Calog Tir had seen much in his life as both Calog and Tir.  Violence, death, and destruction were not foreign to them.  His eyes searched the floors and walls in shock.  The brutality of the battle that had taken place on Patra’s Downfall was giving each member of the away team pause.  They had located a few survivors when they’d lurched into the small shuttle bay.  Out of the five they encountered, only one had made it through the stabilizing process.  He was being cared for and secured in the shuttle.

“You’re gonna thank me for the suits.”  Doctor Jordan Reid advised.  She was at the head of the group, a medical tricorder strapped to her wrist.  “Those injuries were consistent with radiation-type weapons – and not the friendly kind.”  A live link from her device to the Douglas was being investigated by Lieutenant Fowler and her team.  Reid was being cautious.  They had found the bodies of Pandora’s crew but nothing from the mystery ships.  Three security officers surrounded them as they walked down the corridor and up a stairwell.  The tricorder alarmed, and she lamented, “Readings are spiking.”  As they stepped onto the main deck, she gasped.  Fifteen bodies lay in the main corridor to the bridge.

Tir swept his tricorder over the area, “High levels of radiation coming both from the bodies, the deck…and from the bridge.”  He adjusted the scans, “We’re going to need to activate our additional shielding when we get there.”

Jordan knelt down beside one of the dead, “Whatever this weapon is – it’s not discriminatory.  Every one of the bodies suffered a different part of the body from the blast.  The amount of radiation is astronomical – No human or alien could survive this without help – and luck.”  She moved from corpse to corpse, “It wouldn’t have been quick – the pain from the loss of bodily functions on the various injury points – and it looks like each of them got at least two blasts of varying amounts.”  She felt the bile at the back of her throat threaten, and she swallowed hard.  “Time of death is around six to eight hours ago.”  She finished with her preliminary exams, “Whoever they are, we need to avoid them.  There’s unusual damage to the clothing and weapons – some kind of acidic degradation occurred in addition to the biological impacts.”  Reid tapped at her suit, activating the additional layers and personal shielding unit, “We’re going to need to be ready to run.”  They all did the same, and the group began to move forward, cautious about the next steps.

They reached the main arched door, and Tir went to work, finding the door challenging.  A few minutes passed with no success, and Reid posited, “What if it’s not to lock us out…but to lock whatever is in there…in there?” The looks she got in reply varied from annoyed to confused to concerned, and she shrugged, “Well, someone had to say it.”  She walked closer to it, running her tricorder over the metal door, “Whatever she built it out of, it’s not telling me much about what’s inside – aside from life signs.”

Tir was starting to agree with her.  He’d worked the console over and found a connection to the bridge through a communication link.  Activating it, the speaker crackled to life.  A guttural growl echoed over the command center – several, as best as he could figure.  The rest of the away team turned to listen, eyes wide at what they heard.  It wasn’t the sound of anything they’d heard on Earth or in their travels.  It sounded hungry, as if saliva slurred the words it was trying to speak.  A groan punctuated every so often, and Tir snapped his head to look at Reid, “That’s a human sound.”  She walked over and listened to the sounds, waiting.  The groan was heard again, heavy and fleshy – spackled by liquid and death.  Someone was alive in there.  Tir depressed the console button, “This is Lieutenant Calog Tir of the Federation Starship Douglas…is someone alive in there?”  The resulting screams and roars startled all of them, and they jumped back as the rage of the beasts within was unleashed by the speakers.  

The tantrum slowed, and a lone voice rasped out, “Federation…how I wish I could open this door and send these monsters after you.  Goddamn Lana.  The only member of my crew with a soul, apparently.”

Tir knew the voice and tapped the console, “Pandora Crawford.”

“No shit, Sherlock.  This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.”

Tir looked at Reid, who shook her head slowly, replying, “We can’t just leave her here to die.  As many awful things she’s done…we have to try and save her…bring her to justice.  Death is too easy for her.  For any of us.”

He turned his attention back to the console, depressing the button, “We’re going to figure out a way to save you.  What happened?”

“These bastards overwhelmed us.  There’s twenty of ‘em on the bridge with me…but I don’t pose a threat, slowly dying and all, but they are staring at that door something fierce.  They all came over from their ships – there’s nobody left over there.  Lana severed the power controls to the doors and engaged the manual lockdown – that door is secured by four-foot thick concrete slabs…she did it only after they all got on the bridge.  Said something about growing a spine or some shit.  I shot her head off before they got to me.  Backstabbing bitch.”  She coughed over the channel, and they could all hear a low crackle of liquid in her lungs.  “You want to save me, go right ahead.  I’ll kill every single one of you and take your goddamned ship and keep going.  You’ve got a clock going, Starfleet…I figure I’ve got maybe two hours left.”  Tir could hear her words plunge into the motivational darkness she was dredging and then flinging it against them.

He replied, “We’ll do what we can.”  Closing the channel, he turned to Reid, “We’re going to need every miracle in the book to pull this off – whatever those monsters are – we can’t hope to stop them if they get loose.”