The Graveyard
Posted on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 9:17am by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke & Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren & Lieutenant Junior Grade Galen Trellis & Lieutenant Junior Grade Rachel Sinclair & Lieutenant Commander Hermia O'Rourke & Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble & Major Edmund Merrick & Ensign Connor Turner & Sergeant Major Lachlan Barr
Edited on on Wed Aug 26th, 2026 @ 9:25am
2,148 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Episode 18 - The Edge of Darkness
Location: Camp Nostromo
Timeline: MD004 1000 hrs
Neil had set the team back to back in a small circle on the transporter pad and advised that they may want to kneel or prepare to take cover. It was unlikely they were beaming into an ambush, but it didn't hurt to do things right. The bases air handling system was working.
Apparently, it was in good shape since there were in a largish cavern that was passing for the camps parade ground. Structures line were built up against the outer walls and his eyes roamed for movement or things that were out of place. Everything seemed normal.
Except for the bodies.
When nothing happened, he stood and holstered the pulse-phaser pistol into its chest harness and said, "Tremble to Pioneer. We're in." He let the channel close then said, "Alright. In twos. No one wanders off solo. Rachel with Hermia. Barr with Alyssa. Mr. Trellis with the Major and Ensign Connor with me. You all know what to do. If you don't," Neil said, his tone dry barely tinged by his humor, "Ask me. "
As soon as Alyssa materialized, she pulled out her tricorder and began to scan. At the same time, she reached out telepathically. It felt eerily quiet. She could sense no life at all--at least none she could recognize. No humanoids, animals, or other creatures in the asteroid. Only the away team. However, there was a faint echo as if there had been something here, but now it was gone. It was unsettling--even knowing there was no one alive before they arrived.
Lachlan came out of the transporter crouched, weapon already tracking across the cavern before the last shimmer had properly cleared from his eyes.
Nothing moved.
That was the problem.
The parade ground should have carried something, boots, voices, machinery, somebody complaining about a duty roster. Instead, there was only the low hum of emergency power and bodies where Marines had fallen.
He rose slowly when Neil gave the pairings, eyes moving across uniforms, doorways, upper walkways. A few faces caught his attention before he made himself stop looking too closely.
Alyssa was already working her tricorder.
Lachlan shifted alongside her, taking the outside position without discussion, giving her room to work while he watched everything she couldn’t.
“Stay close,” he said quietly.
Then he moved with her toward the nearest cluster of bodies, weapon lowered but ready, studying the ground around them before the dead themselves.
Whatever had happened here, twelve thousand Marines had not simply lain down together.
Neil glanced about, then glanced at Turner. He squinted slightly and sub-vocalized, "Rommie. Beam me down a field coat for the Ensign. He looks a little under-dressed for my taste and if he's going to be with me.."
"He'll need some sort of armor. Yes sir," Rommie responded in his embedded comm.
A bag materialized at his feet and he fished out a level one, tomato red, armored field coat and held it out to Connor. "Humor me, Ensign. A little armor was better than not wearing any. Just in case. Once you're set, we'll move out to the CnC and take a better look at the life support setup and command logs."
Connor's eyes were wide with horror. All the dead people. He knew that people died but to see so many of them in one place was shocking. How could this have happened? Logic suggested that it was a weapon of some sort. Was he going to have to figure it out?
Why in the world had they even taken him on this away mission? Connor was a computer person, not an away mission type of engineer. Besides that, he had never been on an away mission in the past. So, why not? Was that because he has acted as the Chief Engineer in the past? He felt like he was going to vomit.
Only Neil's comments brought him out of his increasing nausea. "Right. Get in the armor. Take a look at the life support and command logs. I can do that."
The transporter beam released Galen and his first instinct was to drop into a crouch moving his hand towards his sidearm.
He straightened. Filed the reflex away. Old habits of his previous host died hard.
The parade ground settled into focus. Emergency lighting, power-down hum, structures built into the asteroid walls. He recognized the area through the eyes of his previous host that had been a Marine Officer for years. However, to Galen, he recognized it the way you recognize a place from someone else's photographs.
But then he saw the bodies.
The number 12,000 had been an abstraction on the bridge. Down here it had mass. Faces he didn't know wearing uniforms he recognized, in postures that told him everything about how fast it had happened. The smell hit next — or maybe his brain invented it, because Dorian's memory supplied it without being asked. His chest locked-up.
He turned slightly away from the other Away Team members under the pretense of scanning the upper walkways. His jaw was tight as he forced air in through his nose as he counted silently to himself. His hands were cold and his heart was beating at double the pace. Somewhere behind his eyes Dorian was standing at Betazed, or Chin'toka, or one of a dozen places Galen had never been and had no desire to revisit in his own mind.
You're on the Pioneer. You're a pilot. You're not in combat he told himself in an attempt to regain control from the panic episode he was experiencing.
The pressure didn't disappear so much as compress into something he could push against. He pressed back. Kept his eyes moving — doorways, shadows, the spaces between structures — until the motion itself became steadying.
By the time Neil assigned pairings, Galen had his face under control.
