Stella Doesn't Fall Far From the Mudd

Posted on Fri Jun 28th, 2019 @ 10:37am by Petty Officer 3rd Class V'Nus Wil'I'Ams & Jaeih Dox-t'Aan & Petty Officer 3rd Class S'Rina Wil'I'Ams & Az'Prel

Mission: Fractured Fairy Tales
Location: Mudd's Labs on the Artan Fortress
Timeline: 2396 Shortly after the Tribunal's closing battle

The Vulcan woman from the mirror of a now-collapsed shard of this universe, now led a team of two Amazonian Starfleet security guards and Jaeih Dox from the USS Hera. Their destination was the secret laboratory- at least in theory, according to him- of one Doctor Davos Mudd, hidden under the winter side of the Artan Family Orbital Fortress. Az'Prel had been told that her daughter, now somehow around twenty years of age, was stashed away there.

Additionally, he had indicated that he was using her as his own 'quantum anchor', which Sonak explained to mean that Mudd likely had not escaped the destruction of their universe in quite so organic a method as Az'Prel through the wormhole. Thus from his statement, it stood to reason that their daughter was serving to enable him to maintain his presence here, as he likely suffered from a similar malady to Commander Paris, wherein their previous universe was perennially pulling at him, attempting to reclaim him despite it no longer existing in this space and time.

While she was a logician and a Vulcan, the worry and anxiety was starting to show on the Vulcan freedom fighter's cool countenance. It was clearly cracking a bit as the tram they rode from the USS Hera's docking ramps towards the giant silver castle in the center of the fortress rushed along towards the far side of the habitat of the enormous fortress. Within minutes, they had made the 140km trek to the opposing docking ports, and were now descending into the underbelly, the snowy vistas vanishing to be replaced with scenery of the vast machinery that kept the behemoth station alive and generating enormous amounts of power.

The team was then deposited at the location that Mudd had indicated to be the entrance to his and Arenara's secret lair - right next to the general recycling systems.

Az'Prel reached up to pull on the lever that would open the large bay door to the labs but paused, her shaking hand resting on the lever for a moment as she took a deep breath.

Picking up on what for the Vulcan woman was likely unwanted emotions, the Romulan agent by her side turned to the two Klingon sisters that accompanied them and raised an eyebrow. "There are likely many traps and unforeseen obstacles in play here, Ladies. Please secure the perimeter for a moment. Thank you."

The cooler of the two Will"I"ams sisters simply nodded, seeming to understand the unspoken message and they stepped away out of earshot to scout the perimeter.

Turning back to one of the few people in the universe she thought of as a friend, Jaeih's tone became almost maternal. "Whatever we find in there, whatever he did, we will overcome. I've only known this crew a short time, but they have convinced me that if there is any way to make a wrong right, they will turn over the galaxy to find it. They, and we, will do no less for you or her."

Placing a hand on Az'Prel's shoulder gently, Jaeih continued. "You are feeling emotions you are having difficulty controlling. And maybe one day you will achieve your goal of total control. But today, know that there is power in the love of a mother for a daughter. It has transformed me, and it will empower you today to do what you must. You have our strength here as well."

Gesturing with a nod of her head, Jaeih signaled the Klingon sisters know to return and form up for the assault.

Az'Prel nodded, gaining the strength she needed from her friend's words. Her resolve strengthened, she pulled down on the handle, the doors slowly sliding apart to reveal the antechamber to Mudd's labs, which had a few Mudd-bots waiting to greet them.

Looking at the assemblage of smirking duplicates, each face equally punchable, Jaeih muttered a curse in Rihan, "Imirrhlhhse."

"What's all this, then?"
"Who are you... people. Are those actually people?"
"Say now, you're not supposed to be here!"

In the dimly-lit room of large pipes and metal grates for flooring, the three Muddbots were each dressed differently. One wore a long white double-breasted labcoat, with long black rubber gloves up to mid-forearm, and dark safety goggles resting at his hairline. The Mudd beside him wore an ostentatious blue admiral's tunic of the Artan livery, complete with fringed golden epaulets and festooned with an assortment of medals from the Artan fleet on his chest. The one beside him was dressed in some sort of heavy metal spacesuit drag, his figure a surprising match for that of Arenara Artan, as he carried the dark helmet under his arm. The room appeared to have no exits, save the one they had opened to get in.

Then all three of the Mudds froze, their eyes pulsing with an inner glow repeatedly for a few seconds, then they animated once more.

"Who are you people, anyway?"
"What are you doing here, whattya want?"
"A Romulan, A Vulcan, and two Klingons walk into a sewer- stop me if you've heard this one..."

Creepy robots of sadistic madmen with eyes that glowed were never a good thing, Jaeih thought as she took a single step back and commented. "I vote for 'stop them"... from a distance. The last one of these had an agonizer for a head according to the intelligence reports."

