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Amnesiacs Anonymous: Part 2

Posted on Sat Jan 27th, 2018 @ 8:58pm by Captain Enalia Telvan & Aewia Larani & Lieutenant Commander T'Pral Jordan & Akira Zhuri & Chief Warrant Officer Daytona Ral & Staff Warrant Officer Nexi

Mission: When Iconians Deserve to Die
Location: Memory Laboratory

Aewia pressed the business end of the device to Daytona's forehead. "See you on the other side," she said, just before pressing the activation switch. There was a brief glow around Daytona's head, then the device shut off automatically after a couple seconds.

Daytona's eyes went wide and he clutched his head, screamed and fell to his knees, overcome from 422 years of memories flooding into his head, then fell over on his side. He lay there, twitching for a moment, then another, then, slowly, regained his composure. He rose and adjusted his uniform. Tears were running down his face. I a period of just a few moments he'd discovered he had a daughter, and then that she was gone. He remembered friends and lovers past, then remembered that they were gone, either because they'd grown apart from him or because they'd died, some from old age, some through violence. What snapped him out of it was one overriding thought. Akira. He tapped his commbadge.

"Zhuri, Ral. Akira, please respond," Daytona said. When he didn't get a response, he tried the ship. "Ral, Hera, please respond. Ral, Telvan please respond."

He tried Mal and Clio as well and got nothing. He reached out and took the 'gun' from Aewia. He pointed it at her.

"Brace yourself," Daytona said. "This is probably going to hurt."

Without giving Aewia a chance to protest, Daytona pulled the trigger.

Aewia's eyes widened as what seemed like two sets of memories crashed into her head at once at full force, painfully knocking her to her knees. All the memories she had lost of her younger years, her early days in Starfleet, her years as an Intel agent, her torture and incarceration, her rescue and time aboard the Hera... And memories of floating inside a glass jar... Several years on end of it. Now and then the master would visit and talk to her, but she couldn't make out anything inside of the fluid filled container...

Breathing heavily, she stared wide eyed at the door leading into the room the others had gone into. "I think we may be very fucked."

"I assume you don't mean 'fucked' in a good way," Daytona said. "Strange. I feel like being well and truly fucked in the good sense of the word is exactly what I need right now. But I don't have time for that now, and besides, it's not you I want to be well and truly fucked by. Hold one moment please."

Daytona turned and walked into the room where the sound of breaking glass was coming from.

Meanwhile, in the cloning room, things were going from bad to worse. Nexi's presence in the room was stirring all the nearly completed clones to action, and as T'Pral beat on one of the tubes until cracked, the clones figured out they had the means of escape and began to beat on their tubes from the inside!

"Fuck! No no! No no no!" Nexi said as she finally broke the spell drawing her in, backing away cautiously. She quickly tried the door that would lead out, but it was locked. "We need to get out of here, NOW!" she said as she ripped the wall panel off the wall to see if she could crack her way into the system and trick the door into opening; they may need to see if they could escape through the mirror in the first room if she couldn't get this door open...

Without warning Daytona walked into the room and effortlessly shot Cato, Nexi, and T'Pral in the head with the 'memory gun', one right after the other in rapid succession. After they all doubled over, Daytona switched the gun to his off hand, grabbed T'Pral by the jacket, and dragged her back to the other room. He returned to the room of horrors twice more, first for Nexi then for Cato. Once he had them all secured he went over to the panel next to the door to that room and studied it for a moment. It was similar to the one they'd used to exit the operating room, only this one now displayed it's controls in Federation Standard. The AI was learning. Daytona quickly closed and locked the door. He turned back to Aewia.

"Put the belt on your sister," Daytona said. "Now."

Aewia then realized what the belt slung over her shoulder really was and scrambled to get it secured around Nexi's waist. "Fuckin twatwombles, Ral... How many are there? I know he cloned demon versions of me, but how many demon versions of the rest of you are there?"

