Rats in the Walls

Posted on Wed May 7th, 2025 @ 1:57am by Captain Björn Kodak & Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: Seven Souls
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 1800

[Inner Ducts]
[Kodra-Lisrit]
[MD 1: 1800 Hours]

The grating clang of the vent panel coming loose echoed far louder than any of the escaping Starfleeters would have liked. A moment later, though, Noah was the first to slip inside, the stale metal interior swallowing him whole. One by one, the rest followed--the vent closed behind them with another echoing clang--the warmth of their bodies pressed close in the tight confines of the ductwork. The passage was barely wide enough to crawl, the rough edges scraping against sleeves and knuckles as the trio of wriggled forward like worms threading through the bones of a dead leviathan.

Behind them, the dim light from the holding cell slanted through the open vent—already distant, already unreachable. No sounds of pursuit followed, likely because the limited number of guards near the cell had all been needed to usher the other prisoners up to Subrek. But the way ahead seemed, at least for now, clear to proceed if not easy in doing so.

The air inside the ducts was stale, tinged with the acrid scent of burnt coolant and old grease. Somewhere nearby, a fan hummed lazily, its rhythm slightly off-kilter, like a broken heartbeat. Dull thuds and shouted orders filtered in from deeper within the ship, suggesting the Kazon were on the move—no doubt in an attempt to head off Noah, Irynya, and Maritz wherever they might pop out of the ducts.

As the trio rounded the next bend in the duct, elbows sore from crawling, the temperature around them suddenly dropped. A strange shimmer rippled over their forms and a high-pitched whine filled the air—shrill, electric, and...wrong. Their skin lit up in a transporter’s signature glow, but instead of the clean blue of Starfleet's visual effects, this one was unstable, almost dirty, like an oil slick trying to hold its shape. The forms of the three quivered as the beam attempted to deconstruct them but then--for whatever reason--the transporter beam released them. And in the ensuing moments, no follow up attempts at transport were made.

The air was still again and the way ahead as clear as it had been before.

Breathe in 4. Breathe out 5. In 4. Out 5. Irynya had been counting breaths as they squirmed through the confines of the ductwork. In some ways she was was thankful to be in the middle of the trio. Her gaze was focused, laser-like, on the heel of Noah's left boot and its perpetual forward motion as if it were an anchor that was supernaturally keeping the walls from pressing in on her.

For just the briefest of moments she felt the thought, visceral and vicelike, slip the line of her measured breathing and draw her eye to the side, up what little of Noah's form she could follow. Her chest tightened and she felt her breath catch. Determined, she gritted her teeth and started over.

Breathe in 4. Breathe out 5. In 4. Out...

When the transporter lock, assuming it was, in fact, that, grabbed her, she briefly felt an almost guilty relief. If they were being beamed out it was surely not into a space this cramped. But the sound and feel of the lock was wrong--broken somehow--and that relief quickly fled as the uncomfortable sensation of dematerialization, far slower than it should have been, prickled across her skin, creating an unpleasant tension as if all of her cells were trying to flee their bonds.

And then it was gone and with it her desire to move--at least for the moment. She crumpled back into herself and lay flat, breath coming out of sync and heart pounding in her ears and throat. She squeezed her eyes shut and then, with one hand, groped, until she could feel the heel of Noah's boot again. "What," she whispered, voice tense, "was that?"

"Transporter matter stream, they-they're trying to lock on." And that, in and of itself, was a frightening notion. The Kazon didn't have transporter technology. But now they did. "We-we're either too close to a power source or these bulkheads have alloy impurities. Probably kelbonite deposits in the duranium." Noah kept moving. But his mind was behind him in two ways.

One, they hadn't all made it out. Mei. Andrew. Victoria. Kaldri. Noah couldn't help but feel a well of panic for them all. If they had escaped, the others were now in danger because of their actions. If this Subrek was as sadistic as he sounded, he'd use the threat of death or torture of the remainers to get the three of them out in the open.

Two. As Noah paused to look back a moment. Hearing Irynya's breathing was impossible in the noise around them. Yet he strained to. This was a tight space. And Irynya hated tight spaces. If this was anything like how Noah felt when he was exposed to the extreme openness of space... she was having a hard time. So Noah did all he could to fill the void as they crawled.

He asked Cassian about his cat.

It wasn't long before they were moving again, and Noah's distractions were at least partly successful in keeping Irynya's mind off of the way her shoulders brushed the walls on either side as she army crawled along behind him. She'd heard, once, that shoulders were the most difficult part of having a baby because they had no give and, if stuck, sometimes required breaking. But this was a vent tunnel. Not a birth canal. If they got that stuck they would back up... retrace their steps. She reminded herself of this whenever Noah and Cassian paused in their discussion of Blue.

