Surefoot 55: Ex Mortis

"There are black zones of shadow close to our daily paths, and now and then some evil soul breaks a passage through. When this happens the man who knows must strike before reckoning the consequences."

-HP Lovecraft, The Thing on the Doorstep (1937)

USS Surefoot, Command Quarters, Stardate 51180.4:

Hrelle sat quiet and alone in what humans would have called total darkness, staring at a list of names.

Then his wife emerged from their bedroom, approaching his chair, crouching beside him, her voice low, intimate. "Sreen is asleep in her crib, but Misha is in our bed, so don't expect any action tonight. In fact, don't expect to have much of the bed at all, he's sprawled out like- well, like you..." Kami leaned in and rubbed the side of her muzzle against his. "Leave that. You're exhausted. You've gone through the Seven Hells today."

"We all have. So many were killed... you and Misha almost joined them..." He shook his head. "Having my family with me out here, in the middle of a battle... what kind of man thinks that's a good idea to allow?"

Kami wrapped her arms around him. "I hate to break it to you, O Mighty Commanding Captain, Sir, but unlike all your other decisions, the final say never lay with you alone. We've argued about this more than once, and I've been uncharacteristically stubborn in insisting your family stay onboard with you." She sighed with exhaustion, and lingering shock. "And I've had my own share of guilt too today. And will do for some time to come. But we won't solve this tonight. We shouldn't even try."

He sat there, nodding, looking at the list of the casualties. The casualties he used in a diversion to save themselves from the enemy. "We need a memorial. Something for those who have fallen. Something people can visit, alone or with others, where they can reminisce, or pray, or just pay their respects."

"You're still feeling guilty over what you did."

He nodded. "I don't regret using the bodies of the deceased to save the living. Just that I had to do it when people's emotional wounds were still open and raw. And though Commander Zirangi helped defuse a lot of the anger and hurt everyone understandably felt..."

"It will take time. You're right, Esek. But that's something else you can't solve tonight."

He grunted. "Is there anything I can solve tonight?"

"Yes: your family needs your presence in our bedroom, so that we're complete."

He made a sound, and rose to his feet, slipping an arm around her waist, their tails caressing each other. "'Uncharacteristically stubborn'? Really?"

"Watch it, Mister, my Protector's in our bed tonight..."

He smiled, ready to surrender to the fatigue, even as his mind truculently continued to ponder the idea of a shipboard memorial. Sentient races had such diverse ideas about death and what awaits them beyond, if anything.

He wondered if anyone had the definitive answer...

*

Nearby:

The Klingon raced down the corridor, his boots pounding on the marble surface, his passing making the rich red curtains hanging in intervals on the walls on either side flutter.

His name was Karpog, of the House of D'Ghunn. And he would die without fear, and join his ancestors in Sto-Vo-Kor. Today was a good day to die.

But if he escaped... well, that wouldn't be too bad, either.

But it was finding his way out of this bizarre ship he and his men had boarded that proved a trial. It was labyrinthine, with stone walls and floors and thick red curtains and a smell of chemicals and decaying flesh. And those... creatures, lurking in the shadows... and that human- no, he couldn't have been human! No human could resist-

Karpoq stumbled as he turned a corridor, his ears hearing the approaching whine of one or more of those petaQ flying objects which had killed Rocut, Kusq and Mucir. He was drawing his disruptor-

When it flew from his hand as if smacked from it, sending it hurtling down the corridor.

A huge, shadowy figure stepped up to him from nowhere. Karpoq drew his blade from his belt, snarling his challenge. "Veqlargh! qaDta'bogh veqlargh jIH!"

And that was when the silver Spheres caught up with him, two soaring through the air, hooked blades emerging from the front of each of them, swiftly impaling his forearms into the wall behind him.

Agony shot through Karpoq, making him drop his blade. No! NO! He needed to die with his blade in his hand! This was- this was-

The humanoid figure stepped up: a tall man, pale and ancient and wrinkled, dressed in generic plain dark civilian clothes, with receding grey hair and a penetrating gaze. He spoke with a voice that was like dirt shovelled into a burial pit. "You played a good game, Klingon. But the game is over. Still... you earned a reward for entertaining me. And so I give you... Revelation."

Karpoq felt the blood pour from his wounds where the Spheres had penetrated his arms. But he would not be made to beg! He would die with honour! "Qaj!'etlh Hinob!"