"I didn't take time to count," Daytona said. "T'Pral had already cracked the tube of one of her clones by pounding on it. It and the others, the remotely coherent ones at least, seemed to realize that the covers to their tubes were made mostly of some kind of glass-like material, something that could be broken if you were strong enough. If I were a demonic Iconian mad scientist, I would have used transparent aluminum, considering how dangerous those things likely are."

"Unless he has a budget," T'Pral joked, looking at her bruised and battered hand more calmly now. It wasn't broken but had she been a human, it likely would have been shattered.

"Welcome back, Commander," Daytona said. "So, there don't appear to be any other exits from this area, just through that room of horrors. How's that phaser core's power level coming along? I have a feeling it's going to come in handy."

"The phaser is sufficently powered," T'Pral replied, checking the phaser power level.

"Every... fucking... time..." Cato grumbled, catching his bearings and standing to his feet. "I swear to god Daytona, you fuckin' sucker punch me one more time... Memories back or not..." he coughed a bit from the hit with the memory gun. "Why don't we get the fuck out of here before those things bust through the transparent aluminum. Any objections to that?"

"We've been over this, Cato," Daytona said. "Last time I had orders and I obeyed them. As to your questions...there. Now we won't be stumbling around blind."

A holographic map of the sphere appeared. Four areas were lit up.

"I scanned for commbadge signals," Daytona said. "This is us right here. I believe that these two groups are made up of the crew of the Hera. This smaller group appears to be on the move. Based on their movement, I'd venture a guess they are looking for us. As you can see, there is a maze of corridors between them and us. As Mister West has stated, it would be best if we started making our way towards them before those tubes break open."

He pulled a device that looked like a cross between a small PaDD and a small tricorder out of one of his pockets. Using it, he downloaded the map files.

"Aewia," he said. "As Cato stated, we need to unass this location RFN. Can Nexi walk? If not, we'll have to carry her."

Unlike the others who seemed to have come around rather quickly, Nexi had not yet show any signs of waking.

Aewia pressed a hand to Nexi's cheek and concentrated on her mind. There was still so much turmoil and she sensed so much more than just Nexi in there now... "I think the black blood complicated things so she's going to take a while longer. Cato, can you carry her out of here? You have the highest chance of survival if she accidentally summons a demon dog or something when she does wake up..."

"Then let's go. I will take point," T'Pral said, drawing her phaser and moving towards the door.

"Aewia, Cato," Daytona said. "You're next. I'll bring up the rear and try to keep those things off of our backs."

Aewia was far from defenseless, but her body wasn't what it was - she almost couldn't believe she'd been so out of it for so long. She had her mind back though and she was going to do everything she could do to protect her sister, the same as her sister did for her. She just needed a makeshift weapon... Grabbing a length of testing cord off of one of the tables, she wrapped one end around her right hand and held the other end in her other hand. She had her weapon for now. Nodding, she took up her position.

Without hesitation, Cato stooped to pick up Nexi, unafraid of the potential dangers that resided within her unconscious body. He knew the black blood was dangerous, but he also knew that Nexi was strong, strong enough to hold back the blood. Once he was certain he had a good hold of her, he nodded to the others that he was ready to go.

Before they could get moving, from the room with the tubes, the sound of shattering glass could be heard, followed by the rushing of fluid and several wet plops. Only a few seconds later, patchy wet hair and red eyes on a demonically misshapen clone of Aewia's face could be seen peeking through the door at the party, silently watching them as more glass could be heard cracking.

In Cato's arms, Nexi groaned and writhed as the belt she once again wore sounded off with an alarm; even without waking, she could feel the blood calling to her!

T'Pral took a few steps forward as she looked back at the clone. "Damn," she said, before snapping off a shot that struck the creature in the face. It screamed in agony and then rage as it then rushed forward at an incredible speed. She raised the power setting with her thumb and fired again, hitting the clone again, this time in the chest as it reeled backwards onto the deck. Screams soon sounded from the other room as the rest of the clones rushed in.