"According to the readings, these are all androids, thinly skinned with Mudd DNA as in Lieutenant Clemen's report. They would be undetectable to conventional scans, if you did not know what you were looking for," V'Nus reported, as S'Rina unclipped her phaser.

"I agree with the Romulan," S'Rina fired in quick succession, on heavy stun. Two of the three bots fell easily, then she pointed at the remaining Mudd, the one in the brilliant blue livery of the Artan fleet. "Talk! Where is he keeping the girl?"

As they waited for the Muddbot to speak, Az'Prel had her own tricorder out and was scanning. "I am detecting a great number of rudimentary traps. I advise caution."

“You remind me of the babe,” the Mudd knockoff explained, his eyes narrowing.

“What babe?” snarled Petty Officer S’Rina.

“The babe with the power,” the ersatz Mudd, cheerfully replied.

“What power?” the impatient petty officer demanded.

“The power of voodoo,” Mudd explained.

“What?!?” the impatient Klingon replied.

“No no, your next line is ‘Who do?’ and I reply ‘you do,” Mudd explained patiently.

“Do what?!?” S’Rina growled, finger tightening on the phaser’s trigger.

“Remind me of the babe...” the Mudd-bot replied, whereupon petty officer S’Rina shot him, dropping him to the sewer grade deck with his peers.

“Since interrogations are not producing positive results, I believe there is a hidden access in that pipe to the north,” Petty Officer V’Nus declared, having been scanning all this time. “I cannot see a way to access it, however.”

"Thank you for shutting that damned thing up, Miss Wil'l'Ams." Jaeih commented, pulling out her own tricorder to scan the pipe in question. "I'm detecting no traps here, but we must still be weary. The Scorpion droid that tried to kill my daughter could evade scans. Still..."

The experienced Romulan former Tal'Shiar agent bent over, shining a light on the underside of the pipe as she visually inspected it, "I know this architecture. I don't see an access hatch, but a focused cutting beam here should give us a hatch without disrupting its structural integrity."

Az'Prel was busy continuing her scans, focusing on the pipe now. "If I know my Mudd, a polarized magnetic flux emission is his normal method of triggering hidden doors as the method to create a key is incredibly easy." Tweaking the settings on her tricorder, it started to whine for a moment before the whole pipe started to rotate out of the way, revealing a hidden door covered in sensor scrambler paneling.

As the pipe finished moving, several spikes shot up out of the floor and out of the ceiling right in front of the door, mere inches in front of the Vulcan woman. "It appears I have discovered one of the traps. Fortunately, I have also discovered a door."

Eyes widening slightly at the trap she missed, Jaeih smirked awkwardly. "Well... I think to defer to your expertise here to be the wisest course of action. Thank you."

Exchanging concerned expressions, the two Klingon sisters had an unspoken conversation between them, then they both nodded in agreement. Pushing up their sleeves, they exposed the ancient bronze bracers that each wore, and the tapped the bracers together, left to right in a somewhat practiced, almost ritualistic manner. And suddenly they were equipped in their EVA armor, the black and white plates and pressure suit seemingly appearing upon their persons from nowhere. As the power systems booted up and their internal systems came online, V'Nus reported in as S'Rina moved in to inspect the newly exposed door.

"This is dangerous, and you are both civilians," the Wil'I'Ams sister informed both women, with one hand held up. "Yes, I know you are both very capable, but we are Starfleet. It would be dishonorable were we to lag back and let you two take the greater risk. And the Commander would have our dishonorable hides if anything happened to you. My sister is reporting in now, and she will bring up the rear. I will take the lead, and your expertise can keep me in one piece, yes?"

As she spoke, S'Rina produced a Mek'leth from nowhere and began studying the terrain with her armor's sensors.

"Very well," Az'Prel knew better than to argue with a Klingon, but she would do her best to keep them safe with her knowledge of Mudd and his quirks. "The door is likely charged with static. After opening, watch for simple string and wire traps."

Stepping over, S'Rina set the Mak'leth on the deck, by the point, and let gravity enable it to make contact with the door, without her in contact. The weapon sparked as it hit the door, then fell to the deck. Growling, S'Rina moved back in, picking up her weapon and turning the handle on the door. Opening it slightly, the Klingon warrior flicked her wrist and the one-handed Klingon blade disappeared, to be replaced with another flick of the wrist by a full-sized Baat'leth. Reaching in through the doorway using the reach of the longer weapon, she pushed the wire she had spotted beyond the door as she'd been told what to look for. The door slammed shut as a displacement of air took place behind the door.

"Pitfall into the sewage. I do not like whomever built all of this," S'Rina growled as she moved to open the door again, only to have the handle come off in her hand.

