Silent No More Part I
Posted on Wed Sep 24th, 2025 @ 5:42pm by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke & Lieutenant Junior Grade Michael Harris & Master Sergeant Flarn & Staff Sergeant Shayla Kunadt & Lieutenant Commander Brianne Redstone & Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren & Lieutenant Ja'sol H'ros & Lieutenant Kolok & Lieutenant Narin Valen & Lieutenant Junior Grade Rachel Sinclair & Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble & Captain Edmund Merrick & 1st Lieutenant Jeksyne Vale & Lieutenant Mira Jayna & Lieutenant Junior Grade Anzhelina Walker & Ensign Hoa Nhi Nguyen & Ensign T'Ket & Ensign Millicent Ambrose & 1st Lieutenant Edward O'Rourke & Staff Warrant Officer Rommie & Warrant Officer Mercy Ryan & Sergeant Major Lachlan Barr & Gunnery Sergeant Tessia T'Lar & Sergeant Adélaïde Moreau & Sergeant Azure Thompson & Sergeant Andrew Shy & Sergeant Rairror Thoran & Sergeant Tyrigus Fry & Sergeant Miranda Schultz
Edited on on Wed Sep 24th, 2025 @ 6:13pm
4,429 words; about a 22 minute read
Mission:
Episode 16 - Silent Cries
Location: Below the surface of Wren IX
Timeline: MD010 1600 hrs
Deep underground the planet known as Wren IX in a large chamber of rock, the crew of the USS Pioneer find themselves encircled by the enemy. To one side, glowering with some sort of inky darkness was the portal. A ten meter circular hole in the ground that brimmed with a trickle of salt water from nearby cracks in the walls, that water pooling with and through the portal that hummed slightly with a discordance that could be felt within the inner ear.
Bug like entities of all sorts closed in, wringing the defender’s. Hemming them in. The bugs were an impressive, deadly, demonstration of experimentation run wild.
Those experiments were piling up more and more, the husks of the dead a testament to the best fighting force the Federation had to field.
And it wasn’t enough.
Explosions rang out as mines daisy chained, as their remotes picked up intrusions and ripped apart legions of the black carapaced bugs. Interlocking fields of phaser fire lanced out, crossing and recrossing. Those beams slicing through the ranks of enemy like deadly laser lights at a night club.
And it still wasn’t enough.
Smoke curled through the chamber like mist in a graveyard, shot through with the flashes of weapons fire and the stench of burning chitin. The air was thick—hot with effort, panic, and the unnatural hum of that yawning portal.
Lachlan ducked low beside a jagged outcrop, rifle braced, breath coming hard. The call for reinforcements had gone out. Now it was a matter of holding until they arrived.
"Thoran! Shift left—cover that breach by the stalactite! Moreau, you’re with me. Flarn—tighten the perimeter, west arc! Nothing gets through!”
He didn’t shout. His voice cut through the chaos like a scalpel: sharp, deliberate, focused.
His HUD flickered with updates—munitions dwindling, injuries mounting. They were holding. Barely. But the bugs weren’t thinning. If anything, they were getting meaner.
Lachlan risked a glance toward the portal. The inky swirl seemed to pulse in time with the swarm, as if one fed the other. He didn’t understand it—couldn’t. But he knew a battlefield when he saw one. This wasn’t just about survival now.
This was about ending it.
He tapped his comm again—only static. Reinforcements would be coming. He had to believe that.
Until then, the Cure held the line.
Rairror did as he was ordered. A couple of bugs got close, his ammo nearly spent, he ripped a pair of stalactites from the ceiling of the cave and used them to stab the creatures to death.
Edward had brought along extra ammo, which he distributed to those within reach, between dodging and shooting.
Bursts of red energy came fast and furious from the Tellarite's weapon. "Three hundred, three hundred and one, three hundred and two. You're falling behind Sergeant Major." Flarn was actually smiling and in some cases laughing. The sheer hopelessness of the situation seemed to have the opposite effect on Flarn. His joy was interrupted though when Lachlan Barr hurled a photon grenade into a crowd of bugs that advanced in the direction of the science team. There had to be at least two hundred or so of them in that group. When the grenade detonated all the insects were gone. Flarn harrumphed. "That still only counts as one."