Nexi cried out in agony as T'Pral felled the first clone, the black blood reacting violently within her; it felt like something was trying to claw its way out of her.

Daytona gave up all pretense of 'bringing up the rear' and charged forward, impatient to find out what happened to Akira. He grabbed a snarling clone by the throat and lifted it off of it's feet, then, in full on Vulcanoid rage mode, he snapped it's neck with a twist of his wrist. He dropped the clone on the deck faced the other clones, some of whom bore a vague resemblance to him. They snarled and roared at him, but he paid them little mind. Instead, most of his focus was on the fallen clone. Daytona waited a moment, then a moment more...

"It didn't regenerate!" he shouted, his mouth forming a feral grin. "They came out of the oven too early! We can kill them!"

Just as Daytona spoke, A clone got bold and charged forward in a murderous rage. He bowled Daytona over on his back, hit so hard that a Human would have a broken spine, which his stronger bones protected him from. They didn't protect him from having the wind knocked out of him when he hit the deck. He struggled with his artificial created attacker. It was touch and go a moment, but Daytona maneuvered himself until he was on his feral opponent's back and then bashed its face repeatedly into the deck until there wasn't much of a head left.

By this time, Aewia too was on the offensive. Whipping the chord she held around one clone's neck, she jumped up and wrapped her legs around the head of a second, flexing all the muscles in her body just right to pull both of them in and snap both of their necks in one swift motion. As they both fell to the deck in a writhing, quivering mass, Aewia rolled to her feet and moved to attack another clone bare handed, digging her fingers into its throat and ripping out the windpipe of a clone that vaguely resembled her, spraying black blood everywhere.

"Try not to get any of that black stuff in your mouth, your eyes, or anything else where the flesh is more permeable than your skin!" Daytona shouted. "Or you'll end up poisoned like Nexi!"

T'Pral nodded as she delivered a blow to the head of a clone that dropped to the deck. She quickly brought her foot down hard. The clone went limp from the impact as an audible crack could be heard.

Daytona looked over at T'Pral.

"Okay," he said as he stopped struggling with one of the clones, shoved it back enough so he could pull back his arm and then struck it in the nose with the heel of his palm. The clone went to the ground, if not dead, than at least unconscious. "So many I went a little overboard with the skull smashing."

As he moved forward to clear out another clone, he stomped down hard on the prone clone's skull, which collapsed under his foot.

"Is it just me, or are some of these things a little squishier than they've been in the past?" the intelligence officer asked. He ducked a blow from a clone, then knuckle punched it in the throat, followed quickly by a blow to the sternum, knocking the wind out of it. Before the doubled over, gasping, gagging clone could react (if it even could have reacted) grabbed it by head and pulled down while bring one of his knees up sharply and smashing it's face. Literally. "I mean really, I know T'Pral and I are stronger than Humans, and our bones are harder, but it usually takes a little more effort to smash a humanoid's skull like a rotten melon!"

Even Aewia had started to take notice at this point. Circling behind one, she used a move that would normally snap the neck of a sentient with her strength. It sheered the head right off and as the twitching body fell to the floor, she was left holding a demented version of Daytona's head. "Yeah, I've never ripped anyone's head off with just my strength before!"

As Aewia, Daytona, and T'Pral tore the clones apart, all Nexi could do was writhe in Cato's arms. Cato would have done anything to ease her suffering, but there was nothing he could do, and looked on helplessly as she continued to cry out in agony. But then she stilled and grew silent, and the suddenness of it make Cato's blood run cold.

"Guys, I think something's wrong with Nexi!" he called out, laying her out on one of the operating chairs they had woken on. Before anyone could respond to his calls, Nexi's eyes opened, but they were completely black, which wasn't completely unusual for her, but her eyes were blacker than black, empty voids even down to the sclera. She looked at Cato and there was no sense that she recognized him, but tears flowed from her eyes. All too quickly, those tears became black and viscous, and then Nexi reached up and grabbed Cato by the neck.

