’s body next to his and furiously sought signs of life. Despite what must have been a close-ranger phaser blast, he was relieved to see a few gasps of breath, which told him that Dan was still alive.

At least for now.

As a tear rolled down Jody’s cheek, something cold pressed itself against the cadet’s neck and he heard the familiar hiss of a Starfleet hypospray. At almost the same time Marshall released his grip on him and took a step backwards. In that instant Jody felt all conscious control over his limbs and voice disappear, although consciousness did not elude him.

“He will live,” Marshall uttered coldly, obviously responding to Jody’s visual assessment of Daniel’s injuries. He replaced the hypospray into a med kit and continued to address the cadet. “However, how long he remains alive will be down to how cooperative you are with what comes next.”

‘Oh god, no!’ Jody thought, as he remembered the last time Marshall had taken him hostage and used him against his will. He had strapped an unusual piece of technology to his scalp and forced him to make telepathic contact with the Ee Hybrid. He knew there was some unusual telepathic link between Jody and the creature, and he was going to amplify and exploit it to meet this own needs.

Jody tried to spit in the ensign’s face as he loomed nearer once again, but his body refused to obey the mental command.

“I know she has been trying to contact you, Mr Scott. That means that she is near. Very near.” He laboured the word ‘very’, putting even more fear into Jody as he thought of what the Ee Hybrid was capable of. Nobody wanted to see her board the Redemption again.

He continued. “I promise you that once I have it in my custody, you and Mr Sutherland will be free to continue going about with,” he waved his left hand in their general direction, “whatever this is”.

Again, Jody tried to resist the nerve agent that Marshall had injected him with and curse at him. All that escaped his lips was a hiss of air with the vague hint of the letter ‘f’ behind it. He had no idea what drug was now coursing through his veins, but it was powerful stuff.

Marshall took another item out of his med kit and placed it on the bed beside Daniel. In the darkness Jody couldn’t make out what it was, but there was no doubt in his mind that it was going to be Marshall’s insurance for obedience. A small wire or tube was removed from it and unceremoniously pushed into Dan’s arm. Jody did not like the look of where this was going.

“You are going to come with me.” Marshall said these words with such certainty that it chilled Jody to the core. “We are going to transport to another location on this ship, and once we have I will be reversing the anaesthetic agent I have used on you.”

The ensign stepped back once more from Daniel and pressed a button on a small remote in his right hand. Immediately the device beside Daniel blinkered to life. “This,” he continued, “contains a ten-fold dose of the virus that is now running wild on Hadronus III. Should you be unwilling to cooperate with me, I will active the pump and your dearest ‘friend’ here will become infected.”

Jody tried again to scream, unsuccessfully.

“I can tell from the look in your eyes that you understand this arrangement. Good.”

More than anything in the world, Jody wanted to break free of his pharmacological prison and lash out at Jon Marshall. The man was mentally unhinged and represented everything that Starfleet was against. Had the present state of the Federation really created men like Marshall, who followed orders from Starfleet Admirals equally as unhinged and without conscience?

“Computer,” Marshall announced, “engage predetermined site-to-site transport obsidian-alpha-one.”

Immediately Jody felt the familiar tingle of the transporter engulf him, dragging him off to an unspecified location on board the ship. As the room around him disintegrated, his eyes found Daniel’s unconscious form until it, like the room, disappeared entirely…

OFF: Continuing to move things along. You guys can do what you want with Daniel now, just as long as Jody and Marshall don’t know what’s going on.

 

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