The Evora Fly Trap

Posted on Sun Oct 20, 2019 @ 12:59pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant JG Camille Lévesque PhD

5,960 words; about a 30 minute read

Mission: Nibiru
Location: Evora II

"No," Amber said.

"I'm not saying we actually cut off a limb or anything," Nicole said. "Maybe just a small disease that we can clear up later."

Amber gave her a look as they walked down the corridor, arms full with gear for the mission. They stopped at Nicole's quarters and she opened the door, finding Camille inside, reviewing a padd.

"Lieutenant," Amber said, stepping forward. "Your new uniform, and gear." She handed Camille a one-piece blue-grey undergarment, and a full body suit that looked like it was woven from a midnight blue-colored metallic fabric, as if someone had made a woven chain mail out of hull material. Both garments were extremely lightweight and looked to fit somewhat snugly. Amber also held out what looked like a large single slab of imperial yellow topaz.

Camille set her PADD down took the uniform and examined it closely. She nodded, impressed by the material. She set it aside to take the slab. She examined it closely. It resembled the obsidian box that was in Nicole’s quarters, a box that she had never opened but was always curious about.

She opened the topaz box slowly, peering closely inside to see the secret contents within. What she saw confused her. She looked up to Nicole and Amber, her brow furrowed. “I understand the combadge, and I’ve seen emergency transporters like this one. But why the handkerchief? Or the jewelry? And you know my eyes are too weak for contacts.”

Nicole took the contact case and opened it. "These will transmit readings to your eyes like a personal viewscreen," she said.

"The suit's hands contain a built-in tricorder," Amber said. "The lenses will transmit anything you scan directly to your eyes. The ring is if you require a more detailed scan without your uniform."

"The brooch contains a small phaser," Amber continued. "And the pocket handkerchief replicator...well...replicates." She looked over at Nicole. "Your suit's hands contain a medical tricorder and programmable hypospray components. Your hands can do everything your medkit can."

"I like that," Nicole said, stripping off her clothes to change into her new uniform. She slipped into it, finding it mold to her form, but still felt free to move. She pressed the fabric sealer and the suit closed up around her to up behind the back of her neck. "No helmet?"

"Check the waist," Amber said, smiling proudly.

Nicole looked down at her midsection. A belt-like break in the material wrapped around her waist just above her hips. "Life-support belts?" she said.

"Tommy's made some impressive improvements on the old models," Amber said.

As Nicole was donning her suit, Camille was finishing stripping off her own uniform to don her own. It also fit snugly and securely, such that Camille wondered whether it was a special material or if she had been precisely measured in some way by the crew.

She lifted her glasses and put in the contacts, something she hated doing as a kid before learning such things were out of the question for her eyes. She lowered her glasses back into place and smiled that she was starting to get some data from her hand tricorder. “I think mine might be miscalibrated,” she observed. “I’m not getting any biological information off either of you.” When trying to scan Amber or Nicole, the readouts for heart rate, blood pressure, genetic anomalies, anything the least bit interesting were either filled with question marks or simply said ‘within acceptable parameters.’"

"Perhaps we're not really here, and this is all in your imagination," Amber suggested.

"Oh stop it," Nicole scolded, popping in her own contacts. She tapped the back of her left hand and waved it over herself and Amber. "Ah, of course," she said after sharing a glance with Amber. "Standard triage notifications?"

Amber nodded. "No point in overloading your attention. Either things are fine, or they aren't. You won't need much more information until they aren't."

Camille shrugged and continued adding items from the box to her person. The Transporter pip. The phaser brooch in her hair. The replicator cloth in her pocket. The commbadge. The life support belt was a particularly cool touch. She read about prototype units aboard the USS Enterprise over 140 years ago and didn’t realize any were still in use.

Another item looked like a hair clip. She gave it a detailed scan with her hand tricorder and smiled. “Is this a neural interface for issuing commands to technological systems mentally? What can it connect to? Just Castelnaudary systems or can we hack and issue commands to the base down there?”

"Actually, that's just to hold your hair back," Amber said, then smiled at the look Camille gave her. "It's linked to the ship's computer. We opted not to have any neural interfaces that could connect to unfriendly computers, but a link back home is always helpful."

