Another day in evil...

Posted on Wed Aug 6th, 2025 @ 10:52pm by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D

Mission: Aeon's End
Location: Far Luna geostationary orbit. The Sol III extermination zone.
Timeline: Approximately 3 years ago. When there was still hope.
1124 words - 2.2 OF Standard Post Measure

"I told you" the Yridian sputtered, seeming somehow to speak, gargle phlegm and snort at the same time. He shuffled awkwardly through the confined, dim interior of the rancid damned shuttlecraft, as if his preposterously large belly were literally in the way of his feet.

The Vulcan stared through the data relay. An optronic sensor array "donated", so he'd lied, from an old Federation derelict somewhere near what used to be Andoria had been crudely interfaced with this 'ship' providing the kind of sensor resolution she'd become complacently accustomed to in Starfleet. This kind of technology was rare. Hard to come by. Certainly not left aboard a derelict in one of the core systems. She would deal with that momentarily however; for now she had the task at hand, the reason she'd risked coming back to the remains of Earth.

Though the ship was small, barely powered and unimpressive; the sensor array kicked out enough in the theta and omicron bands to draw attention if not used carefully. She imagined this was akin to the various sub-marine vessels utilised in maritime warfare across the numerous worlds of the... well, not the Federation. Not any more. Her eyes fixed on the readouts, she gestured with her hand for the disgusting pilot to pop the ship up and over the Luna horizon again, just for a few seconds to get another data read of the Earth. It would take a minute for the next data packet to decode, such was the disparity between the Starfleet sensor hardware and the decaying civilian computer.

"This sensor array is impressive. From a derelict you say..." she probed, her eyes not caring enough about the Yridian to avert from the data streams beginning to decode before her.

The 'man' again replied through his ghastly combination of phlegm snorting and gargling whilst speaking; "uhh yes yes. A ship. Abandoned. Terrible thing. A recent bit of fortune to find it really...." His eyes darted about, as if checking on whether some imaginary audience believed him. But it was only the two of them.

"I see" the Vulcan replied, her words far more a threat than acknowledgement. "Andoria was picked clean, first by them and then by scavengers when it fell last year. You came across this recently? I doubt it. Perhaps you took advantage of a damaged straggler, perhaps you were one of the pirate flotillas who attacked the remaining Starfleet Starships when the Third Fleet collapsed over Andoria...". Her brow cocked as her eyes darted to check his reaction.

One of panic. Fear. Danger. "N- no - no not at at all. No not at all. What pirates...?" he spluttered. Thick yellow gloop running from his flared nostrils.

"I don't care" she lied in return. "Survival is logical. Is it not?" she asked of him.

"I uhh erm...yes yes it is. Yes...you... so you understand" he panicked out through shallow breaths.

"Once more" she commanded, again using her hand to gesture up...and down.

"It is as I said...yes?" The filthy Yridian asked, as if her reply itself were the payment he desperately sought.

Hey eyes sank away from the screen, she felt her shoulders follow the slump as the desperate conclusion of the data on the screen took hold. The realisation of the verified information, and what must come next, gripped at her as if a hand made of fire itself had gripped her heart and it's every heartbeat, struggled to squirm against the tightening hand.

"Yes" she replied. Simply. Defeatedly. Looking away from the screen, she moved behind the pilots seat at the front of the arrowhead cockpit. Ignoring the incessant self congratulatory chatter sprouting from the Yridian, she looked down at his greasy head and it's few pathetic vile looking hairs. Silently, her right hand found his throat as her left gripped across his brow and pulled his head back into the headrest. It would only take a few moments, the struggling.

It was hardly logical, but it felt good. Even just this pathetic creature, dying at the ends of her fingers, a small tally back in the win column, revenge for however many had died for this sensor array. The tales had been brutal; warp fields destabilised, fleets trapped and crippled. Imperative ships flying care-free past lines of Starfleet defences, each one battered in turn as they protected the worlds beneath them. Soulless pirate scavengers, too insignificant to be bothered with, swarming over starships trying to flee and keeping them trapped whilst waiting for Imperative ships to finish them off. All so those same pirates could swoop back in later to collect technological bounties before the Imperative could organise their behemoth operation of collecting starships to strip them down.

As his futile hands and feet struggled and flailed and gripped she remained calm and stoic. The Luna horizon just barely giving way to the Earthrise, relatively safe to observe without the sensor running active. The dusty brown surface coming slowly into view, cresting over the edge of Luna and the broken habitat domes, she looked down and saw only another planet with great gouges vaguely in the shape of where water had been. Another lifeless rock, whose oceans had vaporised without the pressure of an atmosphere - stripped away for it's parts to power the vast fleets and needs of the Final Imperative. The only features left, she become aware as the flailing lessened, were the tremendously scaled pipes and conduits which latticed the barren surface.

She tried not to imagine the sensations, the sights and sounds as the giant devices had descended from space and the atmosphere had been stripped of it's covalent bonds; ripping apart the atmosphere at the atomic level in minutes so that the constituent atomic parts could be harvested. As oceans and people equally boiled, buildings collapsed, screams silenced and the blackness of space descended to the very level of the streets; what must it have been like for 9 billion people in those minutes. For all she tried to keep the thoughts away, the sight of Earth journeying lifeless, dead and silent through space was too intrusive. Earth. Vulcan...dozens of others. Just gone. Given to the void.

Now however, she might be able to change all that. This could be the key to victory. Really, at this point just survival. She couldn't bring any of the lost worlds back, but the next time she was back here at Earth she would be coming with a fighting chance to stop the Imperative in it's tracks.

All she needed was an engineer. To achieve the scale of the feat before them, probably the best engineer left in what remained of Starfleet.

P'rel knew just the person....