The Third Sacrament (Pt 2)

Posted on Mon Mar 3rd, 2025 @ 1:39am by Lieutenant Gabrielle 'Gabi' Shimoda & Petty Officer 3rd Class Gavin Ralston
Edited on on Tue Mar 11th, 2025 @ 11:02pm

1,810 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Impending Midnight
Location: Shuttle Priedo, En Route to Galorndon Core
Timeline: Late Evening, Four Days Ago

The scent of dust, mould and cheese filled Gabi’s nostrils as she took in deep breaths. In her mind, she focused on her mission, running over the specifics as though the journey were a finely choreographed dance. She visualised each step; coming out of warp at Galorndon Core, seeing the vista of that alien hellscape below them through the cockpit window, finding the wreck of the craft adrift but salvageable, recovering the pilot and, scuttling his ship and hightailing it like a bat out of hell. Regardless, the planning and hypothesising were wasted on Ral, who scarcely seemed to sweat the small stuff.

With another deep breath, her concentration broke. She could hear Ral’s footsteps on the deck plating, slightly laboured with the hint of a limp. One eye shot open and tracked the Petty Officer as he paced back and forth. She tried to recenter herself, air in through the nose and out through her mouth, but her efforts were in vain.

She opened her eyes.

Ral stopped pacing. “I’m irritating you.”

“How did you know?”

Ral tapped his temple. “Remember?”

Gabi’s jaw clenched. Her fists tightened. “How could I forget.” She shot to her feet and shouldered past the young man. “This isn’t working.”

“What’s not working?”

“This… this whole thing,” She muttered. She snatched her belongings and shoved them into the backpack. “I’ll sleep in the cargo bay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“O-okay,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

“The bed, such as it is, is all yours, Ral.”

“Better than sleeping in the chair, I guess.”

“Indeed,” Gabi nodded. She paused, taking a short breath. The air felt heavier than an overfed targ. The boyish Petty Officer stood opposite her, slumped and uncertain. His body, like a wilting lettuce, seemed limper than usual. “I’ll bid you goodnight. I need to sleep before we arrive at Galorndon Core. We only have a few hours.”

“Four-point-three, to be exact.”

She stopped. “Thank you for keeping track of the time.”

“The least I can do.” He smiled. “Actually, while you were… sleep sitting… I was thinking about the mission.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. I’ve been analysing the Ulysses’ warp telemetry of D’Pan’s ship. Frankly, I don’t think it’s in orbit.”

Gabi’s eyes narrowed. “Where do you think it is, Ral?”

“Without a proper scan, I can’t say for sure. But given how abruptly the telemetry terminates, I’d bet my mother’s life on the ship being on the surface.”

“That complicates things,” Gabi admitted, crossing her arms. “Any idea where?”

“That depends. We could be dealing with a controlled or uncontrolled descent. Either he dropped out of warp and had a catastrophic failure force him down, he was shot down, or he chose to land on Galorndon Core. If he did, I’d have suspicions about his intent.”

“I hadn’t considered this,” Gabi admitted.

Ral shrugged. “A Vulcan in this day and age goes through kolinahr and then points his ship at a hotly contested star system near Federation space? If the shoe fits…”

“It’s a possibility.” Gabi nodded, if only to hear the younger man out. Nevertheless, she, Starfleet Intelligence, and even Gary could’ve been missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. The very thought of it made her pulse quicken. She tried to set it aside. “Listen, at this stage all we’ve got is guesswork. I’d prefer not to work on assumptions. Let’s just see what we find when we get there. I’m, uh, I’m going to get some rest.”

Setting out across the microscopic and soiled corridor, Gabi found herself stepping into the cargo bay sooner than she’d liked. For a cargo bay, it was more like a broom closet. The air was so thick and stinking of metal and coolant that it felt like the walls were inching in. It was silent, a place to be with one’s thoughts whether she liked it or not, and so it was without its peace. Already, she was forced to sit with the idea that there was more to this than she’d considered.

She tossed her backpack down on a nearby cargo container and laid out a blanket on a pair of containers just long enough for her to sleep on. A yellowed pillow followed, accompanied by another thin blanket. She collapsed upon the makeshift bed, the hard surface pressing against her. Already she was aching, staring at the ceiling, thoughts of murder, treason and defection running through her mind.

She tried to compose herself, focus on sleep, but the calculations that tried their best to deduce the truth were frivolous. She felt sick, trying to think of it all. It screamed inside her, gnawed at her being. She shot upright. She sat on the ‘bedside’, hands resting on her knees, gasping in lungful after lungful of soupy air.

“I guess sleep’s out of the question,” She grumbled to herself. Catching her breath, she looked over to her backpack, then to the cargo containers across from her. Gabi picked herself up and looked at the crates around the small room. She began to search through them, conducting a mental inventory as she went. Box of junk after box of junk; an old miner’s EV suit, half-century old tarnished Romulan disruptor rifles and a box of rations from the time when James T Kirk was bedding green women. Just great.