The last item looked like a tooth cap, and Camille had read just enough spy fiction to have an idea of what it might be. “Nicole. Amber. Please don’t tell me we’re supposed to eat cyanide if we’re caught.”

"Hardly," Nicole said, fitting her own over a back molar. "Cyanide tastes awful. This is more of a protective measure."

"You'll have to demonstrate later," Amber said. "It's a bit cramped in here."

"Right," Nicole said. She ran her hands down her sides self-consciously and looked Camille over. "You look like a proper spy now," she said, grinning slightly and tying her hair up.

Camille couldn’t help but grin at Nicole saying she looked like a spy. She let her hair get tied up, put in her own fake dental crown, and, fully equipped, followed Nicole and Amber out to the Transporter room. On their way, Camille asked, “have we heard from Team One yet?”

"They're beaming down now," Amber said as they entered the transporter room. Tiffany nodded to them and tapped her combadge. "Edwards to Hunter, how does it look down there?"

There was a squeal of static and then Hunter's voice came through. "Beamdown successful. We're in an entryway. Appears to be shielded from the radiation. The door is locked and encoded, and....there's something written above the keypad. It looks like...a poem."

"What's it say?" Tiffany said.

Everyone knows me.
Once, it is rumored, a man drank his fill of me, much to his regret.
Others prefer me in small doses for small ills.
Some describe me as the sky, the land and age.
A tongue, fire, bird, fish, flower,
I am captive, I am free,
worshipped and lost, loved and eschewed,
pure and corrupt, black and white.
I am found in the deepest well and on the highest mountain.
I am animal, vegetable, mineral.
Who am I?

"Odd. Can you hack the system?" Tiffany said.

"Tommy and Penny are examining it now," Hunter said. "He said he could use Meesa as well."

"Understood," Tiffany said. She nodded to Meesa who got on the transporter pad and disappeared a moment later.

Camille listened to Hunter reading the poem. “That’s not a poem,” she said. “It’s a riddle. What does the keypad look like? Any indication of what kind of answer they’re looking for?”

"Standard numerical keypad, 10 digits," Hunter said.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve never been very good at these,” Camille said. “But let’s work through it.”

"Everyone knows me," Nicole quoted. "So, something common. 'Small doses for small ills' so a common minor remedy."

"Oh....I know it," Amber said, snapping her fingers. "Someone drank his fill...." she turned to Tiffany. "What was his name? Alan's financial backer back Rome?"

"Marcus Licinius Crassus," Tiffany said automatically.

"Yes!" Amber said. "He poisoned himself by drinking liquid--"

“Gold,” Camille finally realized. “I’m not sure how it fits with some of them, but most of those phrases can be used to describe gold. Golden age. White gold. Black gold was an old term for the oil used to make petroleum. Goldfish. It’s found captive in mines, or flows freely in rivers.”

"A goldfinch is a bird, a goldenrod is a flower," Tiffany supplied, nodding in agreement.

"And small doses have medicinal purposes," Nicole finished. "But what about gold are we supposed to enter? Convert the letters to numerical sequence? Binary?"

"The riddle says 'who am I?'" Tiffany said. "It's how we identify gold."

"Atomic Number!" Camille, Nicole and Amber said together.

"The code is 79," Tiffany said into the comm panel.

There was a couple of tense seconds, then "we're in," Hunter said. "Single room, control panel, everything's dark and looks to be on automatic. No active systems we can find. Looks to be a completely unmanned station."

"Are the doctors clear to come down?" Tiffany said.

Another quiet moment, then Hunter's voice said, "I'd say yes. There doesn't seem to be anything leaping out to eat us as of yet, but the radiation levels I'm reading mean our suits need to stay on, so we can't stay too long."

"Acknowledged," Tiffany said. She nodded to them to get on the transporter pad.

Nicole stepped up onto the pad, letting out a small sigh. She'd hoped to have a few more minutes in private, but she blamed herself for wasting time.

"Give them a minute," Amber said to Tiffany and motioning to the door.

Nicole grumbled at Amber's back, but silently admitted it was what she wanted.

“Nicole,” Camille calmly said, obviously starting a question.

"Yes?" Nicole said, hesitantly.

