Scared of the Dark [Part 1]

Posted on Fri Feb 14th, 2025 @ 4:36pm by Lieutenant Adrianna Baciami

1,499 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Stars Around the Well

Vance leaned back in his chair, a faint grin tugging at his lips as he rolled his shoulders finally relaxing for the day. “You know, I think I’ll miss the ladders when I’m done in engineering. There’s something about climbing up there, feeling the height, the rush of it. And the view…” he shook his head as if savouring the memory, “standing above it all, looking down at the warp core humming away and seeing everything in motion– it’s incredible. It’s like being at the heart of the ship.”

He glanced at Adrianna, expecting her to be rolling her eyes or teasing him, but instead, she shuddered. Her face had gone rather pale, her eyes wide and unfocused as if his words had conjured some horrible memory.

“Adrianna?” His voice softened, his grin fading, “What’s wrong?”

Her lips parted, but no words came out at first. She swallowed hard, forcing herself to look at him. “It’s nothing,” she murmured, her tone unconvincing.

“That’s not nothing,” he frowned, sitting up straighter, “You look like I just suggested free-climbing a warp nacelle.”

She let out a shaky breath and glanced away, her fingers curling into the edge of her chair. “I don’t like heights,” she admitted at last, her voice barely audible, “and the fact we’re all being worked like dogs, at the moment, means I’m not sleeping well, so my mind is spiralling at the thought– like vertigo.”

Vance blinked, taken aback. “You? You’re scared of heights? Adrianna, I’ve seen you climbing scaffolding, balancing on beams– you’ve never hesitated.”

“That’s because I had to,” she snapped, her tone sharper than she intended. She closed her eyes, steadying herself before speaking again, “I was undercover, Vance. Do you think I wanted anyone to know? I couldn’t afford to let my fear show in any form. So, I forced myself through it. Every. Single. Time.”

Realisation dawned on his face as he leaned back, folding his arms. A few images of their life on the Pendragon flickered in front of his eyes suddenly realising how quiet she always was when they were up high, or how she used to always triple check her footing and grip, more than just cautionary. “You mean to tell me that all those times you scrambled up to fix something, or hauled yourself onto those precarious ledges that you were scared out of your mind?”

She gave a small, tight nod, “Terrified, but I couldn’t let anyone see it. If they did, they’d have something to hold against me.”

Vance stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head with a faint, incredulous laugh, “I don’t know whether to call you insane or brave.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t call me either,” she muttered, though her lips quirked into a faint, reluctant smile.

He reached out, taking her hand in his, “for what it’s worth, you fooled everyone. Even me. I’d never have guessed.”

“Good,” she said, squeezing his hand as if grounding herself, “because I’m not doing it again. If you’re thinking about dragging me up any ladders in future, forget it.”

He grinned, leaning closer, “don’t worry. From now on, the only heights you’ll have to deal with are when we’re looking out at the stars together. No ladders required and no actual drop.”

Vance shook his head, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees in thought, “so, let me get this straight– you’re scared of heights, and you managed to hide it the entire time we worked together. Is there anything else you’ve been keeping from me? Because now I’m starting to feel like I’ve been living with a stranger.”

Adrianna snorted in amusement. “The key to being a good intel op is to never actually lie,” she grinned, “it’s to merely omit.”

“Adrianna?” he prompted, his voice gentle but curious.

“Off the top of my head, there is one more thing,” she admitted reluctantly, “one of the runs we did– it left me scared of the dark.”

Vance’s brow furrowed as he studied her, his voice soft but insistent, “the dark? What happened? And don’t give me the vague version. I can see it’s bad but I don't remember anything that was that bad, surely.”

Adrianna hesitated, her jaw tightening as though she was trying to hold the memory at bay. After a long moment, she exhaled shakily. “It was one of the runs we did for a syndicate,” she began, her voice low, “You don't remember? We were smuggling a shipment of alleged bioweapons. We didn’t know at the time, but the clients– they’d lied about what was in the cargo hold. The containment units failed mid-journey, and whatever was in them… madonna, it got out.”

Vance stiffened, his grip on her hand tightening, “Ah– I remember. I mean, technically it was a bioweapon– well, engineered.”

***

The dimly lit corridors of the Pendragon groaned under the strain of its journey through the asteroid belt. Adrianna had spent the past year blending in with the smuggling crew, her Starfleet uniform traded for patched leathers and a sharp-edged attitude. Their latest haul– a sealed, temperature-regulated crate– was supposedly a bioweapon destined for a warring faction. It wasn’t her place to question the cargo; her mission was to track its route and gain intel on the syndicate running the operation. Though she'd sent Starfleet their coordinates and flight plan so that they could intercept the client after a trade off had been done.

But something had gone terribly wrong.

It started with a faint tapping.

Adrianna had been sitting in the dimly lit galley, pouring over a phrasebook in preparation for their next job. At first, she thought it was just the ship settling, its metal frame protesting against the constant vibrations of the engines.

Then the sound grew louder, sharper, until it echoed throughout the ship.

Vance wandered into the room, his brow furrowed. “You hear that?” he asked, his voice low, suspicious.

Adrianna looked up and listened properly. If Vance was suspicious of a noise then something was wrong. He was an engineer first and foremost. She put her book down and nodded. “Could be an airlock misfiring,” she shrugged, though she doubted it. The Pendragon wasn't that new, it had many a patch job, but it wasn’t prone to random malfunctions.

The tapping turned to scraping.

Suddenly a scream rang out. She and Vance exchanged a look and bolted down the corridor towards the cargo hold, where they found the doors hanging ajar. The stench hit them first– sickly sweet, like rotting meat mingled with something chemical. Inside, a scene of chaos awaited them. The crate that contained the supposed bioweapon, lay shattered on the floor. The remnants of its casing glittered like frost, and a thick, viscous fluid oozed across the deck.

The member of the crew that was guarding the crate lay in a crumpled heap, his chest torn open as though by enormous claws.

“What the hell was in that?” Vance barked, his hand already reaching for his phaser.

“I thought it was a bioweapon,” Adrianna replied, her voice tight, “that's what it translated to.”

“That doesn’t look like a bloody bioweapon,” Vance snapped, pointing to a set of deep gouges trailing away from the corpse and into the darkness.

They followed the trail cautiously, their breaths shallow. The thing– whatever it was– had torn through the bulkhead like it was paper. The lights flickered as the ship’s power faltered, plunging the corridors into intermittent darkness.

The first proper sighting came when Cal, one of the crew members that was used as muscle, stumbled upon the creature near the engine room. It wasn’t a man or a machine but something grotesquely in between– a bio-enhanced monstrosity, all brawn, with cracked looking flesh and glistening metallic implants. Its eyes glowed faintly red, its mouth bristling with needle-like teeth.

Adrianna barely had time to shout a warning before it lunged. Cal screamed as it tore into him, and Vance fired his phaser in a blind panic. The beam hit the creature square in the torso, but it barely flinched.

“Oh merde! Run!” Adrianna yelled, grabbing Vance’s arm and dragging him back down the corridor. Behind them, the creature roared, a guttural, unnatural sound that reverberated through the ship like a death knell.

One by one, the crew fell or went into hiding. The creature moved with terrifying speed, navigating the tight corridors with ease. Adrianna and Vance eventually found themselves barricaded in the galley, listening as the creature clawed at the reinforced doors.

“What was that thing?” Vance asked, his voice shaking.

“Not a bioweapon,” Adrianna admitted grimly, “at least, not in the traditional sense.”

“Great. So we’ve smuggled a bloody killing machine.”

 

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