The Great Escape [CONTENT WARNING]
Posted on Wed May 20th, 2026 @ 10:45pm by Commander N'Garzi Zora & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Didrea Zade
Mission:
Aeon's End
Location: Deck 10
Timeline: MD3
3033 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure
The ship vibrated with each hit. Bam! Bam bam! Bam... bam! The lights dimmed as the red alert went off, causing the crew to pause. When no command came over comms, the crew moved to battlestations.
On deck 10, a Jefferies tube hatch burst open, the door clanging against the opposite wall. A creature that almost resembled a giant ant pulled itself out, its mouth emitting a chattering noise as its mandibles twitched. It looked around, senses alert for heat signatures to follow, as another crawled out of the tube. Its legs scratched against the wall as it pulled its body out, and once out their legs drummed on the deck plating as they scampered around.
Kimeron, one of the engineers from B shift, entered the tube from the opposite end of deck 10. Blood pooled onto the floor as the hatch opened in front of him. The Jefferies tube, which would normally be filled with ops, techs and engineers busily repairing the systems was instead filled with a deafening silence broken only by the agonizing moans of the few souls that hadn't actually died yet but were minutes from doing so. He gulped a breath as his hand started to tremor just slightly and pushed his way in, hoping his fate might not follow in the same path as those before him.
Eeza exhaled as he found himself in one of the many intersections. Scrambling to his feet, he rubbed his knees. Normally, this would be to remove any dirt or marks from his otherwise pristine uniform, but today, such trivial things didn't seem to matter. He ached all over and he was happy to have the opportunity to stretch, if only for a moment. The ridges on his nose itched; this often happened when he was nervous. Right now, he was well beyond nervous; he was terrified. Those aliens were all over the ship, hunting in packs and devouring all they came across. He was contemplating staying here when he heard a noise. He pulled at the strap on his chest in an effort to pull his phaser rifle from his back to his front but the barrel of the gun ended up hitting him on his head. He rubbed his temple until he heard another noise, confirmation that he was not alone. He tightened his grip with sweaty palms. "Who's there?" He asked in a small voice that barely filled the intersection.
"Don't shoot!" A woman's voice came from an open tube. A couple seconds later, Ensign Varinity Pheela appeared, one hand up as if to shield from any weapons fire. Her short, strawberry blonde hair was messy, and some smudge marks decorated both her face and yellow uniform. She was breathing heavy, and as more of her became visible, a tear along the side of her uniform jacket glistened. "Eeza?" The question was in disbelief, as Varinity hadn't seen anyone since the ship was hit.
"Var!" Eeza exclaimed, unable to keep the relief out of his voice. "Thank the Phophets," he added as he lowered his weapon. It was nice seeing a friendly face and especially that of someone he was already familiar with. He suddenly felt much less alone and started to think he might survive this nightmare after all. "What happened? Are you okay?" He asked, indicating the torn uniform and spreading blood stain.
Once Varinity crawled out into the intersection, she leaned against the wall to try and catch her breath. "Trust me, it only looks bad," she assured. A grimace twisted her face as she covered the injury with her hand. It may have been a shallow cut, but it was long and it still hurt like any other injury that drew blood. "I was on deck 9, section 26 when the ship got hit. Whatever it was breached the hull and wrecked the tube network across deck 9," she explained, heart pounding in her ears. "I was only hit by debris. Tanner..." A tight knot formed in her throat as she recalled her tube buddy. "... Tanner was hit by the thing that-that breached the ship." Upon closer inspection, the smudges across her face and uniform were actually blood splatter with dust and grime sticking to it. "He... it-it crushed him into the wall, Eeza..."
"Var, that's terrible," Eeza replied, his grey eyes filling with tears. But before he could lose himself in his emotions, another noise made him turn in panic.
"Boy am I glad to see anyone else," Kimeron emerged from the jefferies tube, oblivious of the weighty conversation and just truly relieved to see a face that wasn't either dead or dying in agony. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything. I've been crawling for ages trying to find anyone else that might be alive and repairing systems along the way...." He finally notices the blood on Pheela and goes a tad bit pale. "Uh, are you ok?"
"Are you?" Eeza asked, noticing how pale the newcomer had turned. He had seen the guy around the ship before. Cameron or something, he thought to himself. He started tugging at his undershirt and eventually managed to tear away a decent piece. "Do you mind?" He asked Varinity as he reached for her leg, without waiting for an answer, and started wrapping the makeshift bandage in place. "I don't think we can stay here," he stated when he had finished.
Varinity nodded, pressing her lips together tightly as Eeza worked. She hadn't even noticed the leg injury. She opened her mouth to explain to the newcomer what she told Eeza, but the words sputtered out as a new sound came through the tubes.