“Why is there a door down there whose code is a puzzle? And Marcus Licinius Crassus? I recognize that name and story. He lived at the time of Julius Caesar. But he financed Admiral Markus? I assume that’s who Amber meant by Alan. Nicole, what’s going on?”

"Puzzles keep foes out and allow friends in. We do much the same thing. But that's not what's important right now. I don't want to beam down there without saying I'm sorry."

“Sorry?” Camille asked. “For what?” She wondered if it had to do with trying to keep her off the away team, but wasn’t sure if that warranted a pre-launch apology. Least not so urgent a one.

"For snapping at you, storming off, avoiding you for the past couple hours, stewing selfishly on my own," she said. "And I need you to understand that I do not think of you as some glass doll. I don't think of you as some fragile thing that should be on a shelf waiting to be dusted off. But I do think you need to be protected at all costs, and the longer I can do that, the happier I'll be. I know you are capable, but please keep your guard up and your head down, all right?"

Camille looked Nicole in the eye and nodded. “Okay. I’ll keep my guard up and my head down. Thank you.”

The doors to the transporter room opened and Tiffany came back in. "Ready?" she said.

They nodded and a moment later they were standing in the entryway in front of the door, which was once again closed. "Code was 79, yes?" Nicole said. At Camille's nod, she entered the code, and a moment later the transporter beam washed over them again. *Recalled already?* she thought. However, to her horror, they didn't reappear on the ship, but rather in a small, grey room, the only faint light coming from the glow of their life-support fields.

"Oh shit...." she said quietly, then activated her comm system. "Rah-tu to--"

"All parties prepare for beam out!" John's voice suddenly shouted. "Some kind of pulse just activated and Golem has been deactivated! Systems are--" his voice suddenly cut out and the room got deathly silent.

One second....two....three....no beam out.

"This...is very bad..." Nicole said, quietly.

“What’s happening?” Camille asked. “The code was right! Câlisse! This is why you don’t use riddles for doors, Nicole! Even the right answer can be wrong!”

"The code wasn't wrong," Nicole said, moving slowly around the room and looking for any clues. "It's a Venus Fly Trap."

Camille just looked at Nicole with a look of impatient curiosity.

"A carnivorous Earth plant," Nicole said. "Inside its mouth are three fine hairs. If a bug touches one, nothing happens. Touch it twice, and the jaws snap shut and trap the insect.”

“I know what a Venus Fly Trap is, Nicole!”

Nicole held up her hands in surrender. “We didn't put in the wrong code, that door was just meant to be opened once." She tapped the controls on the back of her left hand, scanning. "I'm not detecting any other lifesigns but us," she said, quietly. She looked at the readouts on her virtual display. "Not reading much past the door. Must be some serious dampeners in here."

“Our signal to the ship is cut off too,” Camille observed. “I get no reading through the neural interface.”

"We should--" she stopped as a grinding sound permeated the room. She rushed towards it and hit the wall as it moved slowly into her. "Oh sod off!" she said, watching the wall come at her.

Camille wasn’t so much surprised as annoyed when the walls began closing in on them. “Who is this Blackhawk guy? Why does he have trash compactors as traps?!”

"Because killing us is his job," Nicole growled.

“Does the same riddle apply?” Camille wondered, turning towards the only door. “Do we do something with gold?”

The panel by the door was recessed, as was the door so it wouldn't provide protection from the walls. The panel had a single large button, no code panel. Nicole looked at Camille and shrugged, pressing the button. The door didn't open, but the walls continued to move. She growled and hit the button again. This time the door opened, but there was no light in the other room.

"Well," Nicole said. "I'll take possible death over certain death any day, you?"

“Absolument!”

"Off we pop," Nicole said, taking Camille's hand and rushing through the door. It closed quickly behind them, stranding them inside the darkness.

The darkness didn't last long and was suddenly replaced with bright illumination all along the room. There were several slots in the ceiling and floors, and at the end of the rather long hallway was another door.

Nicole took a cautious step forward and yelped as Camille pulled her back, a series of darts shooting out of the holes in the wall where she'd just been. The darts were followed further down by lasers, then swinging blades, more lasers and other means of slicing and dicing them as they made an attempt to cross.

Nicole leaned against the wall and took a breath. "Thanks," she said.

