Ensign Quentin Beck - [PHASE 2] A Farewell to Arms

[IsKah]

@Quentin Beck really trying to get the Evil Dead Bruce Campbell look. 

 

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((Aboard the Workerbee Barry, En Route to Earth, Sector 001))

 

Quentin had quietly slipped away from the Artemis when T'Ama's transfer orders to the Chin'toka had come through; he'd considered tagging along with her, but the closer they got to Earth, the more worried he became about his mother's apparently flagging health. Whatever the hell was going on with the Borg was a big deal, sure, but he was just a junior medical officer, an Ensign, who was maybe starting to show some of his real promise but ultimately wouldn't do much to help anyone dealing with the emergency brewing for Frontier Day.

 

That's how he rationalized it, anyway; he'd snuck into storage for the Worker bees, made sure he climbed into one that could actually transport officers, then snuck away by shutting off the tiny ship's communications array and signal transponder. It didn't have a warp core, so there was no warp signature to worry about, and mostly it traveled only by thrusters. It was going to take him longer to get to Earth than riding an actual shuttle, but he'd been pretty certain MacKenzie wouldn't have let him go.

 

He was counting on the fact no one would notice a speck that couldn't move faster than sublight.

 

Truth be told, it was actually a pretty relaxing ride; it was quiet, aside from the hum of the thrusters propelling him through space, and while there was some inky blackness, there were also plenty of stars pinpricking his view. That was, at least, until he reached the correct Z-coordinate and the nose tipped back down slowly to face his home world.

 

Words could not begin to describe the feeling that clenched his chest; the moon hung off to his right, half-hidden by the curve of the Earth, and he could see even from this distance the streams of shuttles moving from the colonies there back to the planet at large. Sol Station was mostly centered but further off to his left; he'd have to give it a wider berth to make sure they didn't pick him up, though he suspected they were too busy with prepping for the parade to notice him. The spacedock doors started to slowly cycle open, though Quentin couldn't see who was going to be flying out.

 

Adjusting his heading a little, he programmed a somewhat larger arc to approach Earth. He knew he'd get pinged by someone somewhere the closer he got, but he waited as long as he could to turn on the communications array. The puncture wounds in his right hand had long since been sealed over before he'd left Sickbay, but right where they had been started throbbing heavily. His jaw grew taut and his brow creased as he shook out his hand. When the comm finished turning back on, it was in the middle of a transmission.

 

Shelby: =/\= – took that first vital step, we gather on Frontier Day to take another; as we demonstrate our newest advancement, “Fleet Formation”. =/\=

 

Quentin recalled overhearing MacKenzie warning the others about that particular formation, but he hadn't been privy to the whole conversation since he'd been slinking away to borrow the Barry. The fear of losing his mother, hell, even his father, had overridden any sense of duty and rational thought.

 

He shook out his hand again.

 

Shelby: =/\= Our next demonstration is the summation of decades of technological advancements. =/\=

 

Beck: ::under his breath:: Famous last words.

 

He shut off the transmission, though he left the comm array online, letting out a sigh and shaking his hand again. Wiggling his fingers, he glared at the hand and only then started to notice an inky blackness spreading out from the two points where the Borg had shot him full of nanites before. It spread quickly, wildly, the flesh of his palm and fingers going pale the darker the veins became. His fingers twitched painfully, stretching and bending at different angles, jerking hard enough to pull his arm along with it.

 

Beck: What the hell?

 

The hand twitched a few more times before his wrist snapped suddenly so his palm and fingers pointed at his face. The fingers flexed, extended, then the hand yanked towards his face, fingernails digging into his eyes, into his cheeks, into his chin, raking and tearing at his flesh and trying to pierce his eyes.

 

Quentin's head snapped back and he tumbled out of the lone chair, hitting the deck hard and letting out a cry of surprise followed almost immediately by screams of pain and horror. His other hand rose to grip his right wrist, fingers squeezing tightly against it right above the site where he'd administered the anti-Borg serum. It took all of his strength to pry the hand away from his face, leaving behind streaks of red where the nails had bit through his skin; the hand pressed forward as best it could, trying to worm its way out of his grip so it could attack him again.

 

Gritting his teeth, he rolled onto his stomach and slammed his wrist down against the floor repeatedly, which sent shockwaves of pain up his arm. Arching his back and pulling his lower half up, he pressed his left knee down against the center of his forearm to pin it in place, though his hand remained gripped firmly against his wrist.

 

Beck: You Borg @#$%#&*! Give me back my hand. Gimme back my hand!

 

Said hand jerked again, the fingers flexing and moving rapidly, as if trying to communicate. Not caring much at all for what it might be trying to say, Quentin's gaze flicked to the emergency medical kit mounted on the wall near the tiny craft's exit. It was close… but also too far.

 

The phaser was still on his hip.

 

Shifting his leg to press his knee against the wrist, bending himself awkwardly, he let go so he could unholster the phaser with his less dominant hand. Raising it so he could adjust the beam, he grimaced as the hand jerked again and almost got itself loose, but he managed to keep it from knocking him down again.

 

He jabbed the muzzle of the phaser into the center of his palm and growled.

 

Beck: Eat this.

 

He fired. He'd narrowed the beam as much as possible, hoping to utilize it more like a scalpel than a weapon, but it was clumsy. Pain shot up his arm again, horrific pain, though as the beam disintegrated the hand and the fingers flailed, the inky blackness swelled suddenly at the end of his wrist and, for whatever reason, the disintegration stopped there. The pain was overwhelming.

 

Dropping the phaser and shoving the stub of his wrist underneath his arm, he scrambled over to the medkit, breathing heavily, sweat spotting his brow. He yanked it off the wall, fumbled it open, and pulled out a hypo to give himself a pretty serious painkiller.

 

Breathing heavily, his back pressed against the bulkhead, his eyes fell closed and his jaw grew slack. Then he passed out.

 

TBC

 

Ensign Quentin Beck

Medical Officer

USS Ronin NCC-34523

A238810SA0