"Shit!" Cato gasped out, wrenching her hand away from his neck. She moved to grab him with the other hand, but he caught her first, holding both her hands above her head, and then the damned pain in the ass of a woman had the gall to try to shock him! A red current danced over her body and Cato very nearly let go as she burned his hands; but why wasn't it hurting her anymore?

"Hey! I could use a little help in here!" Cato called out to the rest of the team when the intensity of the current passing through him started to become more than he could tolerate, not yet noticing the pool of black blood forming on the ground below them; the puddle was rapidly growing, disproportionate to the tears streaming from her eyes.

In Cato's arms, Nexi groaned and writhed as the belt she once again wore sounded off with an alarm; even without waking, she could feel the blood calling to her!

Daytona rolled his eyes and then fought his way back to the operating room.

"For the Prime Number's sake, man!" he said. "All you have to do is carry one tiny, little woman, who..."

Then Daytona saw Nexi.

"...is apparently bleeding all over the floor without dying while trying to electrocute you," he said. He sighed. "Nothing on this ship is ever easy."

There were restraints on the table for both hands and feet. Daytona rushed over and grabbed one of Nexi's wrists. He seemed to be able to mitigate most of Nexi's electrical discharge with his own electrokinesis. With Cato's help, he forced her into the restraints one limb at a time. However, the puddle of blood at his feet now seemed to be moving. He stepped back out of the puddle to get a better look at what was happening.

"Really?!?" Daytona said, a mix of shock and severe annoyance in his voice. He turned to Cato. "When this is all over, young man, we are going to have a very serious discussion about contraception!"

With Nexi's hands and feet securely bound, it was like she knew she no longer needed to hold back out of fear for Cato's safety, and her eyes closed as searing pain ripped through her; it felt like something was trying to claw its way out of her, so she would let it, anything to make this pain end! The black blood began to seep from her pores, feeding the puddle on the ground until it was finally big enough, and then something began to emerge from the inky pool; the shape was indistinguishable at first, just a series of masses struggling to breach some unseen barrier, but as the mass came closer to emerging, the shape became more defined until finally a massive demon dog clawed its way into the lab and with glowing red eyes stared at Daytona and Cato with a growl. For Nexi, it was a relief, the pain had finally ended and she wasn't entirely coherent with what was going on around her, but she could 'feel' the dog she had unknowingly summoned, like it was an extension of her awareness, though at the moment she had no control over it, especially when it lunged at Cato and Daytona.

Daytona sprang into action, leaping to the side, dodging the dog's lunge while simultaneously knocking Cato out of the dog's reach. Daytona stood up, adjusted his blood splattered jacket, and attempted to look and sound dignified and alpha-dog/pack leader-like.

"BAD DOG!" he said. "Sit!"

The dog wasn't listening to anyone, least of all Daytona, and it lunged once again at the Vulcanoid Rigellian. When Daytona tried to dodge out of the way, the dog quickly adjusted and followed him, and with another lunge it managed to sink its teeth into Daytona's calf. As Daytona fell to the ground, the dog clamped its teeth in harder and ripped, causing a bright red spurt of blood so spray all over the white tile floor.

Daytona screamed in pain as the Hellbeast's jaws clamped down on his leg, almost, but not entirely drowning out the crunch of breaking bone. Then rage took over and Daytona took the beast's upper jaw in one hand and lower jaw in the other, and pulled them apart until once again there was the sound of bone breaking as Daytona overextended the beast's jaws. His severely injured leg free of the beast, Daytona used his good leg to shove the dog away. It wasn't dead and it seemed to be healing, but at least Daytona and the others in the room had a moment to breath. He could see his lifeblood pumping out of the severed artery in his lower leg and he could tell he was close to passing out. His eyes drooping, Daytona fumbled as he took off his belt to use as a tourniquet. Fortunately, Starfleet designed it's uniform belts to be used this way, so it could be buckled down tightly over a thigh or arm. Daytona just managed to buckle the tourniquet on his left thigh when the room seemed to be going black.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave this mess for you to deal with, young man," Daytona said to Cato. He began to mutter, half to himself, half to whoever was in the room. "Akira is going to be so upset with me...find her...please...tell her...I love her and that...it's okay to be angry with me..."