“Pas de problème,” Camille replied. She looked out at the hall of weapons. As she watched everything fire, she realized the pattern. The rhythm to it. “Do you hear that?”

Nicole did her best to control her breathing and listened. The rush of air as things moved did have a distinct pattern to it. "Yes...I think so," she said.

The wheels turned in Camille’s head. “One, two, three, one, two, three,” she counted rhythmically, one weapon firing on each beat. “Recognize that pattern?”

"A waltz!" Nicole said, realization hitting her. "And if we follow that rhythm, we can navigate. Do you know how?"

Camille blushed. “I, um, only ever learned how to follow. Not to lead.”

Nicole grinned and held up her hands. "Not a problem," she said.

Returning her grin, Camille took Nicole’s hand and put her other hand on the woman’s shoulder. She let Nicole’s other hand find its spot on her back and let herself be pulled close.

Nicole looked into Camille's eyes, and leaned in suddenly, kissing her deep. "For luck," she said, then her eyes turned red. "Don't look away. And...one two three, one two three, one two--" She stepped into the line of fire and brought Camille with her, keep her own back to the danger to give Camille a better chance. As they twirled, the shots whizzed past them, the lasers warmed them but never made contact, and the blades sliced near but never touched. The entire time, Nicole kept her eyes locked with Camille's and counted carefully. "One two three, one two three, one two three--DIP!" she shouted, bending Camille backwards as a blade came out of the wall between them. She quickly pulled her partner back up and pulled her to the opposite wall, out of range of the weapons.

She took a moment to catch her breath and looked at Camille. "You...are a good dancer," she said.

“I try,” Camille said with a smile as she also worked to catch her breath. Partly from the exertion, possibly from the passion of the dance, she couldn’t look away from Nicole’s eyes.

"We should probably rest before we--" Nicole immediately regretted saying anything as a laser grid appeared at the other end of the room and began making its way towards them. "Moving on!" she said, hitting the panel. The door opened and they ran through.

Nothing looked dangerous, but she knew the next door wouldn’t open until and unless they solved some specific problem. “At least our first dance is memorable,” Camille observed with a wry smile as she caught her breath and looked around.

"Yeah," Nicole said, looking around as well. *Let's hope it's not our last,* she said to herself, trying to work out where they could be by this point, and now to get out.

The room was smaller and simpler, and seemed deceptively empty. Nicole took one cautious step forward, then another, then another. When nothing appeared to leap out at her, she carefully made her way across the room, watching for the moment when the ceiling came down on her, or something shot at her. However, nothing impeded her journey and she was across the room in a moment. She signaled for Camille to follow and examined the wall in front of her.

A recessed alcove contained three large bronze keys. Above them was a keyhole, and next to the alcove was the door. "The logical thing is to assume that the correct key opens the door," she said, looking around. "I don't see a panel trigger here. The problem is we only have a 1 in 3 chance of guessing on the first try."

The three bronze keys were labeled A, C and D. "A for awful, C for caution, D for disaster," she said somewhat sardonically. "Which one do we choose?"

“Part of me wants to say we pick C for Camille,” answered Camille, “but the couldn’t know who came in, so maybe not.” The keys looked identical. Any could be correct.

“Systematic?” Camille suggested. She picked up Key A and moved it toward the lock.

"A random choice is 'systematic'?" Nicole said.

“Alphabetical order! Unless you have a better option?” Camille asked. “I don’t like it either but we need to do something.” She closed her eyes and pushed Key A into the keyhole and turned.

Nicole heard the "whoosh" of multiple blades cutting through the air before actually seeing anything. She quickly shoved Camille away from the lock and jumped back herself as three large blades suddenly embedded themselves in the wall, one behind Camille, one behind Nicole, and one between them, near the lock. Had Camille still been standing with her hand on the key, she'd have lost her arm, or more.

"Wrong key..." Nicole said, her eyes wide as she backed out from between the three sharp blades.

Camille couldn’t take her eyes off the blade between them. She had almost been impaled. Was it a systematic approach? Or was it recklessness? She shouldn’t be here. She should be in her lab. Or the lab on the Castelnaudary. Who was she kidding?