"I did not grab it that hard!" the burly Klingon security officer protested as a deadfall dropped from the ceiling. Az’Prel, prepared for such an eventuality, grabbed the armored Klingon security officer and whirled, spinning her out of harm’s way as a block of stone fell onto the spot where S’Rina had just previously been standing.

Looking at the cracked stone block, easily large enough to have crushed any one of the four, Jaeih cricked an eyebrow. "So, this is how his traps evade our scans. Stone and string. Springs and trip wires. No power sources or modern technology to show up on our instruments. Quite clever."

Then the seasoned Romulan former spy scoffed. "Yes, I'm quite fed up with this sociopath’s tricks and traps. Perhaps when we get back to the ship, Commander Paris will let us go to the brig and all take turns punching his smug face for our troubles."

"I fear I may enjoy that, after all these years..." Az'Prel mumbled, tuning her tricorder for the more primitive traps that he was prone to using. "Further in, once we're used to these traps, watch for pressure plates. They're likely to activate disintegration or agony fields built into the corridors."

The Klingon sisters exchanged dark looks and words, muttering curses for the dishonorable under their breath.

Knowing the Klingon language well, Jaeih grimaced as she walked past the sisters in their native tongue, "You can say that again, Ladies."

With that, the wary foursome proceeded, deeper into the labyrinth of traps and tricks, each deadly and wildly unpredictable. The bracers of Hera as well as their EVA armor granted the Wil'I'ams sisters an advantage Mudd could not have accounted for, with their shimmering blue shields that found tremendous use in the challenges, as well as their extensive repertoire of weaponry.

Traps, tricks, disintegrators, agonizers, deadfalls, pit traps, spike traps, pressure plates, and transporter traps abounded throughout the complex and varied maze which the two security officers and the civilian Intel operatives navigated, slowly making their way with a minimal loss of blood and pain, but a maximum of frustration. By the time they figured out the precise sequence of colored stones to press to open a secret door, the Wil’I’Ams sisters were ready to begin simply phasering every obstacle to get where they were going.

Which was when a shield generator shut down, and as the 20 sequence color code was cracked by Az’Prel, the wall swung open to reveal a series of cells, one harboring a humanoid life form.

A half-human, half Vulcan life form.

Long dark hair, cut in a ragged and uneven manner was matted to the young woman’s head and to the rags she wore as ostensible clothing. She was thin, although not to the point of emaciation, although that was hard to tell as she cowered in the corner of her simple stone cell with metal bars across it. There was no bed, just a hole for waste that stunk, as did the young woman herself. A crisscrossing roadmap of scars was visible all over her body, as it was clear that she had suffered years of abuse.

No sound was made- instead, she cowered in the corner, attempting to make her slender frame as small as possible as she hid from the invaders.

"Nouhha..." Jaeih gasped, calling out to gods the Romulan woman didn't believe in. Then, centering herself and quickly regaining her composure, whispered to S'Rina and V'Nus as subtlely as was possible. "We need full scans. Highest levels with your HUD's so as to not startle her anymore. But we need to know that we're seeing what we think we're seeing. No holograms or androids. No faked injuries or makeup. We can't take any chances with him."

“Confirmed,” V’Nus replied, speaking quietly. “Mild malnutrition, a definite life form, half human, half Vulcan. I show…. there is a lot in her genetic code that is beyond me, but she is not a hologram, nor is she an android, unless she is of a type we’ve not seen. No current injuries show up on scans, and… well, there are lice in her hair and she has fleas…”

"Lovely. Stay on guard, please. I trust nothing about this situation and something doesn't feel right." Jaeih whispered to V'Nus as she stepped over, placing a hand on Az'Prel's shoulder, not bothering to repeat the information she knew the trained freedom fighter had been able to hear easily. "We will proceed however you wish, Az'Prel. We are all here to help as needed."

The displaced Vulcan woman was struggling to maintain her composure as she stood there a moment, her mind rushing through scenarios. She'd already confirmed that this was her offspring with her tricorder and tucked it away so she swallowed and walked up to the cage, inspecting it a moment before lifting the heavy steel door off its hinges and tossing it aside like it was made of balsa wood.

Az'Prel then kneeled in the doorway and studied the girl a moment before speaking. "Do you know who I am? Do you know who you are to me?"

Slowly and cautiously, the bedraggled urchin in the corner of the dirty cell took her arm away from her face to allow her eyes to flicker over to the Vulcan woman. After having torn the cell door off, demonstrating superior strength, it appeared that the young woman was quite wary. But as her frightened gaze darted about, taking in all of the strangers invading the small world she inhabited, she shook her head in an economical gesture designed to convey a negative response with a minimum of movement which might draw attention.

"My name is Az'Prel. I am your mother," she said as calmly and as softly as she could. "Your name is Stella, correct? I'm here to rescue you."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK4gv11PTI8