The Tall Man raised an eyebrow, before glancing down, seeing Karpoq's dropped mek'leth blade. He bent down, picked it up, and seemed to regard its sharp, curved, pronged features, as he continued to speak. "The Revelation is this: there is no Sto-Vo-Kor. No Heaven, no Vorta Vor, no Celestial Temple, no Divine Treasury, no Great Forest, no Gloried Way After."

He snapped the mek'leth blade like a twig, and threw the pieces aside.

And then he leaned in, his voice becoming almost intimate. "When you die... you come to us..."

And then, Karpoq felt fear.

"And now... time to die..."

*

This wasn't right...

Captain Esek Hrelle stirred from his place on the floor, feeling a chill through his uniform, his fur, down through his skin to his bones, and deeper. Cold, uncaring air clutched him, reached into his lungs, a stale, musty, ancient air, complementary to the unkind darkness that not even his Caitian night vision could overcome. "Hello?"

His voice echoed; his ears did what his eyes didn't, taking in his surroundings: a long, narrow corridor, made of polished stone, narrow and tall and going on for endless lengths.

A crackle: flames, eating at fuel.

The rustle of thick curtains.

An underlying vibration one only ever felt on a space-based ship or facility.

A chittering, like vermin, gnawing at something that could no longer resist.

"Hello?" His own voice wasn't comforting.

Hrelle reached up for his jacket's combadge, tapping it repeatedly, with no response.

He rose to his feet, moving around, reaching forward, looking for walls, objects, anything. His boots clapped dully on the floor.

What had happened? One moment, they were in the midst of a graveyard of warships: Klingon, Cardassian, Dominion, the remains of the Battle of Perigord. The Klingon Task Force had tried their hand at taking on the enemy... and from the looks of it, gave as good as they got. Qapla to them; they would make it to the halls of Sto-Vo-Kor tonight. Then, when the Surefoot was searching for survivors and supplies, they encountered... something...

"Is anyone there?" he called out, sniffing... and not liking what he was picking up: dead, decaying flowers, mildew, pungent cleaning and preserving chemicals... flesh...

The chittering was increasing... claws on polished floor...

*

Lieutenant C'Rash Shall, Chief of Security, leapt into a crouch, claws extended, her relief at smelling and hearing her partner beside her on the cold marble floor a small comfort, but one she grasped. She twisted around, her pointed ears twitching nervously on the top of her coal-furred head as she drew closer. "T'Varik!"

Commander T'Varik, First Officer, bolted up, her scent displaying an unaccustomed confusion... and fear. "What happened?"

"Dunno." C'Rash drew her phaser and rose, glancing around in the dim light. She tapped her combadge, finding it inoperable. "Try your combadge."

T'Varik complied. "The signal appears to be blocked." She rose, glanced around. "We have been transported."

"Where?"

"The unidentified vessel, presumably." She began moving in one direction.

"Stay close," C'Rash urged her. "I can't see-"

There was a clicking sound, and then lights came to life overhead, making C'Rash squint and curse, getting a better look at their immediate surroundings. "What the Seven Hells...?"

T'Varik returned from the wall controls that she had obviously activated. "We appear to be in a storage facility of a 20th Century version of a Terran funeral home."

"A what?"

T'Varik perused the stacks of coffins, coffins made of wood in various colours, highly polished and fitted with gleaming metal handles and ornamentation. "A business involved in the preparation of the recently deceased: their preservation, display, ceremony and ultimate disposition, the majority of preferred methods of the last being, in order, burial, cremation and interment." She moved up to one coffin, testing the lid, lifting it up and peering inside. "Business appears to be dead."

"Oh, Har Har." C'Rash opened another coffin. "How do you know so much about it?"

"Given the pre-eminence of Terran culture in the Federation, one is inevitably contaminated with knowledge about all manner of esoteric and useless trivia about them. The more pertinent question is why an alien vessel would include such a place as this."

"Are you sure we're not in one of our own Holodecks, caught up in one of the cadets' crappy old horror programs?"

"That will depend on if we find Count Dracula in one of these... in which case I will employ my blood to give him copper poisoning."

C'Rash looked to her partner again. "Are you okay? You've been erratic since the battle. We haven't reformed our telepathic bond yet. You didn't sleep last night, and your scent is off."