But, like all topics, the subject tapered and after a moment there was silence again before Noah spoke once more.

He asked Irynya about her friend... more than a friend... Marteli. "Ha-have you gotten anything back from them?"

Iry hadn't expected to be redirected to Marteli and for a moment her breath caught again as a wild hare of a thought that she would never see Marti, or any of them again if they didn't make it off this ship rooted deep into her chest. Beside it, but far less intense, was the uncomfortable difficulty of knowing just how much to say about a message that had, ultimately, had to do with Noah.

"Yeah," she'd finally managed, a bit breathily as she used her elbows and the toes of her boots to press forward almost like she was chasing the much larger booted feet in front of her. "Umm... just two days ago, actually. She was... uh... getting back to me about something I sent while we were all camping."

"That's great," Noah voice lightened, happy for her, even if it took an enormous effort to break through his anxiety. "She's really nice-sounding. Maybe I'll meet her one day? If we go back to the AQ for refitting."

But as the easy topics ran out and his own panic began to set in, Noah had to start thinking. "Did-did you two notice that Kazon with the cybernetic eye?" He asked them. He paused, squinted at something in the duct wall, and then decided to keep going.

Iry's head had been down, so she was nearly on top of Noah's foot as he stopped. She tilted her head awkwardly to the side, not wanting to slide back so she didn't run into Cassian behind her. "Yeah," she answered after she'd thought a moment, replaying the blurry memories of those few minutes in her head. "I don't remember Kazon having implants. And they're not acting like Borg. At least... not like any Borg I've ever heard of. Besides... I mean... the Borg are gone... right?"

"Not Borg... something else." Noah said. "The Borg use hydrogen-extraction micro-fusion systems to power their more invasive cybernetics. They-they can't run on neural electrical impulses. Just... um." Noah blinked, squinted and stumbled over his words. "Have-have you ever noticed how Borg have very dry skin? Their systems break down water into hydrogen and oxygen to power their micro-fusion nodes- Ow." Noah hissed air, flinched and looked at his hand. He had a pink mark across his palm. A part of the grating below was hot. "Unshielded relay conduit... be careful." Noah pointed.

"Are you ok?" Iry asked at the hissed exhale of breath, nearly in time with Noah's warning about the conduit. Though he pointed she could only see that he had shimmied slightly in an attempt to demonstrate where the spot was. Mostly she saw his boots and the length of his thigh. But, somehow, the outward concern over an injury trumped the reminder of just how cramped they were.

"Yeah..." Noah checked on his pinked skin, forming a blister. "Just be careful."

"The Kazon's skin wasn't dry... which means, um, they're using something else for power. And-and when I was at Daystrom, we experimented a little on some Borg technology. Part of a larger project... you-you can't adapt Borg implant technology very easily without the assimilation tech. The Borg nanites are required."

Even though it couldn't be seen, Iry found herself nodding her understanding. It was a half beat later before she remembered to make a sound in agreement. "I never really studied the Borg themselves particularly closely," she admitted feeling oddly annoyed at herself for it. "Borg cubes... yes... I know all about how they travel and how to maneuver in combat with one. She tried to shrug but the motion came out only as a shimmy of her own shoulders as they moved forward. She'd slowed slightly so that there was a gap now between her and Noah, nearly an arm's length in an attempt to find the offending unshielded relay conduit with her eyes before her hands did.

Slowly she came up on it, felt the heat increase, and managed to squirm so that her hands missed it. "I just reached the unshielded bit," she called back to Cassian, hoping it would help him calculate his arrival at the same spot as well. He'd been quiet since the shift in conversation and she hoped he was alright. Both he and Noah had taken more injuries than she had. To Noah she added, "If they're not Kazon... Other than the Vidiian's what other Delta Quadrant races deal in improving their bodies... you know... so to speak?"

Noah pursed his lips a moment, breathing through them with his eyes unfocused. He was thinking. "I'm, um, not sure exactly. I only got a few seconds to look." Noah closed his eyes, his hand gesturing emphatically, "All-all I do know is something weird's going on. This ship... um...." His brows popped. "This ship shouldn't exist and-and the Kazon having weird implants is just a big sign of that." he suggested. It was a wild theory he was starting on, but one that the evidence was building for.

"If I remember right, when we looked at Kaldri's shuttle and had to compare what we knew already, the Kazon were... oh... maybe around Talarian technological levels... maybe 2350's Cardassia? I mean, when Voyager encountered them. Um."

Noah blinked and had to circle back to his point, "But all the sudden," he snapped his fingers and his gaze returned to Irynya and Cassian's. "Parts of this ship is ten, maybe more years ahead of us. And it-it looks like it isn't even supposed to work together. We just went over an unshielded power conduit. And-and look at the fabrication of these conduits. That's Kazon."

