Pool Side
Posted on Sun Aug 31st, 2025 @ 6:57am by Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble & 1st Lieutenant Jeksyne Vale & Lieutenant Mira Jayna & Staff Warrant Officer Rommie & Gunnery Sergeant Tessia T'Lar & Sergeant Azure Thompson & Sergeant Tyrigus Fry & Sergeant Miranda Schultz
Edited on on Wed Sep 10th, 2025 @ 8:41am
2,789 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
Episode 16 - Silent Cries
Location: Below the surface of Wren IX
Timeline: MD010 0900
And was then falling. Rommie's recordings picked up and automatically locked on all of the Silence that stared out at him as he dropped. Four thousand eight hundred and fifty six of the aliens passed judgement on his form as he fell away. Neil's mind already turned to monitoring the others and tracking Fry. Using his jump jets, he braked slightly before impacting into the water.
About six meters below the surface Neil was caught up in the current. His sensors swept ahead, using Fry's readings to help navigate as he twisted and turned trying to keep himself in the middle of the channel as the underground river current grabbed him.
Jayna didn't follow where Fry went. Her focus was on Neil. As soon as he hit the water, she jumped, landing a meter off his entry point. A minute later, she was heading downstream.
The subterranean salt river reminded Sergeant Fry of a waterpark slide he’d been on as a kid. Just a lot darker and whole lot faster. Which his small science computer told him was not normal for a river like this. Usually, underground rivers movement could be measured in a meter or less per day and by his calculations he was at 60 kph.
He’d already traveled maybe five klicks and something was pushing the water upward now, the channel tightening so he bounced more, but with less of a pinball effect. He was still feeling the impacts and Fry was pretty sure he’d feel it in the morning.
If there was a morning.
Glancing at his mission clock, he was surprised but not shocked to see they were only ninety minutes into this mission.
Then his sensors picked up a change and he was shooting through a shallow pool that filled half of a yet another subterranean cave. This one though had a passageway that seemed to scroll upwards as far as his sensors could tell.
And he was picking up Federation transponders and comm signals.
Glancing about, Fry jogged easily over to the passageway’s mouth to take up some sort of covering position and reported over the team net. “Colonel. I’m showing contact with the other teams.”
Neil’s plunge into the rushing water was expected. Rommie kept a running transmission as long as she could, but he lost all telemetry about a hundred meters into the ride. Neil wrapped his arms in front of his chest and focused on getting his feet around and using his jump pack to try and keep from getting too out of control. He wasn’t wild about the blackout.
It was giving him too much time to think and all sorts of things were picking at his brain.
Azure found herself in what she believed to be a shallow pool, in the dark. Turning on her flashlight....
The light slowly died as it came on, and then Azure found her self accelerating past intent.
And not by her own intent.
She closed her eyes as her suit cushioned her from the jarring impacts as she hit the sides and bottom of the pool.
Suddenly she felt herself flying through the air, having been ejected from the pool.
Again her suit cushioned the impact and she opened her eyes, to find herself on a sandy shore.
Taking a deep breath, she activated her comms. "Azure to Team, I am unaware of my location, but I seem to be in one piece, remind me to thank the designer of these MARVEL suits."
The lights from her suit showed nothing but the darkness of the river. Once in a while, something would flash in her periphery or on the sensors, but it went by too fast for her to see. Mostly they were just rocks. She hoped. Comms were out and the suit said she was going far faster than should be possible, so she wasn't sure if her sensors were malfunctioning because of something in the rocks or there was something odd about the river.
When she finally surfaced, she was shaking--but wasn't about to say a word to anyone. The suit would keep her mobile while she listed to the comms and got a grip. She was relieved when she found where Fry went and quickly made her way out of the water.
The water here felt...different. The readings showed nothing unusual, but she was moving far faster than she should. And there was a sense of...something...in the water with her. It made her feel uneasy. But it wasn't a fish, and it didn't seem to have the mass of a spider.
And then the comms went out. For several long seconds, she had to focus on breathing. On staying away from the tunnel walls. She had plenty of air. She had weapons. The others were ahead of her. The suit showed direction, velocity. She focused on the readings she could see.
