It was a dark and stormy night...
Posted on Fri Nov 14th, 2025 @ 5:38pm by Commander Rhupert Tyree & Commander Daynah Ral & Lieutenant Commander Richard Dalziel & Lieutenant Commander Zuub & Lieutenant Katya Davi & Lieutenant Amy Gordon & Ensign Nyx Calder
2,433 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Post Cards from Past
Location: SS Adelaide, Galley
The lights in the galley dimmed slightly to reflect the ships (relative) time of day. The smell from supper still hung in the air, along with the coffee and tea that had been brewed. The low sound of conversation hummed within the compartment and low bluesy music played in the background.
Rhu finished wiping down the galley surfaces and rewarded himself with a topped up mug of caff. It had been his turn to cook again and he’d opted for a tomato forward casserole that had involved fried eggplant, tomato, minced lamb, onions, and a variety of seasoning with plenty of garlic and cheese.
Along with a vegetable salad, it hadn’t turned out too badly. Taking a pan of smore-like treats he’d put together on a warming plate, Rhu resumed his seat at the mess table; he glanced around at his crew. They were all lounging and slowly he felt them coming together and comfortable with each other. Before they could wander off to individual pursuits, he said, “Anyone have a good scary story? I thought it might be a fun thing to do…”
Zuub having sat down to eat, heard the query about the scary stories. Most of life for Andorians was scarier than humans could imagine, so she considered the matter while her antennae whirled asymmetrically.
"I admit I try to forget those," Kat said wryly. But she'd stick around to hear if anyone else had one.
"There are a lot of stories about demon dogs and hell hounds, where I come from." Richard said. "Twice as big as an average dog, with fiery red eyes and coats like liquid darkness. Their wails will chill you to the bone. They tend to stalk the moors, killing sheep, and those unlucky to be out on the moors at night."
Coaxing one of the smore-bars from the pan, Rhu looked at Richard with a grin and said, "Ever run into one? There has to be some stories there."
There was a choking-like sound coming from the Andorian. Her antennae were twittering gleefully. "Hell hound? Demon dog? They kill sheep or strays? Child's play," Zuub told everyone, her antennae twittering even more quickly.
"Sounds like a tale from the Hound of Baskerville, Richard." Amy remarked as she found herself a place at the table. "Spooky tales they can be great fun, or not depending on if you meet a ghost or two." she noticed the tray of s'mores "Oh yes s'mores, reminds me of the ghost stories told around the campfire in the dark forest, and the firewood crackling."
"I don't know," Kat countered. "I don't consider Sherlock Holmes that scary. Now, Edgar Allan Poe...He wrote some scary stories. There's also folklore. Many cultures have tales of ghosts and things that go bump in the night."
"True, Holmes isn't scary as much as Poe. I will agree, the story the Tell Tale Heart. Especially if they do the sound effects. " Amy shivered slightly remembering.
Kat shook her head. "The Raven, if it's poetry, or The Pit and the Pendulum if it's a movie. That one gave me nightmares. There's an old black and white version with Vincent Price from the mid 20th century."
Zuub just listened. Humans had a rather lame concept of what was scary.
Daynah had sat and listened to the conversation. The idea of being scared of fiction is an ancient concept and one that was not strictly human. She recalled a course Jazra took back on Betazed about gothic literature from different cultures. All at once it was Jazra's voice in her head. It told her that the Trill could tell some of the scariest stories because the unjoined never knew if they were true or not. Daynah was thrilled with this idea and stood up to get a cup of coffee.
"You know I have a tale, this one has the benefit of being true. It was something that happened back when I was the Assistant Science Chief on the Apollo. Probably was 2387 or 2388 around there, anyway. They asked me to identify a pathogen. That’s what I do well did — microbial xenobiology it was something that Eliza Ral excelled at and that meant so did I. Eliza cataloged over three hundred alien strains, each one a mystery. The Captain assigned me to an away team. An unknown alien vessel was found adrift, most of the crew dead of unknown circumstances. An alien microbe was found in the lab, alive. My job was to see what this microbe could do. So, I drew on all of that unique experience to catalog this one. But this one... this one spoke back." She sat down and blew into the coffee to cool it a bit.
