Monsters are Real
Posted on Fri Oct 2nd, 2026 @ 8:46pm by Captain Daegan Baas & Lieutenant JG V'Laros & Commander Jerome Hunt Jr. & Lieutenant Commander Magdalena Doyl & Lieutenant Darius Korveth & Lieutenant Edruj Daughter of Thrawn & Lieutenant Urushi Yaotome & Lieutenant Ayumu Tanaka & Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman & Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov & Lieutenant JG Adam Taggart & Ensign Josiah Lambert & Ensign Thiago Yupanqui
Edited on on Fri Oct 2nd, 2026 @ 8:47pm
2,528 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Monsters are real
Location: USS Valkyrie / Salvage Station
[Bridge]
Hobbes's estimate was spot on, and they dropped from warp near the planet. The blue supergiant filled the viewscreen, and in the middle, the still smoldering station. Baas sat forward in his seat. "What a mess. Alright, let's see what we are working with. Full scans and hail the station. Hopefully someone down there restored communications."
Magdalena stared at the image on the viewscreen for a few seconds. It looked like a battle zone. Then she began to scan the area for intact ships, shuttles, or escape pods. And any signs of survivors. "Nothing intact around the station. Just...destruction."
The impact area was a mess, and debris blown from the impact was already falling into the atmosphere. "Any chances the computer cores of either ship are intact enough to get flight logs? How many survivors on the station and how much time do we have left to stabilize its orbit?"
Edruj turned from her station. "Judging by the station's trajectory, we have about sixteen hours before it begins final entry into the atmosphere. In terms of the ship logs, you may have a shot. But I would have to get a team aboard and get power online."
Urushi narrowed her eyes as she studied her readings. "Captain, I'm attempting to access their computer core. However, either its security is rejecting my remote access, or it has damaged components." She paused. "There are also areas where I can't seem to penetrate with our sensors. That could be due to the station's construction or something is blocking us."
"I can try a security override," Maggie said to Urushi. She wasn't sure it would help, but it wouldn't hurt to try.
Daegan gestured to his new Security Chief. "See what you can do. If we can access their system we should be able to find any survivors. That shielding could be a result of the quarantine."
Looking back to Urushi, "Is it safe to beam over?"
"I'm reading a breathable atmosphere on the station. It seems that their life support is stable," Urushi reported as she checked the ships sensor readouts. "However, I can only see the internal areas of some sections. There are other sections of the station that our sensors can't seem to get past the hull."
Baas crossed his arms as he took everything in... A falling station, a ticking clock, no detectable survivors but several areas they couldn't scan, so still a possibility of survivors. Dropping his hands, he turned to Jerome. "XO. Let's get search and rescue teams over there to head towards the shielded areas with another to see what we can find on the crashed ship."
Looking to Edruj, "We don't know if restoring power is even an option, so take portable modules to get local systems online to aid in the search and to figure out what happened. If possible, we might be able to set up a power transfer from the Valkyrie. I also want construction pods deployed to attach thruster modules. We can combine the thrusters with a tractor beam from here...see if we can at least buy us some time."
Jerome simply nodded as he quickly moved from his seat, making his way to the turbolift. "Doyl, Mallory, Edruj, Korveth, with me."
"Captain," Darius said as he glanced in Bass' direction, "I can help coordinate things from here if we need to use the Valkyrie's power, or I can beam down with the away team. Which would you like me to do?"
"I'd like security with every team," Maggie said as she followed Hunt. "At least until we know if it's safe."
"I concur," Hunt spoke. "Last thing we need is for someone to get the drop on us."
"Agreed. Jerome, let's get 2 teams over there to start, see what we are dealing with."
Jerome nodded. "Let's get going."
Baas nodded as the various officers moved to the lift to and take part in their away teams and as their reliefs manned the bridge stations.
Ryan watched from the Intelligence station as most of the senior staff shuffled away. He could feel the bite of curiosity inside of him as he searched the computer's database for anything useful that might help the away teams.
Team 1 - Station commander center/ Stations Systems restoration
The Stations Operations center had seen better days. The various consoles were flickering, the strange alien layout of their panels were sluen to the Starfleet crew. Cups of half-filled liquid were positioned on tables, some knocked over and their contents now oozing on the floor. Wiring and panels swung from the ceiling exposing conduits and machinery above, some sparked whilst others hummed or fizzed. A large viewscreen set on the far wall showed various shots of the station interior. It was flicking through what seemed to be various security cameras. The station looked the same, with broken panels, abandoned areas and not a soul in sight.
