Beneath The Darkness Between The Stars

[Veloras Itana 0]

Beneath The Darkness

Between The Stars

Pt. X

"The Mallories"

 

By the time the Antioch left Deep Space Nine, I had been studying engineering and the technological sciences for well over three years. I had become very proficient in the use of encryption and decryption software systems, subspace communications, sub-light propulsion systems and, yes, even atmospheric control. I knew the inner workings of what was then the standardized design for all environmental systems on Federation crafts from the classes I had taken at the Federation technological institute on Bajor. It was part of the general course study to familiarize all students with the basic operating systems for space crafts. None of this helped me aboard the Antioch.

 

I was awake, I was alert and, I knew what had to be done. But, as I stood there looking at the mass of fried circuitry I had no idea what to do. To me the entire panel looked like a mass of electronic pasta, knotted together in a mass of charred polymers. I looked back over my shoulder to see Commander Yung and Jai staring at me with a mixture of cautious hope that I may still be able to do something about it and fear that the confusion on my own face meant that I couldn't fix it. The latter proved to be true.

 

I looked from the two of them then back to the panel several times before sinking to the floor on my knees, crying like a child who had just broken a toy. I didn't know what had caused the overload. I couldn't even guess. I knew nothing except that I was sick, I was sore, I was exhausted and I was terrified. I can never remember wanting my mother as badly as I did at that moment . My mother had been dead for years by this time though. Suddenly it struck me how alone in the universe I really was and the disparity of that recognition caused the sobs to escalate into wails of anguish and fear.

 

"I can't." I cried over and over as both Jai and Everett came to my side, each laying a consoling hand on my shoulders. "I can't do it. I can't help you. I'm not ready for this. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

 

The pressure in my chest returned with a vengeance. Very soon those comforting hands became braces against the force of the choking and the only thing keeping me from collapsing to the floor in a ball. I had left Bajor a confident, cocky know-it-all who would revolutionize the face of Star Fleet technology but, I would arrive a small, terrified clueless child, whimpering at the sight of my own shadow, if I arrived at all. Funny huh?

 

"Commander Yung?" A young man I recognized as one of the other passengers came through the hatch in the bulkhead. "I think you need to come up to the main cabin."

 

Everett stood and turned to the man. They spoke quietly for a moment and, when Everett turned back he suddenly looked older somehow. As if he had aged ten years in the few seconds that they spoke. "Jai, I'll stay here and help Itana. You need to head to the main cabin. They're back and the boy is sick."

 

Jai nodded somberly but didn't reply. He gave me a conciliatory smile, patted me on the shoulder and stood up. "Hang in there Tana. I know you can do this." He smiled again and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. "I have complete faith in you."

 

He left with the other man whose name I can't remember. Looking back now, I can't remember most of their names. Their faces are etched clearly in my mind but their names...

 

I don't think we ever had the opportunity to exchange names so, though I can see them all clearly in my head, they are forever etched in my memory collectively as "the other passengers." Another in a series of sad ironies. To share something so profoundly life affecting with a group of people but, never taking or being given the time to learn any of their names.

 

Two names I do remember clearly though, only because of the horrific events that followed my mini breakdown in the engine room. Elise and Brian Mallory. Elise was the wife of the communications director at the transfer station on Io. She and her son Brian were returning from a trip to visit her sister on Deep Space Nine. They were the two that had gone missing shortly after I disappeared from the cockpit and now, apparently, they were back.

 

"Come on." Everett attempted to smile. "Let's get you up." He extended his hand and helped me to my feet, pulling a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket. "Jai's right you know?"

 

"Right about what?" I asked dismally, looking back to the charred plastic spaghetti that had once been the environmental relay system.

 

"You can do this. I know you can." He bent and retrieved the emergency repair kit from beneath the console and, without any more words, he and I set about getting the air circulating again.

 

Over the course of the next several hours we would surmise that the overload had been caused by some external surge. (another of those strange coincidences that I completely missed) We were eventually able to restore auxiliary power to both environmental and gravity control by jury rigging a series of external bypass circuits that were fully functional but not very pretty.

 

I listened as Everett mechanically and emotionlessly relayed the events leading to the deaths of the three passengers, two of whom had apparently beaten each other to death and the third had simply been caught in the crossfire. They each suffered head trauma that Jai didn't have the equipment or medical know how to repair. Then his voice took on a morose regretful tone as he told me how G'Khol had met his end attempting to keep the air circulating. The surge had come quickly and, as he scrambled back to the engine room to try to stay ahead of the damage he was caught behind the bulkhead when the air pressure dropped. He died, slowly, in agony, of decompression ten minutes later. Then, as mysteriously as it had started, the room stabilized. There was still no gravity but, before the system had shut down, the back ups had managed to restore atmospheric pressure to nearly normal. G'Khol floated listlessly in the air amid tiny crimson droplets of his own blood. I hadn't seen it of course but, the imagery generated by the facts Everett told me etched a clear picture of his death in my head that I still carry with me as clearly now as it was then.

