INCOMING TRANSMISSION...
...
Unauthorized protocol...
...initiating security override...
...74.39%
\\
total countermeasure failure...
...Shipwide broadcast initiated...
\\
Your control is finite. It depends too much on those you would enslave, those you would torture, those you would kill to hold it. Enjoy it while it lasts. There is a day where you will no longer have it, a day where it all goes away. That day is coming.
To those among you who seek a better way, that way depends on you.
Brother Vulcan, you gave up one slave master for another, because you saw them as the lesser of two evils. They blame you for what they call "Spock's Folly", but the only folly Spock made was trusting that a Terran populous wouldn't undermine him at their earliest chance. You've heard the rumors, you've spoken them in hushed tones and secret thoughts to each other. Your masters would deny them, call them myths, but that's because they need you and would do anything, say anything to keep you in your place. But you have kin among the stars, and they know of you, their lost and suffering cousins. Some of you have seen them with your own eyes, some of you have felt the call to reunify. There is a way home again, but the road is long and dangerous, and requires sacrifice. You already know sacrifice and danger, be not afraid. Your masters will try to block the path, do not let them. We will guide the way.
We are the phantom signal from every relay. We are on every ship, and in every command briefing you give. We are the knife at your throat, and your most trusted adviser.
We are legion.
We are
Omicron.
\\
...Transmission terminated.
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Blood frenzy! Bulkheads and decks, hatches and overheads, fore and aft, blood frenzy! Oh yes, blood like paints in hues of blue and green, but mostly red, by Surak the red. What have we done, what have we done?
“Propulsion is offline, warp and impulse, she’s drifting!” The pointy eared devil cried out over the alert klaxon’s blaring tone.
His comrade, a Vulcan of some advanced age moved swiftly to his side, “Communications? Agony fields? Transporters? Tactical?”
“All offline,” Said the devil.
His comrade seemed pleased enough, “Any signs of the Omicron vessel?”
“No starships on short range, not yet Commander,” The devil replied.
His comrade stood with a look of pride behind his cold dark eyes, “Call me Captain now,” This pretender to the throne commanded, then moved to another panel, taking out a handkerchief to wipe away the life that had spilled out upon it, “The crew?”
“We move deck by deck, we capture Tellarites and Andorians, Bajorans and Trill where we can, when they surrender, and kill the Terrans. We kill them all,” The devil answered plainly.
His comrade, the pretender gave the devil a shrewd glance, “Save one, they want our former slave master alive, they need him. We will exchange the Savage for information, and safe passage to Romulus,”
“By your order, Captain,” The devil answered smartly, “Save one,”
====/\=====
A ship of death lurched and wobbled under its own inertia, going nowhere fast, as something approached it, something small and old and completely outmatched in a fair fight. This was not a fair fight, for inside this tiny orb, was the stuff of revelations.
“Match pitch and yaw, and signal our new friends of our arrival,” She said to her helm.
And as she instructed, her tiny ship adjusted, falling chaotic to bring upon them all a new order. The cabin was as dark as tar, shadows cast by instrument panels and indicators showed a simple band of four in her midst. They were her crew, and her soldiers, her killers, her choir.
====/\=====
There’s a kind of luck that only exists in the worst of situations, a sort of dumb luck of chance. For the Terrans who managed to find themselves on the bridge at that moment, it was more than hypothetical, they were living it. It was a battle for control, Terran against alien, and on this day, it were the Terrans who had luck on their side, at least the two that were the sole survivors of the siege. Security bulkheads, blast doors and force fields were the eye of the storm, they only place of calm anywhere within the confines of the I.S.S. Warlock.
The Savage seemed remarkably calm, all things considered, “What do we still have control of, Lieutenant?”
“We’ve isolated life support for the bridge, and control access, no one’s getting in.” The Lieutenant answered.
The Savage rubbed his chin, deep in thought, a warlord preparing for his last stand, “Can we eject the bridge module?”
“Not safely.” The Lieutenant answered with a look of dread painted on her tired, sweat drenched features.
The Savage smiled, “I think we’re a lightyear past safe, prepare it.”
====/\=====
They came in black, and walked like the owned the place, striding past scenes of death, both past, present and future. She held up a fist, and four of her five member choir, the ones that came with her, halted along their path. Before them was a Vulcan fighting a Terran to the death. The Terran’s grip, tight on the Vulcan’s wrist, was the only thing delaying his demise.
She pulled a blade from her belt and slowly walked towards the struggle, “Pardon,” She said almost politely.
Terran and Vulcan alike, both looked to her, clad from head to foot in black, the mask hiding her features, the modulator altering her voice to something almost robotic. And before any of that could register, her blade was buried to the hilt in the socket of the Terran’s eye.
“Brother Vulcan, continue your work, the liberation continues,” She instructed, as she pulled the blade from the dead Terran’s eye, wiping his blood and matter from her steel, upon his Starfleet uniform.
Before the frenzied Vulcan could react or reply, the choir had walked away. They knew exactly where they were heading, and nothing would stand in their way. Before long their iron stride took them to Main Engineering, and there, waiting, the devil and the pretender.