On top of that, strange splatters of some sort of liquid dotted the walls, yet no corpses were evident in the room. To anyone visiting the operations center looked like it had been through hell, beaten and half destroyed then just simply abandoned.
"Well..." Urushi said as she unclipped her tricorder from her belt. "This doesn't look good at all." The Trill science officer made her way towards the closest console. The strange liquid from a tipped mug was gently expanding over the interface. "I'll try accessing their systems." She said. She only hoped that the tricorder could guide her on how to access the alien interface and look for clues as to what occurred here.
Commander Hunt observed the untidy command center. Not one body was to be found, which worried him more than anything. Hopefully the interface would provide a clue to what took place here. The one thing he hated was anything remotely close an old ghost town. "Stay close and ensure that at least one other person maintain visual of your person."
Edruj looked around and took stock of the situation. Internally she was of two minds. The analytical engineering part of her mind wanted to dig right in to checking the systems and bringing things online. However, the part of her that was solely Klingon wanted to make sure that all threats were neutralized. Despite it all there was one thing that both parts of her agreed on. That was that something here was not right.
Approaching the panel, Jerome tried fooling around the controls. "Hopefully, I can pull up something that will give us some clue on what went down here."
"Good idea," Urushi replied. "I think I'm into their computers, but this interface isn't very user friendly." She tapped away at the surface with a disgruntled expression. Every now and again she glanced over at her tricorder for translation and direction. "Commander, there’s a log here. It seems to have been made by the station’s commander..."
The viewscreen flicked on. It didn't show much. "The file is either heavily corrupted or damaged." Urushi explained. The log was short, it showed the command center in a blur. As if the user was holding the recording device. Their comm badges translated for them.
"They're coming! They're here!". There was the sound of weapons, the eerie sounds of screams before the video feed cut off in a haze of static.
"That wasn't... good..." Urushi commented.
"Not good at all," Jerome echoed. "Let's think about what we know about the Defiled habits. After wreaking havoc, they typically lay low in dark secluded areas."
Lambert shot a glance towards Hunt at his comment. A chill went up and down his spine, he still had some misgivings as to facing a Defiled but, he shoved that towards the back of his mind. After all, he went through a series of holo programs with Garath to help prep him for something such as this.
Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly,
That recording, it sounded so familiar. And there was that sense of deja vu as well.
"Not good." Lambert said quietly, "Still need to be on the lookout and also make sure our weapons are not set on stun."
Team 2 - Search Team / Station Medical
V'Laros was shocked at the conditions in the corridor in which they had beamed into. Lights flickered there was damage to nearby doorways, but the most 'disturbing' was the blood. Trails of blood or other bodily fluids were everywhere. Whatever had beaten its way through a nearby door had not only ripped the holes through the material but damaged itself in doing so.
His tricorder scanned the residue. "I would advise against touching any contaminated surface. There are markers here similar to those detected from the scans of Lt. Webb following his transfiguration."
"Definitely wouldn't want that," Ayumu shuddered.
Not waiting for approval V'Laros tapped his commbadge. "Lt. V'Laros to Commander Hunt. I have confirmed the presence of the Defiled. I highly recommend not touching contaminated surfaces."
"Acknowledged," Hunt replied as he powered up his weapon. "Did everyone hear that? Confirmation on Defiled presence."
The first thing Ensign Thiago Yupanqui had noticed was the smell of scorched insulation and heated metal. There were streaks of fluid everywhere--the walls, the floor, even across some of the beds.
With his tricorder held tightly in his left hand, he knelt down where a grotesque blood-soaked form lay. The tricorder began spitting-out its findings.
"That's strange," Thiago murmured.
"What is it?" Ayumu asked as he moved to join the Ensign.
Thiago shook his head. "The residue is biological in origin but I'm reading three distinct sets of DNA."
"Three?" Ayumu remarked, glancing skeptically at the cadaver, then back over towards Thiago. "So, a mutation of a mutation?"