Finally, she slowed, then surfaced in a large cavern. The sensors picked up the rest of the team and her comms came back on. Jayna breathed and checked on Neil's position. Only then did she fully relax. Another slow breath and she got out of the pool to follow him.
Neil's HUD tinged red as he watched a picture display of the damage to his suit. The normal dings and damage he'd expected were there, even if the attacks and environmental impacts were half remembered. What was worrying was that now, his entire suit was showing stressors and he could feel the current that had him wasn't just pulling him along.
If his readouts were right, it was trying to pull his suit apart.
"Rommie," he said tensely. "Analysis. What's happening to the suit?"
The AI came back almost instantly. "No idea Colonel. This isn't some aspect of the salt water reacting to the suits systems. Something appears to be attacking it. Almost like nanites might. But I'm not detecting them. Or anything resembling them. Just water."
At that, a wrenching hit his left leg as he bounced off a largish rock and the armored seam split and the armor failed. Within seconds, the water had gotten a better hold on the plating and ripped it away. Then the leg broke as he tumbled and impacted another wall. With partial integrity gone, the water seemed to soak through, between his body sleeve and the suit and within fifty meters the armor on his left arm and leg had been ripped away and correspondingly also broke!
Through the pain, Neil gritted his teeth against screams as the suits pharmacy pack pumped him full of pain killers, letting him experience the pain and injury and damage notifications that flagged across his HUD. His helmet seal held and his remaining chest and back armor kept his torso from crushing as he was slammed about. He saw the others signals clustered as he was coming up out of the water and the chemicals pumping through his system popped a question out.
Neil had entered the water ahead of the others, but was now behind them?
Then a roaring sounded around and through his brain as he had the sensation of something grabbing him and throwing him from the pool as he neared the surface. His memories fluttered through images of he and Jayna atmospheric parachuting on their leave to Risa. Of the underwater grotto where they'd explored and she'd confronted the demons that had followed her from the underwater labs of Kavicus. Through numerous hours spent together in silent company. And to their experience at Neverwinter and the tinkering to the sonic shower he'd meant to get to.
Whatever had grabbed him, didn't just eject him from the water but slammed him onto the pool edge. A slug like entity of some sort formed itself out of the pool, still gripping Neil and ripped his chest piece way. As another pseudopod brought a surviving piece of his left leg armor out like a giant shiv and slammed it through is stomach. As blood began to choke out of his mouth, his helmet (which had protected his head from the impact on the ground) automatically opened at it's seams as the AI system died, this version of Rommie pumping the more drugs into his system to try counter the massive damage while the body glove worked to seal his many wounds.
The entity started to flow backwards into the pool, wrapping around Neil's left leg, intending to take him with it.
Focusing on securing their door, Fry didn't turn back till he heard a meat like sound and crashing from behind him. He'd known the others were emerging out of the pool as expected from the activity on his HUD. What he hadn't expected was to turn and see a four meter tall and half as much wide....something.... playing puny god with the colonel. Brining up his rifle, he thumbed the setting up to nine and tight beamed a shot into whatever the watery slug like thing was. "Enemy rear!!!" he called out, watching with dismay as the beam phaser fire didn't seem to affect it.
Jeksyne fell into the pool, landing like a comic book hero. He looks up at the large slug-like creature. He pulls his phaser rifle, firing several bolts at the slug that had wrapped itself around Neil's leg, trying to get it to release before he turns to face the bigger one.
"Team one, focus on the big one!" Jeksyne calls to his team as he re-aimed his rifle to fire at the big one.
Jayna both heard and saw the attack on Neil. Her first thought was to get him back to the ship for help. "Rommie! Neil needs an emergency beam out! What can you do?"
She didn't wait for a response, though. While the Marines were focusing on the big one, she went after Neil. Either Rommie would respond and get him to safety, or she would get him out of the water and start administering first aid. Either way, there was no time to wait for help.
She grabbed Neil's torso and had her suit propel them to the surface while the water creature was now focused on those attacking it. Her only thoughts were to get him to the surface and keep him alive.
Azure used her suit's jets to launch herself at the creature, from a pocket she pulled out a bottle of Rasi (alcohol) and smashed over the creature. Jumping back from the creature's grasp, she ignited the alcohol with her rockets.