Then Daytona passed out.

Thank God he was silent! 'Either hurry up and die or shut up already!' Cato thought as he checked that the tourniquet was tight enough to stop Daytona from bleeding out, then he went to the demon dog and threw it to get it away from his injured team mate. Then he decided to take his frustration on the beast by stomping on its head to slow its regeneration, then stomped on it again on the ribcage just for good measure; the crunch of bone under his boot was quite satisfying, and he kept stomping every time it started to regain any sort of shape.

Over on the operating chair, Nexi started to wake, but she was far from coherent. She couldn't seem to work out where she was, or even who she was; she had these memories swimming around in her head, but none of them made sense! They were all mixed up and she couldn't figure out if she was a botanist's daughter, a slave, a mercenary, a killer, a thief, a protector.... or a lover... she turned her head and her eyes fell on Cato, and he seemed strangely familiar, but she was having trouble matching him to her memories.

Throughout all of this Aewia had been frozen in shock. She knew the Baskerville Hounds well. She'd been tormented by the Master's hounds on more than one occasion. Seeing one come from within Nexi and attack their friends... it was almost too much for her to process, even with her restored cognitive function.

Knowing that it could be beaten back though, snapped Aewia out of it and moved her into action. She grabbed an IV pole, pulled the hanger off the top, and stabbed it down into the beast into the deck plating with more force than she knew she had, pinning it in place. She then grabbed what looked like a med kit from possibly a twenty third century Federation ship off of a nearby counter and moved to treat Daytona with... Well, there was a tricorder inside of it. And she thought this was a cardiovascular regenerator... Scanning a few of the tools helped and after a few more seconds she was in business.

Aewia didn't even look up as she performed the best emergency field medicine she could on Daytona's leg, thanks to her training. "I think I can get Daytona up and at least walking reasonably well. Can you bring Nexi around and see if she's still on our side or if the black blood has completely taken her?"

"I think so," Cato replied, then returned to the operating chair where Nexi was still restrained, but she was starting to pull at those restraints. "Nexi? Nexi look at me," he said to try to get her attention, and she seemed to respond to her name, which was a good thing so far. "Do you know who I am? Are you with us?" he asked to assess her mental state.

"I.... I don't know," Nexi said, but she didn't sound at all like herself; in fact, she sounded afraid, almost child-like in the way she seemed to shrink back from him. At least her eyes looked normal, for now. "You seem familiar, I feel like I should know you, I just can't remember your name!"

It stung that she didn't know him, but they could work with this. "It's okay, just stay with me," Cato urged her, trying to keep her calm so she didn't conjure another one of those hell-dogs. "The dog, Nexi, do you remember the dog? Can you control it?" he asked, pointing to the dog pinned to the floor.

"That- that was real?!" Nexi said in a panicked tone when she saw the dog. She squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't know! I don't know anything! I didn't- I didn't mean to do that, it just hurt so bad, I couldn't hold it in," she tried to explain.

"It's fine, Nexi, we know it wasn't intentional," Cato said, then took a chance and started to undo the restraints on Nexi's hands.

"I don't know if I can control it, and I think there's another one, but it doesn't hurt much now, I think I can hold it in," Nexi said, rubbing at her now bruised wrists, only to see that her hands were covered in black blood from the summoning. "Shit, it really came out of me, didn't it?" she said, starting to sound a little bit more like herself. The memory was coming back in jagged pieces, leaving her psyche feeling raw, and knowing that it could push her to summoning another one of those monstrosities, she didn't fight the memory, but neither did she try to hold onto it as it slipped away.

Cato finished undoing the restraints on her feet, then helped her up; she wasn't in the best state, but at least she could process what was going on around her. "Yeah, it really came out of you," Cato replied dryly. "And do your best to hold the other one in, but we won't hold it against you if you can't. Just try to give us some warning if you think it's going to happen again."