 

***********************************

 

Filthy dirty, sweating and very tired, Everett and I finished up our strange but functional new bypass system and headed back out into the main cabin. Jai stood over the boy and, at first, I couldn't see his face. As we stepped around the concerned crowd, I stopped, staring at his face in disbelief. Lesions had sprouted around his eyes, in his nose and around his lips. His skin was an ashy gray flecked with dense beads of sweat that blended and poured in thick rivulets down his face. His breathing was fully audible. Raspy and hoarse. His chest rattled as he wheezed air in and out of his fluid choked lungs. Pox-like, boil sized blisters oozed a nauseating pallet of green, yellow and blood-red on his hands arms and neck. He was bloated and barely distinguishable as a boy. His mother moaned beside him, barely conscious but, outwardly, in no physical danger. She was crying her son's name, her fingers laced around his though he seemed totally unaware of her presence. It was likely a macabre form of mercy that the boy was now in a coma. Were he awake the pain and shock to his nervous system from the fever and the lesions would likely have been unbearable.

 

His mother awoke sharply and fully as he drew in three quick, erratically sharp breaths. She leaned over him, looking up at Jai with pleading eyes. Jai stood powerless to do anything but watch as the convulsions began. At that point I doubt even the most skilled doctors in the most advanced medical facility could have done any more. His tongue had swelled to the point that it blocked his air way and his thrashing gradually slowed to small timid fits of tremors. His gray skin blued as his airway closed and, as we all stood there watching, Brian Mallory died.

 

Elise Mallory screamed in an agonizing fit of grief, pounding her fists into her son's lifeless chest. Jai closed the boy's eyes reflexively. None of us could bear the terror in his frozen gaze.

 

"He is only twelve years old!" His mother shouted looking from one face to another, pleading that someone do something. "Help him! please!" She screamed

 

Everett and the young man who had come to tell us of their return lifted the hysterical woman off the chair and carried her into the back moaning and crying, calling to her son. They laid her down on the bunk adjacent to Danella Sil who had apparently slept through the entire thing. Mrs Mallory was quickly sedated, very heavily. A few moments later, Everett and the other man returned, looking at the floor rather than at the few who now remained aboard the Antioch.

 

I don't know how much time passed after Brian died. It seemed like an eternity before anyone spoke. The scent of decay was gradually filtered out of the air and, several of the passengers including Elise Mallory were once again asleep. Jai motioned to Everett and myself, once again ignoring the useless Benjamin Artel who still refused to emerge from beneath his blanket even when he was awake. We all stepped into the cockpit area, simultaneously sighing in despair at the sight of the crimson ribbon-shot blackness beyond the forward view-screen.

 

Before speaking Jai sank into the navigator's chair, rubbing his eyes, trying to wipe away the tears that still coursed his cheeks. "I've never, in my entire life, seen anything like that. There was nothing I could do Commander, I swear it. I tried."

 

"I know." Everett replied sullenly. "I know you did Jai. I don't think there was anything anyone could have done." He paused for a moment, glaring out at the blackness. "Do you have any idea what killed him? Aside from the obvious I mean. Was it a disease and...." his voice trailed off for a moment as if he were afraid to continue the thought. Finally he looked back, his shoulders sagging under the weight he carried. "Is he...was he contagious?"

 

Through it all Everett never lost sight of the fact that he was ultimately responsible for every life on the Antioch. I can only imagine what that must have been like for him. That weight became more visible as time passed but, it never stopped him from continuing to try. To this day when I think about those people that I respect, Everett Yung is at the top of that list.

 

"I honestly couldn't say which contagion killed him. He showed signs of at least six viral strains from a dozen different systems that I'm aware of. Is he contagious? I don't know."

 

Everett nodded slowly, turning back to the view screen. "We have to eject the body." He said flatly without turning around. "We can't risk prolonged exposure to something the bio sensors obviously couldn't or didn't have time to filter out."

 

"I...by the Prophets." I whispered unable to continue my last thought. "His mother." I whispered into my chest as I started to cry again.

 

"We can't take the chance, Itana. I'm sorry but, I am thinking of his mother's life too. She shows no signs of any of infection. We can not risk prolonged exposure when we're this uncertain of our atmospheric conditions. We have to eject the body." With no more discussion and no request for help, Everett Yung set Brian Mallory's body adrift through the aft airlock, turning away before it came into view beyond the port.

 

He came back a few minutes later and, the three of us sat, in silence, without doing anything for the first time since this ordeal began. I remember my eyelids felt heavy. I was so tired but, terrified at the same time that if I fell asleep, I would wake up back in that hospital room. I was in no way certain I could handle that again so, I fought sleep with every ounce of my resolve.

 

"Mrs. Mallory! NO!" A shout came from the aft and the three of us bolted back through the main cabin and down through the hatch toward the aft.

 

The young man had his arms around her waist, trying to pull her back away from the airlock. Elise Mallory moved like a zombie. Her eyes fixed on a point beyond the view port beyond the air lock. She dragged the other man with her into the outer lock chamber and the door slid closed before we could reach them.

 

"Mommy's coming sweetheart." Mrs Mallory cooed toward the sealed outer door. "It's all right now. Mommy's coming." She hit the button and the last thing we saw before they were blown out was the look on that young man's face as he realized he was going to die with her. Everett, Jai and I reached the airlock too late to override the release mechanism and, in an instant, they were both gone. It was horrific watching them. It was like no other exposure to the vacuum of space that I had ever read about. Yes, they floated but, gradually began to sink as if there were some kind of gravitational pull. They did not succumb to the intense pressure though. Instead their bodies appeared to combust, flamelessly. Their skin charred and bubbled in a grotesque display of color. They were already dead by this point. In fact, I believe they died the second they were exposed. But their bodies continued to decay until all that remained of them was a thin pink mist that sank from view below the port-hole.

 

...To Be Continued