Lachlan snorted, ducking a swipe and firing past Flarn’s ear.
“Aye, aye—one,” he conceded. “But if we’re keepin’ score, your last ten were half-dead before you tickled them.”
He palmed another grenade, grin quick and wicked. “First to five hundred owes the other a proper whisky—none of your sonic-bath swill. And if this ‘still only counts as one’ nonsense continues, I’m deductin’ for style.”
He popped up, dropped two more. “That’s four-oh-five, by the way. Try to keep up, handsome.”
Nhi was running quickly out of ammo. She really hoped the calvary was coming sooner rather than later. She watched herself finish up the last of her ammo as she shot more rounds into the bugs. Still not ready to give up she started to hit the bugs with her rifle. She did her best using her skills to avoid the bugs, but her training didn't really included avoiding bugs and since she wasn't firing anything lethal on them, the bugs decided to surround her. There was some cover fire and she managed to avoid a couple of them, but one got through immediately and grabbed her leg. She frantically hit the bug with her rifle. When another attacked her from the side and bit her arm too. She screamed out and dropped the rifle, before a nearby marine shot both bugs off her. Her leg and arm were severely injured and she couldn't use them anymore. She crawled back, finding cover behind the line, till she would be sent back to sickbay.
Kneeling down in her firing position, Rachel was conserving her rifle's energy by only picking off the few bugs that threatened to overrun their position that the others had missed. Her heart was beating in her ears so loud she struggled to hear anything beyond those around her. Nothing in her training has prepared her for a situation like this, being stuck on a planet being swarmed by bugs. If she were honest, right this moment, she was wishing to be anywhere but here. Shoving her rifle into the mouth of a particularly large bug, she pulled the trigger and watched it crumble before her. “By the Spirits I hate bugs!” She said, using her boot to pull her rifle free.
He was conserving his ammo, Ja'sol forcing himself to block out the fears of being overwhelmed, picking up on the spirits of the marines coming in.
"Yeah strong drinks after this sounds good," he muttered, picking away at the bugs.
"Wish we had a roach motel," he said to Rachel, mustering up a smile."Would be rather useful right now."
Tyler sat in the command chair of the Bridge. He had just sent his acting XO, Lieutenant Commander Rowena McGowen, to Sick Bay to literally have her head examined. Add to that, he listened to the battle unfold, and nothing seemed to be going right. He received reports from his bridge crew. First Lieutenant Junior Grade Walker reported from the Helm, then Ensign T'Ket from Operations, Ensign Ambrose in Engineering, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Valen from Science. Valen's report was somewhat promising as it spoke of Alyssa and Michael's progress. Lastly, he turned toward Rommie. The AI had pulled double duty, acting as liaison to The Cure and as Chief Security and Tactical Officer in the absence of everyone else. "Warrant, get me Colonel Tremble on comms."
“Captain. Ops report. The portal’s ‘hum’ is fouling local comms; I’ve opened a narrow path using the groundwater and have partial check-ins—Thoran, H’ros, Redstone, O’Rourke confirmed. I’m timing brief windows to slip the shields and pull people out—casualties first. Nguyen is hurt but conscious; she’s still groundside under cover and tagged for priority lift. Rommie has the firing arcs steady; ammo’s tight but being passed forward. The swarm is learning, so our window is shrinking. Recommendation: keep extractions on a steady beat—about ten to twelve seconds—then once our people are clear, we neutralise the portal from orbit and accept a likely cave-in.” T'Ket reported.
Cycling through the several thousand frequencies routinely used for ground missions, Rommie was still struggling. "Working on it, Captain. Extrapolation routines cycled and recycled as she said quietly, "Sir. Best information is that Colonel Trembles suit is offline. My... well the Rommie that was with him is gone, Captain. That means his suit is effectively without any of the redundant repeaters. The term used is flatlined."
Millie briefly glanced towards Rommie as the information was given, turning her attention back to what was at hand.
Contact with his commander on the ground, his XO, his friend had been lost. The man was possibly dead, and Tyler Malbrooke was not about to allow this to happen for no reason. His eyes were focused on the viewscreen. "Ensign T'ket sound Blue Alert throughout the ship. Lieutenant Walker prepare to break orbit and descend on my mark." Tyler's orders were clear and steady. His voice dipped in volume as he said almost to himself. "Hang on the calvary is coming."