He said as he pointed at some thick and effective but somewhat crude looking conduits in a dull blackish-gray shade. "But this," then he shifted to some kind of node, a light gray matte. Different materials using different fabrications. That is a double-shielded duratanium alloy. I-I think," and he pointed at the conduit, "But this is probably a duranium-tritanium alloy. That's a difference of almost 150 years in one shaft."

Noah narrowed his eyes. "What was the name of the people the Kazon were occupied by? Haakonians? Vidiians?"

"The Trabe," Iry offered, pulling that information from some unknown well of facts stored away from a briefing she couldn't remember. "I'm pretty sure it was the Trabe." She'd curled slightly as Noah spoke, craning her neck so she could better see what he was indicating. It was a stretch, but she found herself oddly grateful for her own flexibility.

"Trabe. OK." Noah had to admit the name hadn't stuck with him. But he trusted her.

She paused a beat after offering her answer, putting thoughts together faster than she could make good sense of them. Unbidden the Vidiians once again rose to the forefront of her mind as if a spectre that she couldn't quite shake. "The Vidiians..." She began, letting the churn of thoughts flow into halting speech, "they are always looking for a cure. Or were. Or.... It doesn't matter. The point is they would try to take parts... Parts from other species... To patch the parts of themselves that were failing. What if... You know... Subrek is doing something like that. But for his ship. Taking whatever he can find and ... Making it fit."

"I was kind of wondering along those lines." Noah admitted. "The-uh, Kazon are hunters and warriors right? It doesn't feel like a big jump to capture or enslave technologically advanced people who do the fixing, and they do the fighting."

She shuddered at the thought, the wrecked hull of a Vidiian vessel floating in her minds eye as bodies leaked from it, faces frozen in rictus-like horror. If the Kazon were scavenging ships... Who knew vow many people had died so that 150 years of advancements could coexist in one conduit.

"Hold on..." Noah stopped with a slow blink. he sat down in the oubliette-style cramped confines. "I think I know how to hurt these guys. We're crawling around in here like rats..." Noah's eyes widened. "So lets be rats." And from the back of his pants he produced that piece of metal he'd managed to pry away from the secured furniture in their cell. "If we start breaking things, they're gonna have to stop and deal with us... that-that might give our ship a chance to regroup. So... we'll break things... make it look like we are going one way, but we'll go another." Noah stopped and narrowed his eyes. "And if I can get access to the life support systems... the ventilation." He pat Iry's knee. "I have an idea."

Somehow, despite the cramped quarters, Iry had managed to rock back onto her haunches, ducking to avoid the top of the shaft they were in. At the production of Noah's bit of metal her eyes widened and a wicked grin spread across her features. She glanced back at Cassian to confirm that he, too, was on board with whatever Noah was planning before turning back to face her friend. "Tell us what you need us to do."

Noah looked at the two of them. He dropped his hand in a definitive chop. "Uh, break shit. Maybe avoid anything that looks like it conducts plasma. But boards, interfaces, nodes." Noah tapped the thick rubber sole of his boot. "I recommend kicking and stomping. This should be enough to keep you safe." He looked at his two companions again. "Break it, move on. We need to divide up a bit. We need a central area to meet back."

He was right, of course, but the sudden thought of being alone in the depths of Subrek's ship made Irynya's gut twist uncomfortably. What if one of them didn't make it back? What if they got lost? The likelihood that one or all of them would be captured again loomed, but equally... he was right. They were going to have to risk something. There were other crew members that needed their help and while they were free they had to do everything they could to effectuate escape, even if it was just being enough of a nuisance to give the Sojourner time to reach them.

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she nodded. "We don't know this ship," she began. "The holding area we just left is probably the best option we have for regrouping. Or someplace close by. We're going to need to figure out how our people are doing anyway." She was searching through her head, trying to pinpoint a place in their hurried dash from the cells that would suffice. "And... we need a signal of some sort. Something that we can leave behind or... or... I don't know. Some way to know if something's gone wrong."

They huddled for a moment longer in the crook of a junction, hushed voices trading ideas, timing, and potential fallback points. Plans were whispered, routes roughly sketched in dust and memory, and one final agreement was made: they’d circle back to the junction just short of the holding area—close enough to regroup, far enough not to walk back into a trap. Then, with nods exchanged and nerves steeled, the trio broke apart, each disappearing down a different shaft with the rustling urgency of rats loosed inside the walls. The ducts swallowed them one by one, the sounds of their scurrying fading into silence, leaving behind only the faint scent of scorched metal and the promise of some calculated chaos.


=/\= A joint-post by... =/\=

The Narrator (Brad)

Lieutenant Cassian Maritz
Chief Security Officer

Ensign Noah Balsam
Computer Specialist

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Flight Controller