T'Varik kept her back to the Caitian as she replied, "We remain behind enemy lines, at continued risk of rediscovery. Our vessel is overcrowded, with limited resources available to us. Tension remains high following Captain Hrelle's reluctant but necessary actions to save our lives. And now we have been transported onboard here for unknown reasons, out of communication with our vessel and our colleagues.

So, to answer your flippant question: No, I'm not okay!" She slammed the lid down on the coffin in front of her in punctuation.

C'Rash was about to respond, when both females started at the sound of organ music, playing some distance away, an eerie intonation that crawled through the surrounding framework, making the Caitian's fur stand on end. "Mother's Cubs..."

T'Varik turned, wearing a mask of composure, one eyebrow raised. "The Dead March, a funeral anthem from the three-act oratorio Saul by the German composer George Frideric Handel."

"Nerd."

T'Varik continued, unabated. "The Dead March was traditionally played over the subsequent centuries for the funerals of many prominent Terrans: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Jackson Roykirk, Lee Kuan-"

C'Rash grunted. "If we can't screw to it, I'm not interested. Come on." She moved to a set of burgundy curtains near the light switch, roughly parting them to reveal thick heavy mahogany doors. She stepped back from it, adjusting her phaser's setting.

The Vulcan stepped forward. "Sometimes you do not need to employ any weapon but common sense." She reached out, turned the handle, and opened the door. "And that can often be the most potent weapon in one's arsenal."

C'Rash offered a more fundamental suggestion.

T'Varik raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps I will indulge that on your birthday. In the meantime, take the lead."

*

Lieutenant Sasha Hrelle, Acting Second Officer for the Surefoot, woke up in a body bag.

The material was thick, plastic, heavy, and shifted as she breathed, clinging to her. The previous year, when she had been serving on the Ajax, she found herself fighting single-handedly against a group of Klingon boarders, and in order to stop them, had to set off an incendiary device at close range, protecting herself with nothing more than a thermal blanket. The fireball did the trick, and then some, and the heat made the blanket melt and encase her like a cocoon, burning her skin and constricting her breathing to the point of suffocation.

All that returned to her now, as she struggled to escape. She tried her combadge, but it didn't work, and as she tried to find a way out, her panic increased. Oh God she wasn't dead she wasn't dead HELP ME GET ME OUT OF HERE-

Light and air suddenly struck her from above. And she struck back, sending her fist up to connect with-

Lieutenant Giles Arrington, Acting Chief Helmsman for the Surefoot, staggered back, pressing his cupped hand over his nose and mouth. "Ouch."

Sasha sat up and looked around, finding herself in a black bag on a table, surrounded by stacks of other obviously-occupied bags, in a large windowless sterile room, with tall, narrow tanks of yellow-red chemicals, and tubes and long syringes attached to the sides, and strange black barrels filled another corner of the room. The air was sick with rotted flesh. "What the FRICK? Who put me in that thing?" She ripped the rest of the bag away from her and swung herself out of it, landing on her feet as she looked around again. She looked to him. "I was right! It was a fricking body bag!"

Giles took his hand away from his face. "I dink you brook by doze."

She drew up to him, examining him. "I went nowhere near your nose, Putz." She glanced down at his badge, smacking it several times, producing only some strange garbled feedback.

He stepped back, his expression one of annoyance. "I tried that already! I didn't just come down on the last meteorite, you know!"

Sasha grunted, looking around again. "What happened? How did we beam in here? Where's my Dad? What the frick is all this? Where are we?" She looked back at him. "Well? Why aren't you saying anything?"

Giles was running his tongue under his lips, testing for swelling. "I'm waiting for you to shut the hell up for a damn moment, Transwarp Mouth!"

She scowled, crossed her arms and said nothing.

Then he continued. "The last thing I remember was plotting a scanning course around that- that black ship-"

The description made her tense with memory, driven by her residual trauma from waking up in that damn bag. "Yeah, that black ship... like a coffin, moving around the wreckage of those Klingon and Cardassian vessels-"

"And the next thing I remember, I woke up in a bag just like you. And we're here." He looked around. "Wherever 'here' is. Looks like a morgue..." His words trailed away as he focused on the stacks of black bags.