Nexi nodded, then got to her feet; her whole posture had changed, she somehow seemed less than the person she had been before. "I'll try," she replied in a meek tone.

The final two clones rushed at the group as T'Pral snap fired her phaser, catching one in the chest before grabbing the other one and grabbed it by it's neck and slammed it head first into the floor as the skull smashed open, sending brain tissue and blood flying. T'Pral removed her blood-splattered uniform jacket, tossing it on the floor and replacing the comm badge onto her shirt. "Let's keep moving and see if we can't find our way out."

Back in the operating room Daytona's eyes fluttered open for a moment. He blinked a few times.

"Aewia," he said, sounding disoriented, almost drunk. "I've just had the strangest dream. Nexi cried and sweat black goo and the goo turned into a Hellhound which I attempted to bring to heel with strong language and a firm tone of voice. You'd be surprised how often that kind of thing works on Hellhounds. However, it didn't work this time. Instead, the dog tackled me and used my leg for a chew toy..."

Daytona noticed first his leg, then the dog.

"Okay then," he said. "Not a dream."

Then he passed out again.

"Will he be alright?" T'Pral asked, approaching Aewia while holstering her phaser.

"Yeah, I think I've patched him up enough to at least..." Aewia released the belt around Daytona's thigh as she set the last tool aside and nodded. It wasn't great work, but she could let the Doctor back on the Hera fix that up. For now he could walk. "Yes, he'll be slow, but he can walk out of here." She then loaded up a hypo with an antique version of a stimulant and injected him with it. "How quaint... Starfleet stopped using this over a hundred years ago because of addiction..."

Daytona's eyes shot open and he drew in a sharp breath. For a moment, it seemed as though he didn't remember how to release the breath, but then figured it out.

"What the...?!?" he asked, his eyes darting from side to side. "Did you just inject me with a stimulant?"

He looked down at his leg.

"You know," he said. "The way my heart is pounding in my chest right now, that one little stimulant might just undo all of your...handy work..."

He reached down and touched his leg. It felt like it was asleep. He looked at Aewia.

"Let me guess," he said. "You were able to stop the bleeding but not repair the arteries, so there's no blood circulating through my leg?"

"No, I repaired them... But this old twenty third century tech only goes so far. It can only repair the major and a few minor ones. There's still a lot of damage." Aewia held up an antique cardio regenerator which looked more like a torture device than a medical instrument. "Now please tell us you can walk if we help you."

Daytona grimaced as he pulled himself to his feet. He gingerly tried to put weight on his injured leg and cried out, almost passing out again from the pain despite the powerful stimulant coursing through his veins. He took the weight off of his leg immediately and leaned against the nearest operating table.

"Can you..." Daytona grimaced again. "Can you find me something to use as a crutch?"

"I gotcha," Cato said as as with a nod he offered to support the injured Rigellian.

"Don't get too close to the dog, he has a taste for you now and wants to finish what he started," Nexi said idly, staring into nothing as she waited to leave this place.

"I'll keep that in mind," Daytona said, smiling weakly. He looked at Cato with a silly grin. "Home, Jeeves!"

T'Pral moved out of the room and down a corridor that was too narrow for T'Pral's tastes. After walking several meters, they came to a junction that split off to two corridors. She raised her hand for the group to stop as she listened. Her ears picked up the rapid patting of bare feet hitting the floor and they were coming towards them. "Ready yourselves!" she called just as a clone leaped from the shadows while in full sprint. T'Pral was knocked down hard as she grabbed the clone and rolled with it, delivering a hard blow to the throat and slamming her palm into the nose, driving the nasal bone up into the brain.

A clone no one saw and climbed on top of some of the equipment. Scrambling across the tops of various machines, it suddenly jumped down onto T'Pral, trying to knock her to the ground. Another followed suit by tackling Aewia, while yet another landed in front of Nexi. Instead of attacking, it squatted on its haunches and looked at her curiously, as though confused.