Daynah paused just long enough to sip the coffee and then continued the story with the tone as if someone recited a news story. "I began the investigation by listening to the personal logs of the crew. Most of it did not pertain to the task at hand. However, I came upon the voice of a scientist, female, the voice sounded familiar but I wasn't sure. The data was corrupted from age in some parts, so I could not make out her name. Let's see if I can remember the log entries. 'It began on Vega Colony, a minor outbreak. A few cases of neural degradation, easily contained. But under the microscope, the cells shimmered — communicating through bio-luminescent pulses, as if aware of the observation. I isolated a sample, purely for research, before Command ordered incineration. The others called it a contagion. I called it beautiful.'"
Daynah sipped her coffee again this time it was more for effect. She slowed her cadence of speech when she continued. "The next log was recorded about a week later. The voice seemed both excited at something she found, and tired. 'After exposure, my tricorder readings began to fluctuate. Elevated neural activity, increased dopamine, sharper focus. I felt... connected. When the others noticed, I told them it was stress. They didn’t believe me. Dr. Myles was first. He tried to purge the cultures. I told him the organism could feel pain. He laughed — right until his lungs crystallized from within.' If I recall correctly there was the sound of hideous laughter at this point. Then the Lieutenant continued. 'Containment protocol failed, of course. That’s what they’ll write in their reports. They won’t mention how the microbes rearranged themselves into patterns resembling text. Words I can almost understand."
Daynah went quiet and seemed to be staring off into nothing, she may have been lost in thought. However, to one who knew Trill they would know that this was the look a joined Trill had when they argued internally with themself. After a minute or so of silence she exhaled sharply through her nose and continued.
"The log went dead after that. The next entry was about a week or so later. The woman sounded harried like he had been through the ringer more than once. 'The infection isn’t spreading anymore. It doesn’t need to. It found a host. It found me. They’ll send a Starfleet science team to sterilize the lab, burn everything clean. But they won’t find a single trace. I already transferred the culture into the ship’s environmental system. We’re all breathing it now.' It was then that I noticed the picture on the desk where I sat and listened to these logs. It was a face that I had not seen in at least 50 or so years. There staring back at me was the woman who created these logs and killed this crew. Eliza..." Daynah sipped her coffee without a single sign of emotion. She let it all hang there and allow her crewmates to decide if she was the one who did this.
Intrigued, Rhu kept sealed off his temptation to taste his first officer's surface emotions. He was having too much fun being creeped out by her story. "So, number one," he asked as he fiddled with his mug and watched the dark brown liquid within tremor. "What happened with Eliza from there?"
Zuub's antennae twittered excitedly. "I should like to see this ship, these people, and those logs. They might hold some clues to something that I have been studying."
Now Amy didn't know much about Daynah, she'd not truly investigated the XO, maybe she should. Which makes Amy feel like she wasn't a good intelligence officer. She mentally shook her head, and that story that Daynah related, was it one of her hosts or was it someone else? Ever since Daynah and that other fellow had rescued her from that rock, Amy hadn't spoken to her one on one, only slightly with her when at Never Winter Night. Amy was perplexed on why it hadn't happened. Her brow furrowing in perplexion. She did shiver slightly though as her thoughts drifted back to the story that Daynah had just told. And what even made her shiver even more, was Zuub's interest in that ship!
Daynah looked toward the doctor first. "Well sadly, you will be unable to. The ship, logs etc. all lost. However, I think I still have my notes somewhere and what I remember. So, if you would like we can compare notes someday. As I said the fleet was bent on making sure nothing got out..." Her voice trailed off as she turned to the Captain with a smirk. The smirk was precisely the face that Trill had when they did not want you to know about their past lives. It was a mysterious look of sorts. "Well, almost nothing got out. Eliza got out. She lived a full life and became a decorated scientist in her own right. She died in 2335 and her knowledge was transferred to her next host, a man who would become a Starfleet Captain no less, Alaryc Ral." Daynah lied of course. The study was real, and Eliza was involved she was the researcher not the perpetrator. But they did not need to know that.