As the drugs hit his system, Neil's eyes fluttered and he nearly gagged from the pain and chemicals racking each other through his system. His body sleeve applied pressure and he stabilized slightly, his brain taking in the scene. He still had his contact and the throat mic. Spitting blood, his eyes were starting to glaze as he looked down at the armor piece jammed into his stomach, then at the entity as his marines engaged. Nearly giggling again, Neil bit down on his lip then stared at the entity and said, "Fry. Concussion grenades," even as he fumbled at his own belt, which was now gone. Trying to move his arms glazed his eyes further and he slumped back looking up at Jayna as her words soaked through.
"Rommie's dead. Died when the suit went," coughing again he kicked at the entity slightly. Well tried to. A new round of pain tried to soak through the pain blockers and he convulsed in pain again. His HUD flashed as it picked up a bounced message from the others suits and it took him twenty heart beats to read, =/\=“Barr to Tremble. Requesting reinforcements at the portal site, immediate. We're holding, but it won’t last without support. Science team’s still engaged. Priority is keeping them breathing. Repeat—get us bodies, or we start losing them.”=/\=
Steeling his eyes to bounce the message to the rest, releasing the command authorization as he discovered it was getting harder to breath.
Fry barely heard the colonel's orders, but didn't hesitate. Dropping his rifle to hang by it's sling, the sergeant reached over his shoulder for the the shock gun/launcher he traditionally carried. Aiming at the entity, he hit the selector on the launcher and dumped it's entire load of concussion grenades at the water slug. All five hit in a roughly half meter sized area, dead center on the entity. As the propellant jets punched the rounds into the form's center of mass, all five went off at the same time, blowing expelling water, and the entity to spray all over the team and chamber!!
Neil looked up at Jayna and whispered. "Won't be that easy." Mustering his command voice, he glanced to his left and said, "Vale. Lachlan needs reinforcing. Get this team moving." His hazel eyes moved back to meet Jayna's brown ones and he mouthed "I love you."
Jeksyne nods, "Aye, Sir! Team One, Form Up! We're on point!" Jeksyne called to his team as he brought his rifle up and took the lead in moving up.
As the water from the burst entity drained back into the pool, a noise, like hissing steam sounded in their minds and the pool began bubbling angrily near the center, a wake starting to move toward the edge, one of the pseudopods snaking out from the pool, changing slightly as the mineral deposits within the water hardened and the entity latched onto Neil's leg and sharpened teeth bit his leg off just above the knee as it tried to jerk him into the water.
The pain blockers lost the battle at that point and Neil screamed hoarsely just before the darkness ate him.
As the water from the burst entity drained back into the pool, a noise, like hissing steam sounded in their minds and the pool began bubbling angrily near the center, a wake starting to move toward the edge.
Azure moved to medically assess the Colonel.
Internal bleeding, blunt force trauma, multiple lacerations and contusions, and a piece of metal and plastic composite, likely a piece of his own suit. There wasn't much she could do for him, right now he was in a comatose state.
"Neil, you will not die. I love you. But if you do, I'll find a way to come after you, bring you back to life, and kill you myself." She looked at Azure. "We have to get him away from that creature. Then keep him alive long enough for real help to arrive."
Using both her suit and the Adrenalin coursing through her body, she picked him up and carried him as quickly and carefully as she could away from the majority of the fighting. "Azure, you're with me. Is there anyone else here that can help?"
"I can try and stablize him." Azure said. From her suit she pulled out a compact intravenous system.
Strapping it to Neil's chest, she activated it. Tubes injected into the Colonel's body, dextro-saline and anti-biotics entered his blood stream.
"He's stable and will remain that way until they could get him back to the ship." She told Jayna.
Jayna looked down at Neil before addressing Azure. "Thank you. Now we continue to keep him alive until then." She checked her weapons and prepared to shield him against the enemy.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble
Executive Officer, USS Pioneer
Battalion Commander, The Cure
First Lieutenant Jeksyne Vale
Company Executive Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Tyrigus Fry;
Rifleman, Team 1, The Cure;
USS Pioneer;
Sergeant Azure Thompson;
Corpsman, Team 1, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Mira Jayna
Intelligence Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Miranda Schultz
Communications Specialist HQ, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Staff Warrant Officer Rommie
Artificial Intelligence, The Cure
USS Pioneer
RSS Feed