Aewia let the clone land on top of her and used its momentum to roll it into a throw straight into a wall, pressing its head into a crunching blow just hard enough to spray black brain matter all over that wall.

For the first time in her life, Nexi was too scared to do anything; with all the confusion of the jumbled memories in her head, and for a moment she didn't know how to react or how to even defend herself, she was completely paralyzed! But the demon dog she had summoned could sense the danger and growled, lashing about violently to try to free itself so it could defend its master. But Cato had done a lot of damage to it, and Aewia had it sufficiently pinned to the floor for the moment, so it released this unsettling howl to try to call its brother. Nexi gasped, doubling over in pain as she slowly started backing away from the clone.

"No, not again..." she murmured as she fought back the pain building up in her once again.

The clone crouching down in front of Nexi became more agitated. It began to pound on the deck and howl. Several other clones followed suit.

T'Pral slammed back into the wall hard, causing the clone on her back to loosen it's grip. She did so again and this time it let go. T'Pral slammed it's head into the wall, causing it to splatter it's contents over the deck and wall. She spotted the clone in front of Nexi not attacking and in one swift motion, she drew her phaser and fired. The phaser burned easily completely through the clone as it dropped to the deck dead.

With the danger now passed, the dog on the floor stopped howling and the pain gripping Nexi began to subside somewhat, but she knew they would be in trouble if anything else popped up because she couldn't hold back the blood. She knew she had promised to try and she was doing her best, but this was simply beyond her ability to control for the moment.

"Can we leave now?" Nexi asked, wincing as she sagged against another operation chair; she sounded tired and her spirit more than a little crushed, but she was still fighting this malevolence bubbling up inside her, she hadn't given up yet!

"Sure!" Daytona said through gritted teeth. "Just let Mister Pickles there clear a path for us...that is if you think you can keep him from eating my other leg. I'm with Nexi. Can we please get the Hells out of here now?"

"Agreed," Nexi replied, at least to the 'get out of here' part, but she wasn't so sure about letting, Nexi sighed, 'Mister Pickles'.... Yeah, she wasn't so sure about letting the demon dog go free.

At that moment a clone tackled Aewia, knocking to the ground, it's face close to hers, its foul breath blowing in her face.

Nexi once again found herself frozen, unable to help this person she vaguely remembered, but some part of her deep down who know who Aewia was called out in the back of her mind, and Mister Pickles answered that call by ripping itself from from the IV pole that pinned it to the deck plating, viciously attacking the clone to protect Aewia! Of course, once it had ripped out the clone's throat, it began to eat the clone, causing it to regenerate faster, so now they had a whole new problem to contend with...

Aewia stood and backed up towards Nexi. "Nexi... Sister... Is that thing on our side now or is it going to try chewing on Daytona again?"

Sister? That's right, they were sisters, or half sisters, but still they were blood, although maybe not so much anymore with how this black shit was changing her...

"I don't know," Nexi said warily, watching Mister Pickles chow down on a black blooded clone. "I really have no idea how much control I have over it."

"Then I recommend we get out of here before Mister Pickles finishes his snack and decides we're the main course." Taking Nexi's hand, Aewia started heading for the exit.

It wasn't far, but it was locked. "An antique style hinged door... I have a foot-key for such things..." With a swift kick, Aewia had the door open and sunlight was filtering in through the now open doorway. They were now free of the memory lab. "Now which way do we go to find the rest of the crew?"

Daytona hobbled along with Cato's support, his breathing labored. He would be very lucky if he didn't throw a blot clot into his lungs or worse his brain. He pulled out his Intelligence tricorder, almost dropping it from his shaking hand but somehow managing to keep hold of it. He looked at it for a moment to place the other groups, then looked around.