The young doctor stared at his tricorder's display, then down at what remained of the body. The readings were too inconsistent. Cells from the original organism were present alongside altered material that appeared to have incorporated genetic information from something else completely. The third pattern was stranger still, incomplete in places and changing wherever the sample was dense enough to get a clean reading.
He enlarged the results and ran the scan again. "I don't think it's a mutation of a mutation," he said softly. "Or at least, that isn't how I'm reading it."
Thiago glanced around the room, seeing the dried blood in places and yet wet in others--a distinction that seemed suddenly important. "Multiple mutations," he said, rising. "Or multiple stages of whatever this is. Something is taking living tissue and changing it, then changing it again. The genetic material isn't staying stable."
Adam Taggart felt the hairs of his neck rise, he was here first hand, seeing what had been seen on another planet where they had lost others.
He didn't say much but checked to make certain his weapon was set on kill, instead of stun.
[USS Valkyrie]
One of the hardest thing to being a Captain was the waiting. Having gotten his start as a security officer, he was used to being in the thick of things and no matter how long he'd been running things he still had to force himself from pacing as he waited. Sizia, to her credit did he best to keep him occupied with busy work to keep occupied.
"Hunt to Valkyrie, we have confirmation to the Defiled presence."
Bass suspicions were confirmed. He had had a hunch the reason for the shift from a distress call to a 'quarantine' was going to those damn things. "Damn... Any sign of activity?
"No signs outside of DNA," the Commander reported. "But from the looks of things, no one here survived. How would you like to proceed?"
Daegan was tempted to pull their people out and send that station into the planet below but... Turning to Doyl, any success scanning those shielded areas or accessing the station's systems?"
Maggie had been carefully working through the layers of security on the station. Most of them only took her security authorization, but a couple required her to slip through a less protected access route. She'd studied these in the Academy, just in case she might need them. And, over the years, she made a point of keeping up on new security protocols, procedures, and equipment. You never knew when you'd have to get somewhere quickly. She justified it as security intel. This time, it worked. "I have access to their security cameras, sir."
"Excellent...and the shielded areas?"
She shook her head. "I can't get through. From what I've seen of the damage to the station, we're lucky to have as much as we do. I'll keep trying, but it will likely take some major repairs to get them working again." And that wasn't going to happen.
"Damn."
Going back to his conversation with Jerome. "Commander we need to be sure. There are a few people that have first-hand experience with the Defiled. Don't worry about restoring the stations systems, we need to check the stations shielded areas, recover the flight data or logs from the ships that crash, and get the hell out of there. Split your team and beam over to the remains of those ships. I will send two more teams to check for survivors. Have the Doctor and his team return to the Valkyrie and prepare for any survivors.
Hunt wasn't too keen on staying any longer than thy have to. His first reaction was wanting to get his people out of here at this very moment. But he wouldn't argue against his orders. "I'll make it happen."
As the channel close Baas turned, looking at both Doyl and Belikov. "Commander Doyl, Lieutenant Belikov. Each of you take a team and search one of the two areas. Sizia has first-hand experience with the Defiled and Ensign Garath is familiar as well, so take them with you. Get in search and get out. If you run into trouble we won't be able to beam you out unless you make it outside the shielding."
"Yes, sir." Maggie already had a mental list of what she wanted to take with her. Now she just needed her team.
Garath had been the one handing out the rifles, sidearms, and extra power cells to everyone and had filled in everyone in that they would have to vaporize any Defiled they encountered and that that would deplete their power and everyone would need to fire in stages to allow for others to recharge. Something that he and Lambert had figured out on the holodeck.
The looks on the faces of the crew they passed said everything; the two team must have been quite the spectacle being decked out in a tactical vests and armed to the teeth.
~~~ END ~~~
Captain Daegan Baas
CO
Commander Jerome Hunt
Executive Officer
USS Valkyrie
Lieutenant Urushi Yaotome
Chief Science Officer
USS Valkyrie
Lieutenant Adam Taggart
Assistant Chief Security
USS Valkyrie
Ensign Josial Lambert
Security
USS Valkyrie
Lieutenant Commander Magdalena Doyl
Chief Security Officer
USS Valkyrie
Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Valkyrie
Ensign Thiago Yupanqui
Doctor
USS Valkyrie
Lieutenant Edruj
Chief Engineer
USS Valkyrie
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