[Columbia] Skulking Around (Part 1)

Posted on Sat Dec 8th, 2012 @ 2:15pm by Miral Annhwi

875 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: The Enemy Within: Typhon is Missing!
Location: The Caves of Tiberius IV

ON

Ronnie began to lead the small team through the winding tunnel, stopping frequently to clear out the rebreathers and wipe off the facemasks. Even so, breathing was difficult. The three women resorted to damp bandannas over their rebreathers to help filter out some of the dust. It helped, but breathing was still difficult.

Ronnie spent a lot of time in dark caves looking for bugs, so this wasn't too unusual -- although she usually didn't deal with this much dust in the air. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen any bugs in the caves at all. Except for the spider-like creatures. She almost hoped they would find something that would let her learn how they were created. Why was easy to figure out, but how could be of great interest to scientists.

The dust got so thick that she turned off her light and began to feel her way down the tunnel, sliding her feet along and feeling the wall so she wouldn't get lost.

Miral had turned off her own light a short time before. The light from the Federation scientist was enough for her to navigate by and she didn't like the way the light refracted off the sand and made it difficult to see. She wasn't sure how well the two scientists would fare if they actually did run into Borg. If it came to her leaving the other two to die or having them all die, she was quite willing to turn back and tell the rest of their party what happened without a care as to the fate of her two companions, or the four Marines with them. At least she trusted the Marines to give no quarter. She'd seen them fight several times on Typhon and knew them to be almost as fierce as Romulan warriors. A Marine behind her bumped into her and she stopped to give him a haughty look. Too bad he wasn't careful about where he was going.

Maria, in the middle, ran mental calculations while they walked. How big would a Borg facility have to be in order to create the number of spiders they'd encountered? And if there were 60 survivors from the Columbia already recovered, where were the rest of them? There were still 300 unaccounted for.

As they felt their way down the corridor, Miral could hear the sounds of activity ahead. "Stop here," she ordered in a hushed whisper. She crept ahead, using the stealth she'd been taught in the military. She ever so slowly slipped into a large cavern filled with a greenish light -- and Borg. Hundreds of them at various stations working silently. She walked around the cavern observing the activity and the location of the equipment. At the far end of the cavern was another tunnel. She made her way to it, grateful that she was, for now, ignored. The far tunnel led to a staging area and a large pile of sand. Whatever had been here was gone now. She turned and headed back to the others.

She quickly filled the others in on what she'd found. "Five charges should take down the facility and the cavern with it as long as they don't notice us." If they did, it wouldn't matter how many charges they placed, the Borg would disable them.

"Okay, but first I want to find out what they're doing," Ronnie insisted.

"Does it matter? They are Borg and must be destroyed," Miral hissed. What was it about these people that they had to find out what their enemy was doing before they would consider eliminating the threat?

"We should blow it up now before they find out we're here," one of the Marines said.

Maria shook her head. "I agree with Ronnie," she cut in. "The only way to find out if there are more Borg in this sector is to get their information."

"Plus I want to know how they made those spiders," Ronnie added. "So that we can better combat them when we meet them again." Because, she was sure, they would encounter these spider-like creatures again.

"You're all crazy," Miral stated. "But if you're going in there, I will accompany you. I promise you, however, if you get caught, I will leave you to the Borg and inform the others."

"Thanks for the love," Maria quipped.

"Enough talk. If we're going to do this, we must go now before they hear us," Miral said. She indicated that the others should go first so she could again take up the rear.

Ronnie pulled out her scanner and tried to take readings, but with all the dust in the air and the proximity of the sand she got nothing. "Okay. Let's do this quickly." If she could get to a computer console, she would be able to extract data to read later, but her only chance would be if they could get in before the Borg knew they were there.

Deter pushed to the front of the group. "I'll take point. It's too dangerous for you Fleeties."

(To be continued…)

Miral Annhwi
Romulan Ambassador
Starbase Typhon

Lieutenant JG Ronnie Lancaster
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Calypso

Ensign Maria Delgado
Science Officer
USS Calypso

Sergeant Deter
Marine
USS Calypso

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