Lifeforce: A Star Trek Discovery Horror Story

The Call

It glided through space effortlessly as it had for millennia, a great, grey-black needle tucked away in the obscuring debris-cloud of the tail of comet. To human eyes, it would seem to have no course, no direction, but that would be incorrect. Like the comet, it's journey through the cosmos was leisurely, patient, and methodical. The passage of time meant little to its builders and occupants, for they measured such things on a vastly different scale than humans did. In the centuries spent travelling between worlds, they slept, reaching out with their minds, and seeking the ones that would guide them to their traditional feeding grounds.

But this portion of the galaxy had changed since the comet had last rumbled though. It was more populated and trafficked, and the spaces between worlds no longer as empty as they once had been. It was in one such expanse, that a small, disk-shaped craft, its hull bearing the numbers NCC-1422 and the name USS Yamanaka dropped out of warp and angled in on a course to intercept the great ship. It bounced on the edge of the comet's tail, scanning the massive vessel and transmitting friendship messages on all channels. When no replay came, it resumed course for its rendezvous...

*********

Space Station K-85

"This one?" Linnea's fingers traced a line along Ellen Landry's bicep. Her arm was folded with her hand behind her head, and Linnea lay on her side next to her.

"Drunk miners on Janus Four," Landry said, meeting Linnea's questioning gaze, noticing that her eyes were the same shade of green as her skin. "When miners blow off steam, they get drunk. When they get drunk, they get violent, and when they get violent, they go at each other with broken bottles. We broke up fights all the time on that colony in the days after the Federation stood it up, and someone always got finished the night cut. Finally, we'd just stun everybody from the doorway and save ourselves the trouble."

"They deserve it for hurting you," Linnea pouted breathily, then kissed the white scar gently. It was part performance, Landry knew, but she put a solid effort into hiding the seam between the genuine and the affectated. They both knew this was a relationship of convenience, and Landry appreciated the effort.

Linnea's fingers played across her collarbone, tickling, raising gooseflesh. "And this one?" she asked, smiling slyly, noticing the effect of her touch on Landry's naked body.

"Shuttle went down on an asteroid in the Kellis System. Took the rescue ships almost a full solar day to recover us."

Linnea kissed that scar too, and Landy turned her head so she could press her face against the softness of Linnea's auburn hair and inhale its sharp, exotic scent, the pheromones making her body respond. Like so many Orions, Linnea was pure sensuality made flesh, and Landry's attraction to her was unabashedly and almost exclusively sexual. She wasn't proud of that fact, but she wouldn't pretend otherwise.

"So, you went down..." Linnea lowered her head, kissing Landry between her breasts, then her stomach. Landry squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled sharply as she felt Linnea's tongue probe the puckered scar just below the right half of her ribcage. "And this one?" Linnea's eyes were regarding her again from along the expanse of her body.

Landry stared at the wall, looking back in time at the memory. She heard the thunderous blast of the slug-thrower and felt the searing pain as the chunk of metal tore through her body. "I don't talk about that one," she said softly.

"Really? Well, however can I going to change your mind..." Linnea pondered, trailing kisses along Landry's quivering midriff. The scar was a nice reminder about the perils of trust, the sting of betrayal made physical. It had become a part of who she was. Linnea wasn't the lover that was going to get the story out of her, but if would be fun for her to try. Landry buried her hands in the heavy blanket of Linnea's hair, guiding her head.

Her communicator chirped angrily.

"Damn it," Landry sighed and rolled over, her hand groping along the bedside table.

"Mmmm...let it go," Linnea breathed.

"I can't," Landry sighed. "The only channel I left open is the emergency channel." She retrieved the communicator and flipped it open.

"Landry, get your stuff together. We need you at Wilco Colony ASAP."

Landry gave the communicator a puzzled look that Commander Childs, on the other side of the transmission all the way at Starbase 4—Starfleet Security's closest satellite office for the Special Investigations Division—might not be able to see but could probably intuit. "Wilco? That's a...a food production colony, right? The hell's so important there? Did the cows stage a coup?"

The "USS Yamanaka just warped into the sector and took up orbit over the planet," Child said crisply. "This is a D-Notice situation, so that's all I can tell you over unsecure subspace. Get to Wilco, Landry. Fast." The communicator buzzed as the line went dead. Landry tossed it aside with a flick of her wrist.

K-33 wasn't precisely exile, but it was close enough. SID had its investigators peppered throughout the quadrant at various jumping-off points, and this was one of the furthest-flung. There wasn't much around that demanded Starfleet Security's attention—certainly nothing on Wilco Colony. Whatever was going on, it was something Starfleet didn't have a playbook for.

"Does this mean I should stop?" Linnea asked, resting her chin on Landry's abdomen.

Landry met her gaze. "No," she said, replacing her hands on the back of Linnea's head. "Just be fast."