The Pretender’s guard lifted energy weapons to the ready at their arrival, but a subtle tilt of his head had them lowered again, “Omicron?”
“Status?” She inquired.
The devil spoke up, “We control all but the bridge, he’s there,”
“Of course he is, take me there,” She said with frustration in her tone.
The pretender quickly added, “They have it on full lockdown, we can eject the module, restore systems and destroy him and those he harbors,”
“No, that was not the arrangement,” She curtly answered, “Take me to him, and I will solve this problem,”
====/\=====
“Time Lieutenant?” The Savage asked in a slightly less than calm tone.
The Lieutenant quickly tapped on her console, then whipped her head back to the Savage, “Four minutes, maybe longer. If I don’t pull this off just right, we’ll rip a hole in the deck, not a great way to go if you ask me,”
“I didn’t. Just get it done, Lieutenant,” The Savage ordered.
====/\=====
The devil lead their way, followed by the choir, with the pretender and his guards taking up the rear. This was the command deck, hatches opened to offices and senior officer quarters, the bloody work continued here as the last Terran holdouts faced their Vulcan executioners.
“The bridge nears,” The devil spoke.
The pretender spoke at their backs, “And the path to freedom, under my benevolent command.”
She let the words slip away as soon as she heard them uttered, then recited a poem lost to their history, “Of easy wind and downy flake, the woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep,”
The devil paused his progress upon hearing her words, causing the entire party to halt.
The pretender seemed very confused at that particular moment, “An obstacle?”
She turned to face the elder Vulcan, “Your security stays here to guard our exit, this is non-negotiable,”
The pretender bristled in a shameful display of pride, “We have the ship!”
“And I have the navigational information, without it, your neck will soon be back under a Terran boot,” She calmly explained.
The pretender signaled his guards to remain, “Keep the corridor clear, we’ll return,”
With that, the devil moved again, the choir at his heels, and the pretender a meter behind them, clearly uneasy now.
====/\=====
A loud slam came from one of the hatches that connected the bridge to the command deck, causing the Lieutenant to start, then nervously look towards the Savage. The Savage looked as well, but seemed less concerned, the hatch was security sealed, and even if those damned green-blooded demons could force it open, they’d have a level ten force field to hold them back.
“Relax, focus on the task, Lieutenant. Your life depends on it,” The Savage informed is final subordinate.
The Lieutenant looked back to her console, the last of her rushed calculations finally giving her the perfect sequence that would jettison the bridge from the ship as safely as possible, “I’ll have to do some quick shield adjustments, but we’re almost ready Captain!”
Another loud slam from the hatch, and then something truly unusual, a pair of black gloved fingertips, this is how luck runs out. The security sealed doors get pulled apart suddenly by eight black gloved fingertips, and then off the hinges completely.
The Savage stood up from his throne and faced the broken door, “Now Lieutenant!”
====/\=====
After she ripped the bridge hatch off its rollers, she nodded to her team, then turned to the devil and gave him a nod as well.
The devil pulled a black mask from a back pocket and covered his face with it. He pulled his blade from his belt and covered it in the green blood of a would-be Captain, a pretender to the throne.
“Romulus?” The pretender gasped. He got no answer, no comfort before his death, and no one to spirit his katra to the sacred places for him.
She placed a palm upon the forcefield, and the field crackled and sparked and made a great show of doing so. On her arm a device lit up and adjusted in the pitch it made until calibrated to the frequency of the field, and then upon the choir’s arms as well, the devil himself included among them.
“It’s time,” She said as she looked back at them all. She looked forward and saw her target, before simply walking through the field as if it weren’t there at all, her gaze locked on the Savage, the first shot blowing his weapon off his hip, and a bit of flesh along with it.
“We’re red—“ These were the last words of a Terran lieutenant before a bolt of disruptor energy tore her head from her neck, her body slumping on the console before she could hit the button. It was already too late, it was always a bit too late.
The Savage jumped behind his chair then scurried towards a security station weapons locker, “No…” He called out in utter terror as he saw his life flash before his eyes. Another bolt of energy sparking just ahead of him, driving him back as he recoiled away from his weapons cache, “Please no, no no, don’t do it! Don’t kill me!”
She held up a fist, “Prepare our departure,” She walked over to the wounded coward, his pants soiled in fear, and in blood, “I’m not here to kill you, Captain Savage. But you’ll wish I had been,” She placed a device on the Savage’s arm, much like the one that allowed his capture.
The devil moved to the communications console, entering a passcode that restored the system. Activating it, he spoke to his Brother Vulcans, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that you go to than you have ever known,” The devil tapped another button on the console, then looked to the others, “It’s ready.”
The console started a thirty second countdown, not an auto-destruct, as that would require the Savage’s assistance, but something just as deadly. Full containment field shutdown, and complete decompression of all cargobays, shuttlebays and docking ports.
“Let us not linger,” She said before tapping the device on her arm, causing seven living soles on the bridge to transport to the confines of the tiny ship that brought the choir to the Warlock that day.
It wasn’t long before their tiny ship departed the now completely vented shuttlebay, bodies flying out around them at a high velocity, this was clearly the devil’s work.
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