Encircled, the enemies pressure on Team FLEET faltered as three MARVEL suited marines burst through the rear most bugs, catching them by surprise as their weapons combined to lay down a deadly swath.
Once they’d gotten close enough, Andrew had made sure their suits IFF were pinging loud and clear and the combined fire of the Marines and fleet pushed back the surprised entities momentarily as the teams combined fire caught the bugs in a pincer movement and squeezed. Andrew was down to his pistols now, trying to aim and shoot carefully. Going for quality head shots or blowing appendages off if he thought it would put one of their enemy down.
The trouble with bugs was that most had too many legs for that to be an effective strategy.
So, head shots it was.
Bringing 'Ruby' to bear, Mercy began to take out the bugs attempting to over run the Fleet and Marines.
With practiced precision the bugs' heads exploded into goo and their lifeless, headless bodies began to litter the cave.
Harris worked feverishly alongside Redstone and Kolok. "We are going to need the Hawkeye to generate the inverse tachyon pulse. The jumpship can use its deflector array for the purpose. Our next problem is how to get the pulse through all this rock."
Kolok glanced up at the cavern's ceiling, understanding what Harris was saying. It was an interesting problem, and his mind shifted into his deep thinking mode. He was able to continue helping Harris while at the same time running through different scenarios. Finally, he paused. "We need some kind of relay," he said, hoping that Harris would know how to accomplish that.
Michael spoke to Kolok as he closed up his terminal and then tapped his comm badge. "Harris to Kunadt...." The only response was the deadening chirp that told him communications would not work. "...Frak, it's hard to get good help these days." Now, if only he could remember the briefing, who was in charge of comms. Then it hit him like a lightning bolt. Michael looked in all directions. His eyes fell on a blonde woman, attractive in any setting, including this one. But now was not the time for that. Schultz was her name.
"Sergeant Schultz!" Michael shouted over the din of battle and signaled her to come over. When she arrived, he continued. "You're the communications specialist. Take this message down and relay it to the Hawkeye. Send them these coordinates and tell her to configure the deflector for an inverse tachyon pulse. Directions on how to do so are attached. Stand by to fire on my mark. Harris out. I don't care if you have to use smoke signals. This order is priority one."
Miranda's first thought was that he was a cocky bastage, but he was one of the fleet geeks and knew what he was talking about. She took the message and nodded, then ran out of the main combat to work on the comms. She told her suit to list all the assets currently available to the ground team, listening to the suit read them off as she looked around. She needed...something. A rabbit. A miracle. Drones. "Suit, how many drones are currently available?"
When she got the reply, she smiled. "Perfect. Sergeant Shy, this is Schultz. I need to daisy-chain enough drones to boost a signal to the Hawkeye. Fleet Geek says it's the only way to shut down that portal."
Shrugging off a pair of bugs that had latched onto him by blowing one to pieces with a pistol shot and monkey-stomping another, Andrew called out, "Aye aye. I'm on it." Glancing around, he saw he was getting surrounded and dumped some of his jump fuel before hitting the pack, lifting himself up into the air roughly eight meters. Below him, the fuel caught and a fireball erupted as he hovered above the battlefield, calling out. "Lunch is served. Roast bug...get it while it's hot!"
Keeping himself twisting in the air, firing at bugs that threatened his team, Shy pulled in the signals of drones that his suit could reach and switched most of them into network mode, making getting them to move into RELAY mode. Within thirty seconds, the drones were moving and slowly his signal meter strengthened. "Fifteen seco..."Shy started to call out when a flying bug the size of a Workbee smacked into him, hooked legs and pincers grappling and trying to rip his head off. The combined weight overtaxed his jump pack and it cut out, sending he and the bug hurtling to the ground.
It took replacing two drones, then four tries on three different channels, but Schultz finally got through to Shayla. "Relaying a message and I don't know how long we'll have comms," she began. Then she relayed the message word-for word.
Shayla looked at the data that came through on her terminal. She exhaled sharply. "I am a damned Marine and pilot. This stuff is beyond me. Looks like I am going to use those engineering classes after all." She tapped her comm badge. "Acknowledged, sergeant. The cavalry is en route."