Something hard scratching against the walls. Movement.
Clicking. Lots of clicking.
The noise made Varinity's blood run cold, and fear made it difficult to breathe. That was the same sound she heard after Tanner was killed. Her hand reached out and gripped Eeza's shoulder tightly, and she looked between him and Kimeron with wide eyes.
"Shit!" Eeza said as he grabbed his phaser again, ready to defend himself as best he could. He turned in the direction from which the sound had come, or at least in the direction he thought the sound had come, as the other two officers had both turned in different ways to him. The clicking was echoing and reverberating around the small intersection, making it impossible to know where it was coming from or how far away it was. "I don't think we can stay here," he repeated, his voice more strained this time.
"Nope, we definitely can't," Kimeron looked around for the closest exit as his skin crawled at the sound echoing around them. "There, come on," he half helped, half dragged Varinity up and towards a jefferies tube hatch. "I'm guessing the jefferies tubes are safer than out in the open corridors. We could try rigging some traps as we go...maybe buy ourselves some time?"
Varinity leaned on Kimeron for support more than she wanted to. She was fully content with getting as far away from that sound as possible. "Traps... yeah, those sound like a good idea," she said, trying to focus on anything other than the clicking sounds. Bracing on the frame, she ducked into the hatch, crawling in to make room for the other two. Her focus was behind her, making sure there was enough space, and when she finally turned her head back around, she froze. Her eyes widened.
The thing was right in front of her. Getting closer. Mandibles snapping at her. Legs scratching for leverage.
Varinity screamed.
She scrambled to turn around, which resulted in bumping her head on the top of the tube. The thing continued to get closer, and she moved a leg to avoid it getting caught by the mandibles. "GET ME OUT!!" Varinity shouted at the other two, clawing for the frame of the hatch. Whatever composure she had was gone, replaced by full panic.
As the other two pulled Varinity back out of the hatch, the creature inside chattered as it scampered after her. It couldn’t push forward with its legs as effectively as if it had open space to move, so it relied on the mandibles to grab onto things. The mandibles reached forward, able to get around the humanoid's fleshy extremity, and used that to try and pull itself forward.
The next couple seconds happened in a blur. Varinity held on for dear life as she was pulled out of the hatch, then something very solid pressing into her skin. She looked back into the hatch to see the creature’s mandibles around her leg, and before she could even point it out, excruciating pain shot up her leg. She screamed again, this time in agony, the pain making her want to either throw up or pass out. Her eyes squeezed shut and she tightened her grip on Eeza and Kimeron.
Kimeron almost froze, almost, as he saw the creature rip both flesh and bone from Varinity's leg. He swallowed a gulp of air and kept moving, pulling his newfound yet mangled friend through the hatch with Eeza's help.
When Varinity cleared the hatch, part of one leg was missing. Where it should have been was instead flesh that had been torn apart. Blood quickly began to pool onto the deck plating, leaving a trail as she was pulled to safety. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she gasped to try and breathe through it.
"Bless us, Prophets," Eeza muttered, grateful for their escape with their lives. His tone quickly changed as he took in Varinity's leg, or what was left of it. A piece of bone stood out where her boot should be and that sight alone was enough to send him over the edge. He felt his stomach lurch, a violent reaction to the scene in front of him. The colour drained from his face but he wasn't sure if that was because of the sight of the missing leg or the noise of the creature that was still close by.
The foot no longer a useful anchor to hold onto, the creature’s mandibles opened, letting the limb thump onto the plating before continuing its gradual shimmy forward.
Kimeron looked to Eeza, his mind moving a mile a minute trying to think of an escape route. "Can you drag her to the next junction and seal the door? I think I can short circuit the conduits in these walls, but it'll essentially turn the deck plating in this junction into electrocution panels. Might stop that thing or at least slow it down?"
"We're going to die," Eeza replied. He had a blank look on his face as he tried to stop himself from falling apart. "We're going to die. The Prophets have damned us and there's no stopping these things."
Blood loss was a funny thing. Varinity's thoughts were already getting fuzzy, and she had enough lingering self awareness to guess that she probably didn't have long anyways. She was terrified, and she didn’t want to be alone, but between hazy thoughts she recognised that them continuing to try and save her would be futile. Two lives saved is better than none. "You two... you two get out of here," she strained, pushing herself so she could sit against the wall. "Give me a phaser and... and I'll try to hold it off. You," she looked to Kimeron, her expression clearly showing her struggle to remember what he just said. "Do the... the thing you suggested. Get Eeza out of here..."
"Whether we split up or stay together, it makes no difference; we're still all going to die," Eeza said, more to himself, his eyes unfocused and his skin as pale as Varinity's.