Sasha lowered her arms and slowly approached the nearest stack. Please don't let there be anyone I know in these. Please, please, please... But as she opened up the first bag, she felt herself relax, a little... "A Klingon."

Giles had moved to another. "There's a Jem'Hadar in here."

"And a Cardassian in this other one... the black vessel... it's collecting the bodies of the dead!"

Giles looked over at the chemical tanks. "A funeral ship? I've heard of them, usually as part of long-range colony fleets or following disasters. Well, I suppose they'd be useful for battle sites as well-"

"Not this one," she noted, checking another, and then another: all dead, from explosive decompression or weapons discharge or just plain melee weapons. She was no stranger to the dead... having sent so many of the living to that other state: Vlathi, Klingons, Ferasans, Jem'Hadar, Cardassians.

And Life seemed determined to keep her in that role for the foreseeable future, as much as she hated it; she had soon learned how her Dad must have felt after all these years. "The Klingons and Dominion don't care about their dead, and the Cardassians only about their rich and powerful dead, none of whom would be among the cannon fodder on the front lines. Everything here suggests it's Terran. Why would they be here, gathering the dead, ready to embalm them? And how did we end up in here with them?"

Before he could respond, they heard a latch from a nearby door, and she silently motioned for him to hide in a nearby alcove, as she did the same. They made it in time to see the door open, and a pair of identical human males with passive, lifeless faces in black, old-fashioned Terran outfits enter, one of them moving to the chemical tanks, flipping some old-fashioned switches, and making the chemicals within begin to boil. The other one was easily lifting up an occupied body bag and setting it on a bier, rolling it over to the tanks and opening the bag, revealing the Klingon Sasha had viewed earlier.

Sasha watched them; they moved silently, but not with any sense of solemnity or respect for the dead, like the traditional pallbearers they resembled, but rather like Borg, automatons. They inserted one of the syringed tubes from the chemical tank into the corpse of the Klingon. A switch is flipped, and chemicals begin pumping into the corpse, some of it leaking out form the Klingon's wounds.

And it began twitching. And shrinking.

Sasha's heart was racing. What the actual FRICK...

One of the Pallbearers stopped in his tracks, looked down at the body bag Sasha had been in, bent down and picked it up, silently displaying it for his colleague. The other one looked down now, and saw Giles'.

Then they turned as one in the direction of the alcoves, and saw the Starfleet officers.

"Bugger," Sasha muttered... and charged at the one nearer to her.

*

Ensign Kitirik, Acting Science Officer for the Surefoot, knelt and examined the decayed flower petals on the ruby-carpeted floor. "From the Genus Lillium, more colloquially known as Lilies. Culturally associated with purity and love, they were also appropriate for funereal ceremonies, symbolically signifying that the soul of the deceased has been restored to a state of innocence. Some species are edible. This particular species, however, is highly toxic to cats and felinoids."

Counselor Kami Hrelle was approaching, but not stopped. "Toxic?"

The reptoid rose and turned to her. "Only if consumed, Respected Counselor."

The sepia-furred Caitian female made a sound. "Good thing my husband isn't around." Then she revised that statement as she looked around: they were in a room with a phalanx of chairs, divided down the middle by a clearance that led to a raised dais, on which a trestle supported a large mahogany coffin with an open upper lid. Behind it, masses of dead and decayed flowers sat, forgotten. The plain walls were broken up by sunken lights and burgundy curtains. She moved to one, drawing them open to reveal... more wall. "What is this place?"

"A... Viewing Room, I believe, Respected Counselor," Kit replied. "For a funeral service. The accoutrements are Ancient Terran, though my own people on Qarar hold very similar traditions. Do Caitians do the same?"

"No," she replied absently, her snout twitching at the unfamiliar scents. "We honour the lives of our people, and their achievements and legacies. The bodies themselves are given back to Nature." She resisted the urge to try her combadge again, having already tried it more than once since she awoke here, and then failed. She produced only that strange sound again. "What's wrong with it?"

"The sounds suggest local subspace or even interdimensional interference, which would correlate with the readings I was detecting from the unidentified vessel."

"So they beamed us over. Why does it look like this?"

"This may be an attempt by the occupants of this vessel relate to us through the adoption of cultural elements we might find familiar, relatable-"

Kami turned, sniffing, her tail smacking against Kit as she faced the coffin at the front of the room. "N-No... Great Mother, no..."