Trying not to overthink things, Sergeant Tyrigus Fry led the flank element's charge into the bug's own flank. His shock gun on rapid fire as he discharged alternating loads of concussion and photon grenades, clearing a path while his suit's external speakers blared Survivor's Eye of the Tigercranked up to eleven. As his teammates fanned out behind him, they rolled up the bug's flank, mowing down the S626D's minions like chaff. With the dead and dying bugs grinding below their suits' feet, the bugs' line wavered and broke, the enemy falling back.
For a moment.
Jeksyne could hear the music. An odd choice of song. Jeksyne would have preferred something from this century, but won't question the use of it in battle.
Jeksyne raised his rifle, firing off bolts of phaser energy into the advancing bugs. One, two, three go down, as he moves up with Tyr. Jeksyne was fast running out of ammo, down to a couple phaser packs in his kit. If this kept up, they would be down to knives and bare hands fighting this horde of bugs.
Edmund could hear the blood roaring in his ears, as his phaser rifle shot out its deadly blasts towards the bugs, one bug was destroyed then another. As the three of them came to join up with the others.
Edmund's phaser rifle sputtered as his last battery for the phaser was drained. He slung it back, pulling out his pistols. He heard the music that Fry was playing, giving a huge grin and a quick thumbs up towards the sergeant, before getting back to business.
As he was shooting the bugs, Edmund was looking around, wondering where Neil was and, for that matter, where was Jayna?
Keying in his com, "Has anyone seen Neil or Jayna?"
Hearing Merrick's voice on comms, Azure replied. "Neil is badly injured and lost his suit. I've stabilized him ready for EVAC. Jayna is going to stay with him."
Edmund's jaw tightened hearing that news, Neil severely injured! Jayna was with him.
"Thank you, Azure." Edmund's voice sounded much calmer than how he felt.
He moved, getting into line to add to the wall of defense that was needed.
Another thought occurred to him, and he called out over the com.
"Tessia, have you caught up with the others?"
She had caught up with the others and was fully engaged in the fight. "Yes, sir," Tessia replied, raising her voice over the chaos.
"Team One, form up with me and Sergeant Tyr!" Jeksyne barked into his comms as he swapped another pack into his rifle. 2 packs left. If the bugs didn't let up, it would be bad.
"Down to two packs! We need to regroup!" Jeksyne spoke to the command net to his fellow officers.
Tyr's rifle had run dry. And now so did his mouth. He called over the comm. "Going hand to hand." Drawing an oversized bowie knife from a thigh sheath, he grabbed the nearest bugs head and made with the stabitty stab, using his left hand to block and grapple as more bugs began to close in.
Miranda stayed where she was and kept an eye on the comms. They needed to keep a channel open long enough for Harris to do his thing and she couldn't afford to get distracted at the wrong moment. She would not allow herself to think this was all for nothing. She focused on keeping the path ahead clear enough for the rest of the team to follow.
Azure was loathe to leave Neil, but there wasn't anything more she could do for him. The Corpsman grabbed her gear and followed her fellow Marines to link up with the others.
Jayna, on the contrary, stayed with Neil. She wasn't going to leave him for some bug to finish what the entity started. Her self-appointed job was to keep him alive and she had every intention of doing just that. Every time a bug noticed them, she killed it with single-minded determination. Nothing else would get to Neil while she could stop it. "None shall pass," she mentally challenged the spiders. She was really growing to hate spiders.
Following behind at a sluggish but dogged pace, a huge water slug like being oozed at a pace, following the intruders who dared interrupt it's digestion, fully intending to add these new pests to the feast. Part of it buzzed with anticipation as it drew hungrily on it's link with the aliens calling themselves the Silence. These new pests would fuel it further and open the way for more of it's kind to join in.
Alyssa felt the entity approaching. The one in the pocket universe was a shadow compared to the wave of raw emotion coming off the slug-like being that moved like a rising tide toward them. Panic sizzled through her like electricity and she began to mentally recite every single archaeological site she'd visited over her career, along with the dates the civilization was thriving and the language spoken. It would, she hoped, help her buffer the fear and agony it projected from the captive Silence.
As soon as Alyssa realized it was heading for the portal, she shouted over the comm, "The entity is coming!"