She returned to her backpack. She dug past clothes, a tricorder, a phaser pistol, until eventually she pulled out a hypospray. Adjusting the dose, she pressed the device to her neck and injected herself. In an instant her body relaxed, her mind calmed, and she fell back against the makeshift bed. Her breathing slowed, her head felt heavy. She felt sluggish, the air feeling like syrup. Darkness began to creep in, she surrendered to the feeling as her body went limp, her head crashing to the pillow.

Silence at last.

|Shuttlecraft Priedo, in orbit of Galorndon Core
|Hours Later

Gabi’s eyes snapped open the moment the cargo bay door was swung open by Ral. Adrenaline pumping through her roused body, she watched him watching her from the door. She groaned, flopping her head back onto the grotty pillow. She let out a deep sigh as she rubbed her forehead. Trying to compose herself was like swimming through nougat.

Ral hovered in the doorway with a cup of coffee. He glanced between the woman and the hypospray. Seeing she was breathing, Ral was just glad he wouldn’t be doing the crucial leg of the mission by himself this time. “We’ve arrived in orbit of Galordon Core.”

“How long?”

“Two hours.”

“You didn’t wake me?”

“I tried. But there was no point. The area is empty, and we’re still alive.”

“Got it.” Gabi nodded, climbing out of bed like a novice swimmer leaving a pool.

“Coffee?” Ral asked. “It’s black.”

Gabi reached for the warm cup like a dying women reaching for a lifeline. She took a hearty sip, the beverage warming her from the inside, the warmth radiating out with an approving smile. “This is so strong you could stand a spoon up in this. Thanks.”

Ral led her out to the cockpit. As Gabi had visualised, the murky azureous stratosphere swirled below them like milk mixing with water. Menacing electric storms flashed in spirals.

“No place for a holiday,” Ral remarked, moving to the conn. The youthful technician’s hands danced across the clunky control panel like a ballerina dancing across a crag. “I’ve been running some scans. D’Pan’s ship isn’t in orbit, though I caught a faint ion trail leading to the surface. I’ve got the computer running an analysis on the signature to see if it matches his ship, but I’m sure it’s him. Anticipating it’s him, I’ve been running some simulations to see where he would’ve landed. That’s computing still. It’s all a bit slow.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“That’s what you get when you operate with a century-old computer core, I guess,” Ral shrugged. The Galordon sun rose over the horizon of the planet’s west as they orbited slowly the churning planet below. “Beautiful in its own way, isn’t it?”

“Beauty from chaos.” Gabi added, sitting at ops and sipping at the ration-quality coffee, which was bitter and inexplicably savoury. “Wait until we get down there.”

Ral chuckled as the computer beeped, finally completing the calculations it had been working over for hours. “It’s him! Ion trail puts D’Pan’s ship on the edge of the northern continent.”

“Okay. Enter the coordinates into the navigation system. Take us down, Ral, nice and slow.”

Ral grinned. “Showtime!” He punched in the numbers, altering their orbit to bring them above the continent. The Betazoid youth then slowly began their descent, the nose dipping into the choppy atmosphere. The pair held their breath as the vessel vibrated, jostled, shook as the vessel pushed further into the atmosphere. A shroud of flame licked at the nose of the shuttle, enveloping them in a shimmering haze as the friction of descent lit up the cockpit.

“This isn’t meant to happen.”

“I know!” Ral replied, fighting to maintain control of the craft as it fishtailed and jolted through its descent. “The atmosphere is denser than expected. We’re descending too quickly! Hull temperatures are reaching critical levels! Whoa! Brace for impact!”

Gabi clenched the handrail before her, knuckles white. The shuttle lurched and bucked, throwing them around in their seats. The flames continued to curl over the bow in blinding embers. Until it disappeared as though it was a mirage and the flames were replaced by rocky dark terrain filling their view.

“I’m attempting to level our descent! Slowing speed!”

Gabi held on for deep life, wide eyed as the ship levelled out and came to a more reasonable speed, the terrain sweeping under them until they travelled against the horizon, jagged mountain ranges zooming past below them until eventually, the vessel slowed to a more manageable speed.

Ral breathed a sigh of relief. “Switching to auto navigation. I’m bringing us over the predicted crash zone now. Sensors are showing duranium hull fragments and disturbances to the geography to the northwest. I think I’ve got it.”

“Good a start as any, Ral, put us down at your convenience. I’ll go and prepare.”

“Sure, just one other thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Our hull coating, I think I’ve burned it off on descent.”

“Meaning that if someone’s here—”

“We’ve already been detected.”

OFF

Posting by

Lieutenant Gabi Shimoda
Starfleet Intelligence Field Operative

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