C4 denotes the fourth Crossroads story. It is also the introduction of Chief Medical Officer Silas Miller, and Ensign Theodore Marick.
“Come on Doc, you gotta wake up…” Ensign Theo Marick pleaded with the unconscious Chief Medical Officer of the USS Solvang. The red alert klaxon blared in the background as the young ensign, both hands hooked under Miller’s arms, dragged him across the deck plates to the Captain’s Yacht.
“Join the heart of Starfleet they said…explore strange new worlds they said…seek out new life they said…Well they left out the part where everything on those strange new worlds and all that new life is trying to kill you!” Explosions could be heard faintly throughout the ship. The muffled sound of weapons fire was growing closer.
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Moments earlier…
“Keep going Marick! Take Miller and get to the portal at Starbase 80! Here, take this, I’ll slow them down.” The Captain O’va from this multiverse thrust a pistol flat against the young ensign’s chest. “Treat it just like a 23rd century phaser. Finger off the trigger until you have to shoot. Align the sights on top over the target – equal height, equal light on either side – then hold it still while you pull the trigger.”
Marick’s fingers closed around the grip of the 21st century pistol, a Sig Sauer P229 chambered in .357 Sig. This one feels different from what I used in the holonovels with dad. He shoved the pistol in the waistband of his uniform.
“Show that to your captain, she’ll know what it means. Remember us.”
Marick quickly scanned this version of Captain O’va. Instead of a waist length jacket, she wore a long dark coat with gold colored trim. She had the same pink hair, with two small buns pulled low on either side, and slightly parted bangs lay across her forehead. She was armed to the teeth with some of her inherited collection of 21st century weaponry, along with a 23rd century phaser that had seen better days.
Encircling her waist was a dark gray belt, complete with a holstered Sig Sauer P226, spare magazines, and other ancient emergency gear. Her hands gripped a Mossberg 590A1 shotgun, complete with an affixed bayonet.
“MOVE! GET TO THE YACHT! STARBASE 80, GO!”
“THIS WAY – THE TWO FOREIGN QUANTUM SIGNATURES ARE HERE. THEY MUST BE PURGED.”
A single Tholian appeared at the end of the corridor. The Captain mounted the shotgun with lightning speed. The solitary blast set off with a thunderous crack. The Tholian emit a horrific shriek after a lethal barrage of eight neutronium pellets catastrophically ruptured its environmental suit. The ambient temperature of the air registered as devastatingly cold to the Tholian’s body temperature, flash-freezing it’s body within its crystalline carapace. The entity toppled over, frozen, emanating only a soft thud, the plush carpeting the only thing preventing it from shattering into innumerable shards.
More clicking and chittering noises echoed from down the corridor. Marick positioned his feet against the doctors as he lay unconscious, grabbed his arms, and hoisted him across his shoulders, and headed for the Captain’s Yacht. As Marick rounded the corner, he heard the Captain empty the shotgun a thunderous seven times, along with several different shrieks and chittering sounds that were unmistakably Tholian.
The corridors looked so close to his Solvang, but this one had plush high pile carpeting. For some reason, there was shelving within alcoves alongside each of the doors, with pairs of boots in them.
The corridors were dim, lit solely by emergency power and the red alert warning lights. The lighting was flickering, but thankfully the layout of this ship remained unchanged from his.
Please please please be intact, I really do not need to be The Unluckiest Ensign right now.
Marick set Miller down, attached an emergency hand actuator to the doors of the shuttlebay, and wrestled them open.
There sat within the dedicated shuttle bay for the Captain’s Yacht, the USS Lilypad. She was in pristine condition amidst the dim emergency lights.
YES! FINALLY! A little luck for once in my life…
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Halfway to the shuttle, Commander Miller gasped and woke with a shock. Looking up, he saw Ensign Marick was dragging him somewhere.
“Ensign, where am I? What’s going on?”
“Doc! Come on, get up quick, we’ve gotta get out of here fast! Get to the shuttle!”
Doctor Miller stood up abruptly and groggily scrambled inside the shuttle with the young ensign.
“Doc, get to the copilot’s seat and trigger the emergency launch procedure!”
Dr. Miller’s fingers danced across the control interface with unmatched speed. It had been a while since he was behind the controls of a shuttle, but his cybernetic enhancements at least gave him the advantage of speed and dexterity.
Ensign Marick stood at the threshold of the shuttle, breathing heavily, with the Sig Sauer P229 clutched in his right hand – the one multiversal Captain O’va thrust upon him minutes before.
The hatch was closing slowly.
Too slowly.
“Hurry it up Doc, we’ve got Tholians inbound!”
“Tholians?! Why the Tholians?”
“It’s not our universe, Doc!”
The clicking and chittering noises grew louder as several Tholians appeared in the doorway.
One of them raised an arm, pointing at the Captain’s Yacht as it was powering up.
“TEMPORAL CONTAMINATION DETECTED. MULTIVERSAL INCURSIONS IDENTIFIED. CLEANSING REQUIRED.”
Theo’s eyes narrowed as he leveled the pistol and trained the sights on the farthest Tholian.
The first shot cracked like thunder inside the yacht. He felt the shockwave hit his chest as the bullet screamed out of the pistol at supersonic speed.
He didn’t expect the heavy trigger pull of the first shot from the pistol, but the copper jacketed bullet with neutronium core collided with the Tholian’s leg. The crystalline limb shatters, shards scattering across the deck. The Tholian screeches – a sound like glass under stress.
He raised his left hand to support the pistol, took aim at the middle Tholian and eased the trigger back with finer dexterity this time. The bullet slammed through its chest cavity, a fine stream of crystalline shards spraying out from behind it. The creature collapsed and shattered on the deck.
The hatch is still closing, but still too slowly.
The last Tholian charges towards the shuttle.
Theo didn’t hesitate.
He just fired.
The round struck the Tholian right between its glowing eyes – a perfect shot. The carapace shattered, exploding in a fountain of crystalline shards erupting from where its head once was.
Theo blinked.
“Just like the simulations…” he muttered, half-shocked, half-proud, fully terrified.
The hatch slams shut.
Theo stumbles forward, panting, and collapses in the pilot’s seat.
“Doc, please tell me we have engines!”
“Fully powered. Punch it.”
Theo slams the launch control.
The Solvang shrinks behind them, a burning wreck collapsing under the Tholian’s “cleansing” fire as the Lilypad whisks them away to open space.
A mixed assortment of weapons; no of which you'd want to be standing on the wrong end of. Fast passed and action packed; they've still got to get clear of the ship yet!