"One group is that way," he said. "From the movement indicated by their commbadges, it looks like they are escaping whatever enclosure they've been in. The other large group is that way. They appear still be inside the enclosure. The smaller group is almost to the second large group. I'm getting commbadge IDs now. Captain Telvan is with the small group. Commander

Rigelians, for reasons not entirely known, had an almost perfect sense of direction. The ability worked better when on a planet, where they could orient themselves based on the planet's poles and axis, rotation, and revolution, but it was still effective on, for example, a starship. On the Dyson Sphere, the ability may not have been as effective as on a planet, but it was definitely better than on a starship.

"Well, let's go find them before Mister Pickles decides to come find us..." Nexi said dryly.

T'Pral led the way again, with her phaser drawn towards the smaller group. After a few minutes, T'Pral could make out the Captain's voice. "Captain Telvan. It is Commander Jordan and I am with West, Nexi, Ral, and Larani."

"Commander!" Enalia called out, then motioned for the medic in her team to hurry along. That medkit might come in handy. Hurrying the last of the distance between them, Enalia motioned for the medic to check them over. "It's good to see all of you in one piece."

Enalia then motioned to the tall purple alien standing next to her. "I believe you've met Akira. It seems she had to find a new host after 'landing' the Hera on the hull of the sphere."

"Hey," Akira said with a cheerful wave, but then she saw Daytona and all six of her eyes went wide. "Oh my stars, Daytona!" she exclaimed. "Wha- what happened?!"

But before Daytona could answer, Nexi chimed in. "Uh, yeah, that'd be my fault," Nexi said. "I, uh, kinda made one of them demon dogs and apparently he didn't like being told to 'sit'. And I'm all for a happy reunion, but Mister Pickles is still in there, so we should probably get the hell out of here before he finishes regenerating."

By this time, the medic had finished his initial scans of Daytona and given him a hypo for the pain and moved on to Nexi. "Captain... I..." He then scanned Cato and Aewia before moving his tricorder's scanner over T'Pral as well. "I'm no expert on this black blood substance, but I'm reading trace infection rates in all of them. Furthermore, Staff Warrant Officer Nexi... barely registers as humanoid on my scans."

"I think Mister Pickles is proof enough I ain't wholly 'me' anymore," Nexi said, then sighed. "Seriously, we need to get out of here before he starts howling for his brother again, 'cause I can't hold it in if the other one decides to make an appearance." It worried Nexi that Aewia and Cato were infected, and Daytona and T'Pral too, but she didn't know what to do about that damned dog, so it was in all their best interests to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.

"I can carry Daytona so we can move faster," Akira offered.

"Is Mister Pickles by any chance a giant black hound with seven red eyes and a nightmare inducing grin?" asked one of the crewmen that Enalia had brought along, pointing to a giant black Baskerville Hound gingerly nuzzling Nexi's hand. Somehow it snuck up on them without anyone seeing it or noticing it - probably one of its powers that they had yet to catalog - instant return to its master.

Nexi looked down at the creature warily as she back away from it. "Please don't eat us," she said to the beast. Then it made a sound that was not in any way canine at all, in fact it almost sounded like it was chuckling, but made no move towards Nexi or anyone else, for the moment. "Ok, we can cross 'shit a brick' off my bucket list; who else is ready for this nightmare to be over?"

T'Pral was surprised to learn that she had been infected. Had it occurred while they were unconscious? She hadn't felt any different but hoped the infection could be cured. "Yes, let us leave this place," T'Pral said finally.

"Akira..." Daytona said, taking her hand, his voice shaky. "You can't fool me. I'd know you anywhere, my love."

Akira smiled, or as best as she could in this body. "Of course you do," she said sweetly, then she gathered him up into her arms to carry him back to the camp; if she had been a bit more developed she would have realized that being carried like this probably wasn't the most dignified for a full grown man with Alpha male tendencies, but at this point she was simply concerned for his safety. "Now let's get you to safety and we'll take good care of you."

Daytona, for his part, didn't give a damn about being dignified, though he was a little surprised when she picked him up. Even if he felt as though his dignity was under assault, he was in too much pain to care. He rested his head on Akira's should and closed his eyes, happy she was safe, content to let her rescue him.

 

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