“Nicole,” she said quietly, still staring at the blade, not moving. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you and stayed aboard the ship. Or I should have just let the Captain destroy this place. I convinced you all to come here.”

Nicole pulled Camille to her and hugged her tightly. "It's all right," she said. "I promise, we'll get through this."

Camille nodded into Nicole's shoulder. She tried to pull herself together. She took a deep breath and pulled herself from the hug. "Okay."

Nicole stepped back to the keys and looked at them carefully. "Okay," she said. "We either have a fifty-fifty chance of guessing, or we figure out what this means."

"Let's see if we can figure this out," Camille suggested. "Improve our odds a bit. We have more information than we did before. The key marked with an A released three sharp blades. Is there any significance to that? I feel like that sounds familiar."

"Yes, it does," Nicole said staring at the keys. Suddenly she straightened up and turned around. "What do you know of musical theory?" she asked.

Camille couldn't help but smile. "I vaguely remember my musical scales. I took piano lessons as a girl. Hated them. Renée is the musical talent. But...in music, the keys of different notes correspond to different numbers of flats and...sharps. Osti, the A key sent three sharps after us. So which one sends zero sharps?"

"The C Key!" Nicole said triumphantly. She picked up the key, put it into the lock, looked at Camille, and took a breath as she turned the key. The door opened and she breathed a sigh of relief.

They stepped through the door carefully and found themselves in another relatively plain room. They split up, looking at the walls for clues. Camille found some symbols on the far wall. Strange drawings of animals, and words that looked like Vulcan. “Can you read these?”

Nicole came over and looked at the words. "Yes..." she said. "I think so." She stared at it for a while. "Shet-lah-dak-lek-dakkut-lehkut-dak-lah-rehkuk," she recited. "It's Romulan. A very Vulcan-like dialect though," she said. "If I had to guess, it's a string of numbers. 60, 22, 10, 23. There's no way that's the code, it's far too easy." She looked up. "And all these scribbles...animals...are these Terran animals? Most don't look real."

Camille nodded. “Looks like a bottlenose dolphin, a pronghorn sheep, a bullfrog,—“

Nicole snorted. "Humans have odd names for things," she said.

“A whooping crane,” Camille continued, a little louder, feigning annoyance but with a smile on her face, “and a star-nosed mole.”

"Oh, is that what a mole is?" Nicole said. "I'd heard reference but never seen one. I was so confused as to why they called it that compared to spots on the skin, or the atomic value of...." she paused and looked at the words again. "The numbers! That's what they are! 60, 22, 10, 23. The chemical constant of atoms in one mole! 6.022 times 10 to the 23rd power!"

“Avogadro’s number,” Camille said in agreement. “The number of atoms in twelve grams of pure Carbon-twelve. You know your physical chemistry!”

"I'm a doctor, not a chemist," Nicole said. "But I picked up a few things from my mother."

Camille ran her fingers along the drawings of the animals, and stopped at the mole. She pushed and moved her fingers, hoping to find a secret button. To her amazement, the mole depressed slightly and the door opened. “Let’s get out of here.”

"Don't have to tell me twice," Nicole said.

As they approached the door though, they both let out a scream of shock as they suddenly found themselves falling through the ground.

Nicole, usually nimble as a cat, grabbed Camille and twisted midair to keep her from landing on anything breakable, giving her a somewhat gentler landing on her rear end. Nicole's feet slammed into the ground and she let out a loud grunt of pain as her ankle twisted and her tendons tore. "Ah...damnit..."

“The button must have put the ground outside the door out of phase,” Camille mused, lying on the ground in some discomfort. “We fell right through. Maybe we were supposed to figure that? After all, what do moles do, Nicole? They dig.”

"Yes, thank you for that timely reminder," she said, gritting her teeth and straightening her ankle so it could heal.

"Mon Dieu, are you okay?" Camille asked as she watched Nicole suffer as she straightened her ankles. "That looks bad!"

"I'll be fine," Nicole said, then realized they were staring at a wall. She turned and raised an eyebrow. It appeared they'd found the heart of the facility. Two rows of computer processors, and a handful of security men, most brandishing clubs, some just flexing their muscles in preparation. They were covered head to toe in a commando suit and helmet, and Nicole was pretty sure they weren't there to congratulate them.