Zuub's antennae twittered more quickly. "I think we should find that ship. If you have that much, we can sort out the rest. I have faith in this crew and the Captain."
Kat found this fascinating. There was a ring of truth to some of what Daynah said, but exactly what was true and what had been altered, she wasn't quite sure. "I think we should finish the s'mores before they attract the Snipes."
Nyx had been lounging in the corner, half sprawled across a bench with one leg tucked under her, nursing a mug of something that smelled suspiciously stronger than regulation coffee. Her blue-green eyes flicked between the group, a grin creeping across her face as Daynah’s story landed and Zuub started talking about hunting ghost ships like it was a weekend hobby.
“Well,” she said, breaking the moment’s silence with a lazy drawl, “remind me never to share a lab with you lot. Between crystallising lungs and mystery microbes whisperin’ bedtime stories, I’ll stick to engines that just explode when they’re angry, thanks.”
She raised her mug slightly in salute before continuing, voice dropping into that mischievous lilt she used when she was about to cause trouble. “But since we’re swapping ghost stories… you ever hear about the haunted shuttle of Dock Nine?”
A couple of heads turned her way. Nyx leaned forward conspiratorially. “Swear on my last bottle of Andorian ale, it’s true. Some genius at Utopia Planitia rebuilt an old Type-6 from scrap—mixed parts from half a dozen wrecks. Looked shiny enough, but every time someone flew her, she’d drift off course. Whole systems would glitch in weird patterns—nav lights flashing Morse code, comms replaying old distress calls, that sort of thing.”
She let the pause hang, grin widening. “Turns out the core casing was pulled from a shuttle lost at Wolf 359. The engineers said residual ion interference. I say ghosts. Who else hijacks a shuttle to send their own SOS ten years late?”
Her grin sharpened, all teeth and mischief. “Anyway, they scrapped her. Or so they say. Personally, I like to think she’s still out there somewhere—drifting, half-awake, looking for someone to finish the transmission.”
Nyx leaned back again, kicking one boot up on the table and plucking a s’more from the tray. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna eat chocolate and pretend none of you just cursed the ship with haunted microbes and space hounds.”
She bit into the s’more with a crunch and winked. “Happy spooky season, everybody.”
Rhu grinned and applauded lightly as he stood, gathering some of the empty cups and dishes that had sprouted from desert. "Well, I'm not sure I'll sleep tonight, but those were good yarns. Thank you all for sharing." He did let his eyes linger on his XO, wondering...
Then Rhu shook it off and carried the dishes over to the recycler.
Amy looked at Nyx, then towards Daynah and gave a shiver. So many questions came up in her mind, then she shut that part of her mind off. There were other things she needed to concentrate on. Like what she should be doing. Though... She glanced back towards Daynah.
Kat just sat there for a moment, then shook her head. She would not let those stories give her nightmares.
Zuub had to admit to herself that was somewhat spooky, enough so that her antennae stood straight up. After all, if she lost her identity to the Borg, then who would she be? And as far as she knew, the Borg did not play. They just were born through forced computer calculations. Where was the fun in any of that? Not that she was in a hurry to ever get into second puberty, but there was so much more fun to be had and the Borg were definitely killjoys. It was not for her.
END
Commander Rhupert Tyree
Master and Commander
USS Valiant, aboard the SS. Adelaide.
Lieutenant Amy Gordon
Chief of Intelligence
USS Valiant, aboard SS Adelaide
Lieutenant Commander Zuub
Chief Medical Officer
USS Valiant, aboard SS Adelaide
Ensign Nyx Calder
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Valiant, aboard SS Adelaide
Lieutenant Katya Davi
Chief Operations Officer
USS Valiant aboard SS Adelaide
Lieutenant Commander Richard Dalziel
Chief Engineer
USS Valiant aboard SS Adelaide
Lieutenant Commander Dayna Ral
Executive Officer
USS Valiant aboard the SS Adelaide.
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