mar/apr Tentacle Storms

[Zinna]

“I love you.”

“I love you too, honey.”

Lt. Tom Skuller smiled at his wife, who was pregnant. She had been carrying that soon to be chubby blob of cuteness for eight months and would soon be letting it finally breath air. Cindy Skuller was holding her stomach and smiling lightly. Giving birth was an excruciating task, and this would be her first time. She was nervous, but that's why she held Tom's hand, for comfort.

=/\= Captain Smasher to Lt. Skuller, please report to the bridge. =/\=

“Wait...you're leaving?” Cindy asked.

Tom looked at her with sorrow. “Sorry hon, duty calls,” he said to her. “I really wish I could stay to see our little boy—or girl being born, but...I have to go.”

Cindy nodded. She wasn't a Starfleet officer, but she understood military regulations.

“Don't worry,” said a woman in a blue medical uniform. “I'll take good care of you. Get her to a biobed.”

Two nurses did as they were told by the chief medical officer and the anti-grav lift carried her into sickbay. Tom watched as his wife was being situated. He cut his eyes and walked down the corridor. Taking the turbolift, he was soon on the bridge and Captain Smasher did not look please.

“Glad you could join us Lt.,” Smasher stated. His fully square sculpted jaw was perfectly proportional to his personality: tough. “We seem to have run across something....unusual.”

Tom looked uncertain. “Like?”

Ensign Kurt, the science officer of the USS Ares, stood from her station. “Sir, sensors reading temperature rising from the exterior of the ship.”

Smasher sat in the command chair quickly. “Source, ensign?”

Kurt looked at her station and back at the Captain with uncertainty. She grimaced to herself and looked up. “Unknown....but if the temperature does increase it could be dangerous, sir.”

“Interesting...,” Smasher mumbled. “Reroute our course to a safer distance from this 'dangerous temperature', helm.”

“Aye sir.”

Smasher looked at Lt. Skuller happily this time. “Cindy delivered yet?”

“No sir...I was called to duty right at the moment before she was going to give birth.” Tom focused on his console. There was no doubt he was upset about being called on duty right on his first kid's birth. Although there were other tactical officers, Tom was the very best. “But duty calls.”

“[...] right it does,” Captain Smasher replied.

“Captain,” Kurt said, “the temperature is still rising significantly.”

Smasher stood from his chair. “I thought I told helm to steer us away from it.”

The helmsman was a bit fidgety and didn't like being yelled at so he didn't honestly like the Captain because of the yelling. The helmsman was of course no other than Bruce Wallace, and a clumsy one at it as well. “Sir...every time I calculate a different course the temperature continues to rise...is it getting hot in here or is it just me?”

“It's just you ensign.”

“Actually,” Tom interrupted, “I do think it's getting hot in--”

The klaxons blasted and everyone took their stations with concentrated faces. Captain Smasher looked angry because his crew couldn't follow simple directions.

“Report!”

“Shields at eighty percent, sir,” Tom said, “and dropping.”

“Dropping?” Tom looked at Kurt. “Why is it dropping?”

“The high temperature is damaging the shields and will soon damage the hull. Scanners identifying it as a storm but the type is unknown...not registered in our databanks,” Kurt shouted.

There was disruption that shook the bridge violently.

Ensign Kurt held onto her station. “Perhaps a new type of storm Starfleet hasn't encountered before, sir.”

Outside, the region of space in which the Ares was surrounded by was a green light with purple energy floating adrift. There was a white misty like energy emerging from the eye of the storm and was in the shape of a tentacle. It stretched from the eye to grasp the Ares and pull it into the eye of the storm.

The bridge continuously shook.

“Captain I'm not getting any information on this storm!”

“Shields at forty percent and dropping rapidly!”

“Life support failing on decks seven through fifteen! We have confirmed casualties sir!”

“Shields at ten percent and dropping! Nine percent—eight—seven! Shields nearly out sir!”

=/\= Lt. Cmdr. Reynolds to bridge! I have a confirmed coolant leak! Whatever this thing is it's causing massive damage to the Ares! We're not going to make it out of this alive! =/\=

The USS Ares was fully enclosed in the white misty tentacle and purple lightning crackled through space. Hull breaches were made and several officers and crewman and civilians flew out into space where they lost air, their lungs exploded, and they died. The ceiling fell from the roof of the bridge and landed on the first officer.

Main Engineering was engulfed with flames and soon Lt. Cmdr. Reynolds, the chief engineer, burned to a crisp ash and was no more. Several engineers suffered from radiation as their bodies contained huge blisters and burns. Sickbay wasn't heavily damaged but had minor damage and with most of the medics dead from being crushed by rubble or sucked into space, the crew was short.

“Okay we have to deliver this baby!” Dr. Conner shouted. She flew her fingers through her hair.

=/\= This is Captain Philip Smasher to all personnel! All hands abandon ship! I repeat all hands abandon ship! Now! =/\=

“Sir, a word!” Kurt shouted. “What if this storm was artificially generated! What if this is a way to gain Starfleet vessels from enemies! The possibilities are endless sir! We can't surrender the ship like this!”

“She's right!” Tom spoke up. He looked at the several dead officers, including the quiet helmsman, the alien ops officer, and the beautiful first officer. All were dead except him, Kurt, and Captain Smasher. “We can't just give her away!”

“Fine! You're right!” Smasher was thrown into the burning helm by the turbulence and set to flames, and he burned to a crisp.

“Oh gosh!” Kurt screamed. “We have to get out of here!” She gripped the station tightly hoping the disruption wouldn't toss her into a burning station.

“But what about the ship!” Tom protested.

“What about the ship! What about us! We'll never survive this if we don't get a move on!”

“I can't just leave it here! You go on, I'm setting it to self-destruct!”

“You won't make it out in time!”

“Then I'll die with it and a good man from keeping anyone from stealing our intelligence and technology!”

“No...”

“I outrank you ensign, I order you to report to lifepods this instant!”

Ensign Kurt looked at him angrily. Rank was something that always held her back, and she was sure she wouldn't be getting that promotion for disobeying a direct order from a ranking officer. She nodded silently and headed out of the bridge carefully making sure she stopped and gripped something every time there was the violent shaking that could send her to her burning death.

Cindy was in a medical shuttlecraft and breathing heavily. Her baby was due.

“Okay! We're kind of behind schedule, but I think the baby will be okay.” The doctor began operating.

The pilot of the shuttle started it up and exited the ship along with the other shuttles and lifepods. All could see the white tentacle crushing the Ares in its tight grip, and then they could see several more tentacles emerging from the eye of the storm working it's way to pull in the ship. The shuttles and lifepods were out of harm's way, but Lt. Skuller was far from it.

“Let's see if I can destroy this thing before it reaches the eye of the storm,” Tom said to himself. He punched a few buttons and within time, the ship had exploded. The tentacles were not damaged however. They were perfectly fine, but they didn't reach out to grab the shuttles and lifepods.

If it weren't for Ensign Kurt's desire to not be burned she would have made it to the shuttlebay in time to live, but she didn't, and she died. The baby had been successfully delivered, but died instantly from radiation poison. Starfleet then recorded this to be to most dangerous storm known to man, with an obvious name: The Tentacle Storm. No one has ever known where it leads and how the tentacles are created, operated, or anything by that matter, but what is known...no one can survive it.

-END-

Lt. JG Zinna

Chief Counselor

USS Tiger-A