"Surrender," one of them said, "and your deaths will be painless."

Nicole barked a laugh and flexed her arms a bit as well. She hadn't had a mood enhancement like this in quite a while, and briefly wished she had her baton. As Camille stood back and watched, she took a step forward, eyes red, fangs extending, when another figure suddenly appeared between her and the attackers.

"WOAH! HOLD IT! TIME OUT!" Penny shouted, holding her hands out.

Nicole stepped back, looking confused. "How did you get here?"

"I'm not here," Penny said. "I mean I am here, because you can see me, but I'm not really here, here, I'm up above you in the relay station and just projecting a hologram down here."

"Thought you'd snuffed it," Nicole said, her eyes narrowing. "How do I know you're you?"

"You don't," Penny said. "The station was a trap and it set up a dampening field that took out phasers, tricorders, and me, but we managed to block some of it out and I interfaced with the station but I don't have much time before they block me out. You need to hold on and not keep giving him information. He's using this as a way to study your movements."

"I'm about to give him some movements, all right," Nicole grumbled.

"Just hang tight, we're trying to get you out without compromising anyone," Penny said.

Camille listened intently. What did Nicole mean when she thought Penny had been taken out? And why would she be disabled by the same field that took out tricorders and phasers?

"Enough of this conversation," the lead guard said.

"Going to be hard with everything attacking us," Nicole said. "We've been making our way along fairly well but we're at least two levels down from the station."

"No, that's the thing," Penny said. "This isn't--" she vanished from sight, leaving nothing between the guards and the women.

Nicole looked at the guards and flexed her healed ankle experimentally. "All right," she said. "Surrender, and I'll be merciful."

Three of the guards charged, brandishing their clubs. Nicole put herself in front of Camille and backed them up a bit towards the wall. She counted the number of attackers but already knew they were laughably out-numbered. She leaned back and whispered, "push your tongue against the fake crown."

She jumped to the side and her jaw twitched as she activated her own crown. Three other Nicole's sprang out from her like Athena and rushed at the attackers, drawing several of them away.

Camille grinned and followed Nicole’s lead. She activated the crown and three Camilles formed from nothing and charged at the attackers. The scientist couldn’t help but be impressed. I look like a badass, she thought as she watched false Camilles fighting ferociously against the attackers.

As most of the group was otherwise engaged, the last few charged at the duo. Nicole charged at them as well, jumping at the last second, grabbing the center guard by the helmet and flipping over him. She landed in front of the next row of guards, bringing her fist to connect with the helmet of the new guard in front of her, dropping him to the ground, his helmet cracked. She tackled another to the ground, snapping his neck, and lashed out with a foot, breaking the knee of a third. As the others scrambled to find a position with an advantage, she stood up and charged back at the three with clubs, approaching Camille.

She grabbed the center commando and yanked backwards, rolling onto her back and planting her feet in his spine, kicking him over her head and back into the others.

Two commandos continued walking towards Camille. She hated confrontations and hated fights, but she couldn't very well get out of this one now, nor could she just sit back and let Nicole and the mass of holograms defend her. She was confident the weapon they gave her didn't work, so instead reached for the handkerchief. She whispered into it, and a small hunting knife emerged from the cloth.

Nicole flipped back to her feet and turned around, ducking as a baton swung by her head. She grabbed the arm holding it and twisted hard, dislocating it. Her attacker shouted in pain and the club fell out of his useless hand. She caught it and cracked him hard over his helmet, which splintered, the latch coming undone.

He stood up and snarled at her and she almost screamed. A human-looking face with red eyes, pale skin and fangs were snarling back at her. She adopted the same look immediately and gripped her club harder.

Camille waited for her moment, but probably couldn't hide the panic on her face. The two commandos came closer and closer. She kept her knife hidden until the last possible second, when she said "Emergency Transport Forward!" She disappeared and reappeared just behind the two, at which point she started desperately slashing at their environmental suits.

She made a few good strikes, tearing into suit and flesh, injuring and depressurizing. One managed to swing his baton hard and hit her in the chest, pushing her back far. It hurt, but the armor did its job. She was winded and bruised, but her ribs were probably fine. From slightly further away, she saw the helmet-less one snarling at Nicole, and realized that her strategy of compromising the suits might not be as effective as she hoped.