"With the Major. . ." the Helmsman said as he turned back around and fell in alongside MAJ Merrick.
He materialized, his chest tightening, seeing the bodies. His blood turned cold, his face becoming like stone. He wasn't looking forward to this. The task that was being set before them. Edmund turned his eyes towards Galen, giving him a nod.
"Lieutenant Trellis." Edmund responded, his voice now sounding grim as he looked at the trill beside him.
Alyssa nodded to Lachlan that she understood, then slipped a mask out of her cross pack and put it on. It was mostly cautionary, but the number of dead alone warranted it. She took more scans, this time to get a good visual image of the area, layering a dozen other details on the initial scan. With a mystery like this, any piece of information could prove invaluable. She looked at the readings, the positioning of the bodies, the composition of the air and soil.
The asteroid would have been checked thoroughly for biohazards. Had they missed something, or was something new introduced? She turned to Lachlan. "I want to find a computer and see if anything had been added or changed since the asteroid was declared fit for habitation."
Lachlan nodded once, but his attention had already dropped to the nearest body.
He crouched beside the Marine without touching anything at first. Habit more than ceremony. He took in the position of the limbs, the uniform, the hands, anything around the mouth or eyes, then worked outward to the deck around them. No obvious blood. No weapon drawn. Nothing immediately suggesting the Marine had known trouble was coming.
His eyes moved to the next body, then another.
“No sign of a fight here,” he said quietly. “At least not one they saw coming.”
Only then did he lean closer, careful not to disturb anything unnecessarily, looking for burns, punctures, discolouration, anything that might give Alyssa somewhere to start.
At her suggestion, he stood again and brought his weapon back into his hands.
“Aye. Computer records might tell us what the bodies can’t.”
He glanced toward the nearest access corridor.
“You find the terminal. I’ll keep us covered.”
When they'd materialised, Hermia's hand went instinctively to her side arm. You could take the Medic out of the Corps, but you couldn't take the Corps out of the Medic.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feelings of those around her.
For a long time, she'd suppressed her empathic gifts, just wanting to fit in around humans and others without psionic abilities, but her time aboard the Pioneer had forced her to embrace her 'gifts'. To that end, she'd been working with Alyssa to help her better use her empathy.
This place felt cold, not physically as the environmental systems were working within Federation tolerances. It was the silence, like a tomb, which is what this place a become for 12,000 souls.
Now the only living things were the Away Team, and like investigators in some police procedural they were here to find out what happen.
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Service: USS Pioneer. Tonight 8PM central/ 9PM Eastern. Flashed through her mind.
Once Connor was kitted, Neil took him by the shoulder to orientate him, then led him off for what his HUD indicated was the command and control bunker. The place felt like a tomb. He activated his comm and said, "Ed. Sergeant Major. Collect identity disks but don't move any of the bodies till we're cleared to do so. We'll want to double check all the bodies are actually bodies of our marines. Find medical and make sure it's swept. Then pick a spot for graves detail and we'll get body bags sent down. Looks like we're going to be busy.
Leading, Neil picked his way through the scattered corpses and came to a set of doors that led into what should be the command area. Looking back, he focused on Connor and said, "You alright Mr. Turner?"
Connor continued to walk about in a daze. He was grateful that Neil had steered him because the stillness, the silence, the gloom, were all too much for the shy engineer to handle. "Define alright, sir."
Mentally, he reproached himself for nearly talking back to a superior officer. "I can do my job. I just, well, do not know how you can so, well, be unaffected by what is here." He dared not say anything about the deaths. He might lose his control and vomit.
Neil's HUD was registering anxiety and stress on all of the away team’s biometric feedback their com badges were picking up. He didn't need the technology to pick up the Engineer's swallowing, shallow breathing trying to fight off the sickness he was feeling. "I'm affected. Don't trust anyone who says they get used to anything like this." Neil took his own deep breath and said, "You just learn to stick it in your pocket and deal with it later. Right now, we have work to do. We owe it to these marines to find out what’s happening."
"I do not disagree," Connor replied, gathering himself. "Let me go and find CNC and start looking into the logs. I'm certain I'll be better when I get onto working."
Tyler sat on the Bridge and observed the readouts from the Away Team in real time. "Colonel, keep all channels open and send regular reports. We still have no idea what happened down there."
Edmund's eyes tracked to where those who were divided into pairs, were going. An almost unconcious lifting of his eyes upwards to where the Pioneer was above them when he heard Tyler's voice. Keep all channels open, and Edmund agreed.
A Joint Post By
Commodore Tyler Malbrooke
Commanding Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren
Chief Science Officer/Second Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Junior Grade Galen Trelis
Chief Flight Control Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Junior Grade Rachel Sinclair
Assistant Chief Security/Tactical Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Hermia O'Rourke
Chief Medical Officer, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble
Executive Officer, USS Pioneer
Battalion Commander, The Cure
Ensign Connor Turner
Computer Systems Specialist, USS Pioneer
Major Edmund Merrick
Company Commanding Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Major Lachlan Barr
Chief of The Boat, USS Pioneer
First Sergeant, The Cure
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