"Stop it." Kimeron looked over at Eeza, not angry, but leaving no room for argument either. "If you want to give up then fine, but I'm not going to. I would rather spend my last breath fighting to survive than rolling over and giving up." Then looked at Varinity, his whole face eased into something softer, more somber. "Are you sure you want to do this? We can keep going, we can drag you with us. It doesn't have to be the end."
"And leave a blood trail for that... that thing to follow?" Varinity countered, watching the creature try to wrestle its way out into the open. She shook her head. Reaching up, she grasped Kimeron's hand, the one that had the phaser in it. "I'm going to slow you down... and you're out of time, just... give me this, and get out of here." She was already starting to fade, as evidenced by how heavy her eyelids were, but these two still had a chance to escape. She had to hold on, for them. "Besides... someone needs to keep... Eeza from fainting," she murmured with a faint, tired smile.
Kimeron swallowed a gulp of air and let the phaser go from his hand, resting in Varinity's and gave a quick nod before turning to Eeza. "Let's go. We don't have much time."
Eeza looked between Var and Cameron (maybe it was Kyle?) and froze. He knew he didn't have time to hesitate; he knew none of them had time for that, but he winced at the thought of leaving someone behind with one of those things. "I... I..." he stuttered, an audible reflection of the war that was currently raging between his head and his heart. He was about to open his mouth again when he felt a heavy push from Cameron/Kyle/Kieran, forcing his body to move along the cramp jefferies tube and away from his dying friend. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, the words getting stuck in his throat so that only he could hear them.
A horrifying screech came from the insectoid as it popped its abdomen out of the tube, and in no time at all it was at the next opening. It sensed the movement of the other two.
Varinity didn't have time to mourn her own death. The creature was going for Kimeron and Eeza, and she gasped. "No!!" She fired the phaser at the creature, but it didn't stop its blood-streaked mandibles from grabbing the first limb it could reach and separating it from its victim's body.
Eeza heard the clunking sound as the creature clumsily moved along the jefferies tube. The noise vibrated all around them but he knew it was gaining on them. Then he suddenly felt a tug as something grabbed his left leg. He managed to twist his body around just in time to see the giant insect rip Kingston's leg clean off. The suddenness of it had caused Kingston to grab Eeza's leg for support as he screamed out in pure agony.
Eeza's eyes widened in terror and he could feel the blood draining from his face. Somewhere in the back of his mind, among the fear, adrenaline, and utter disgust, he was aware of the growing warm and wet sensation that was leaking out of the front of his uniform trousers; pooling on the metallic deck plating below. He made eye contact with Kayden - I really wish I knew his name - and in that instant, it was clear what he had to do. He kicked his leg hard and didn't stop until it was free from the one-legged man's grip. Phophets forgive me!
The creature didn't waste much time and sank it's mandibles into Kimeron's ribs with a sickening, wet crunch. He tried to scream "No!", but the word was lost in a mangled gargle as his mouth filled with blood. He could feel the thing’s multi-jointed limbs skittering over his skin, tasting him, deciding where to feast next. Then, the pressure vanished. "This is my chance". Kimeron rolled onto his stomach in a desperate attempt to escape. He tried to push upward, but the world tilted and slammed back into his face. He hooked his fingernails into the metal grating and pulled. One agonizing inch. Two. Behind him, blood painted the floor, marking the path of his missing leg. His vision blurred, the metal grates slowly shifted into shadows, until his fifth desperate pull forward ended in collapse.
Eeza heard the carnage behind him, but if he wanted to live, he couldn't slow down. He had to keep on going and hope that the alien was too busy with its fallen prey to think about him. Their faces flashed in his mind's eye but he pushed them deep down inside himself. He just had to reach the junction. Now wasn't the time for sorrow, remorse, or guilt. It was time for action and even though his body groaned under the pressure he was putting it through, he couldn't ease up, he wouldn't!
The creature continued forward, its sharp legs puncturing what was left of Kimeron's body and leaving streaks of blood as it clawed its way forward. A curdling screech came from the creature as it nipped at Eeza's feet.
Eeza felt the tug of his foot, but he couldn't be stopped. If he gave up now, then the other two would have died in vain and he wasn't about to let that happen. Not now, and not like this. He evaded and pushed onwards. Just a little further, just a little faster he thought to himself. He reached his destination and, with a painful twist of his body, managed to turn himself around and smash his fist into the controls that slammed the door closed behind him. I made it!
The quiet in the junction was disturbed by the scratching of mandibles on the door that was sealed in front of the creature. Then, another sound, from above. Another creature that had been trying to break through the hatch to go up smelled the fear from below.
It chattered its mandibles. It let go of the ceiling. Its sharp limbs pierced deep into Eeza as it landed on top of him.