Nicole snarled and dove forward. As the assailant lunged for her, she dropped to the ground, sliding between his legs and bringing her club up hard. The effect stunned him, but he recovered quickly and reached down for her. She swung her legs out, knocking his out from under him and jumped to her feet, grabbing the next person who rushed her and snapping his or her neck. As the body fell, she grabbed another and physically swung the attacker into the crowd. The one without a helmet got up but she was ready, grabbed him and sank her fangs into his neck.

As the blood poured into her mouth, she recoiled, spat it out, and shoved him away. He snarled at her, and she looked at him confused, licking her lips. She immediately turned back and rushed towards Camille, body-slamming one of her attackers away and grabbing the other one and beating it back with her club.

She looked down at Camille's bloody knife. "Let me see that," she said.

Camille reoriented the knife in her hand and presented it handle-first to Nicole.

Nicole looked at the blood on the blade and licked it experimentally, then spat it out. "It's fake," she said, stunned.

"Fake?" Camille asked. "Is it just the guards? Or more?"

"All of this. We're on a holodeck!" Nicole said in horror. They weren't making progress, they were running on a treadmill. "That's what Penny was trying to tell us..."

She pulled Camille behind her and brandished the knife as their attackers began to close in. "That's why there's no door in this room," she said.

The bits of helmet on the floor began to stir. They moved slowly at first, then swirled faster. A small dust devil began to rise up from the center of the room. The fighters nearest it turned as they began to get pulled backwards into it. As the whirlwind grew, the fighters were slowly pulled to the side, thrown this way and that. Pieces of dust and sand in the storm began to gather and coalesce, and suddenly Amber Jones fell to the ground, rolled and came up beside the two trapped women. "Found you!" she shouted above the wind. The fighters were advancing again, but she held her hand up and they flew back, their batons ripped from their hands. Amber's eyes were swirling with a pink miasma, much as Cassandra's did when she was mad. Sparks began to fly and the room and its contents began to flicker. Suddenly the holoprogram ended as the emitters overloaded and sparks flew everywhere, blue and gold electricity racing along the walls. The room started to shake and pieces of the hologrid fell to the floor as the building destabilized.

Camille had no idea what was going on. She knew Amber wasn't entirely human, but couldn't imagine any being was capable of such power. She leaned over and caught a glimpse of Amber's glowing pink eyes. She barely even realized that the room was collapsing.

"Get ready for transport," Amber shouted. The wind was so strong now it was blowing her hair around. In fact, it seemed to be blowing it apart. Blonde bits of sand were pulling from her hair until she slowly began to dissolve. Amber's suit and extremities followed and soon she was gone like a sand sculpture in a hurricane.

"What the hell!?!" Camille yelled as she watched Amber dissolve. "Nicole!"

"It's all right, just hang on!" Nicole said. "Well," she added as her hands dissolved, "so to speak! See you back on the ship!"

Camille's eyes were wide with horror as her own hands began to dissolve, pulled away into a vortex. It was painless, but disturbing to watch as parts of herself were closely taken into a dust storm. She tried to fight, to pull back from it, but any resistance was fruitless. It was all she could do not to fall as she was pulled apart atom by atom.

In the blink of an eye, they were standing in the transporter room of the Castelnaudary. The sandstorm whipped around them and suddenly died down, shrinking back to a dust devil, and condensing even further until it took the form of a small, spinning top, which eventually slowed down to a standstill. Cassandra plucked it off the ground and held it tightly. "Everyone all right?"

Camille fell to her hands and knees on the Transporter pad and emptied the contents of her stomach.

Nicole dove forward and made sure Camille's hair was back as the others jumped back from the puddle of sick. She held Camille as they sank down to their knees on the transporter pad.

Camille's eyes darted between everyone in the Transporter room. She knew about Nicole and her strange abilities as being part Soul Leech. But what of the others? She shook uncontrollably -- with anxiety? fear? did she simply feel foolish for having been so fooled? -- as she was faced with the reality that none of the people on Castelnaudary, including her colleagues Cassandra and Penny, were who she understood them to be.

"Who the fuck are you people?"

 

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