Entering the battlefield, the entity surveyed and roared as it absorbed it's dead minions and grew. Looking across the littered dead, it haucked several times, before coughing up the limb it had taken from one of the intruders. It dripped bile blood and gore and the entity licked experimentally, then sighted and threw it like a spear at one of the intruders that might be a leader.
The dismembered leg, weighted by a still attached armored boot flew through the air, striking Merrick in the helmet with enough force to cause the fibula, tibula, chewed up femur and knee joint to shatter as the booted heel impacted.
A flash of something caught Edmund's attention from the side of his vision. he turned only to get hit in the face by something that made him stagger back. His ears were ringing from that blow, and his head started aching and a quick look to see what had hit him made his eyebrows raise. A boot to the head? Who lost a leg?
He couldn't ponder over that now, there were bugs to be killed.
The xenophobic Silence, had been bliss. An unending buffet of delicious fear. That is until these things, these beings had shown up. Some had been touched by others of my realm. Others are new to me. No matter they will all be delicious, filled with fear in the end. Just as they all are. I have already taken out their leader and now they will fall one by one. The trick now is to find something that they are all afraid of. These were the thoughts of the being that the Cure called 626. This being thrived on fear, fed of it. Now, it had its answer, it delved into the collective minds of all and found one fear that unified them. Funny, that fear was The Collective.
The entity reached out and touched the minds of all the enemy combatants. It made them all believe what they saw, three hundred Borg. Laser sights darting around and their footsteps advancing. "Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You WILL BE ASSIMILATED. Resistance is futile!"
Lachlan blinked at the advancing wall of green lasers, then actually laughed—short and sharp.
“What the fuck is this—Borg now?!” he barked, shouldering a leap and blasting a bug mid-air. “Nice try, sunshine. You want my greatest fear? It’s bein’ stuck wi’ the same lass every night explainin’ why I’m late—no’ some cosplay Cube fan club!”
A drone shape flickered at his periphery; he raked it with fire, watched it smear into chitin and shadow. “Aye, very scary—ten out of ten for theatre. Four for realism.”
He snapped his comms local. “Cure—ignore the green disco! Shoot what bleeds, crush what squirms! Flarn, left! Thoran, on me—push the line two meters!”
A plasma pop blew hot air across his face; he ducked, rolled, came up firing. “Come ahead then, you knock-off Borg bastards. Resistance is… enthusiastically applied.”
“All Pioneer Elements,” Neil whispered over the tactical net, his voice ragged and labored, as if the words were draining his last full measure of devotion. The rest of the message came through crisp and clear. They seemed to be the final orders from the man in command of the ground forces.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Junior Grade Michael Harris
Science Officer, USS Pioneer
Master Sergeant Flarn
Operations Sergeant, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Staff Sergeant Shayla Kunadt
EVAC Specialist HQ, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Commodore Tyler Malbrooke
Commanding Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Kolok
Chief Operations Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Brianne Redstone
Chief Engineering Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren
Chief Science Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Ja'sol H'ros
Chief Security/Tactical Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Junior Grade Rachel Sinclair
Assistant Chief Security/Tactical Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Narin Valen
Assistant Chief Science Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble
Executive Officer, USS Pioneer
Battalion Commander, The Cure
Captain Edmund Merrick
Company Commanding Officer Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
First Lieutenant Jeksyne Vale
Company Executive Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Mira Jayna
Intelligence Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Junior Grade Anzhelina Walker
Flight Control Officer, USS Pioneer
Ensign Hoa Nhi Nguyen
Security Officer, USS Pioneer
Ensign T'Ket
Operations Officer, USS Pioneer
Ensign Millicent Ambrose
Engineering Officer, USS Pioneer
First Lieutenant Edward O'Rourke
Combat Engineer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Staff Warrant Officer Rommie
Artificial Intelligence, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Warrant Officer Mercy Ryan
Sniper, Team 1, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Major Lachlan Barr
Chief of The Boat, USS Pioneer
First Sergeant, The Cure
Gunnery Sergeant Tessia T'Lar
Sniper, Team 1, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Adélaïde Moreau
SAR Specialist, Team 2, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Azure Thompson
Corpsman, Team 1, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Andrew Shy
Tactical Systems Operator, Team 2, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Rairror Thoran
Weapons Specialist, Team 2, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Tyrigus Fry
Rifleman, Team 1, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Miranda Schultz
Communications Specialist HQ, The Cure
USS Pioneer
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