The Haunted Freighter Part II: We're Not Losing You
Posted on Tue Feb 24th, 2026 @ 2:36pm by Shep & Major Clay McEntyre III & 1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez & Lieutenant Commander Xalanth & Lieutenant JG Sakkar & Corporal Eden McKenzie & Petty Officer 1st Class Enam Nemec
Edited on on Wed Mar 18th, 2026 @ 2:09am
1,928 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Nidean Freighter "Katreen's Hope"
Timeline: MD 09, 0925 (ish) Hours (after Part I)
continued from: The Haunted Freighter Part I
As the barrage of laser fire continued the team stayed hunkered down under cover.
Peeking his yellow eyes around from behind his cover, the lizard let out a string of hisses coming out into Federation Basic or as best as his vocal cords could manage. "Targets anyone see."
Still on his back, Sakkar immediately spotted a holo-emitter embedded in the ceiling. One of many. He called out a report to the rest of the team. "Twelve emitters! Grid pattern! Spaced approximately eight to ten meters apart!" He fired his phaser and took out the one directly above him. Sparks and shards of polydeutonic alloy rained down.
Xalanth was already picking off multiple holo emitters. As the last one fell to the deck, he called out to his team. "Okay, everyone?" he called out, cursing that his translator was still rebooting.
Sakkar retrieved his flashlight from where he had dropped it, its beam signalling to him from the flat deck. Now that the firefight was over, the cargo hold had returned to relative darkness, although it appeared some emergency lights recessed into the bulkheads had now turned on. "Unharmed," he said flatly.
"Okay, let's get moving," Xalanth said as he took point. Stopping briefly to pick up the bio-organic EMP grenade, which he reattached to his belt.
Deep in the ship's secondary core--buried beneath layers of obsolete code and injected Romulan subroutines--the security program had reached the edge of its tolerance.
It had been designed to contain. Not adapt. To delay. To confuse. It's logic tree moved rapidly and the calculations were beginning to collapse in on itself as emitter after emitter went dark. Spatial coverage dropped below all viable thresholds. Probability of deterrence had fallen into near-irrelevance. The holograms had all disappeared.
The program assessed all of it and decided to move directly to Stage Three.
Energy pulsed through the bulkheads as power began to be rerouted. Lighting throughout the freighter flickered and dimmed before returning. Then the announcement began.
A voice filled the cargo bay, flat and completely dispassionate--speaking in a language that the Universal Translator had no time to process. It was Nidean. The syllables were harsh and rhythmic.
"Ka'thir ven-sha. Ka'thir ven-sha."
The phrase repeated without urgency or inflection. No warning tones and no translation.
"Ulan tekh-marai. Ka'thir ven-sha."
Somewhere several decks below them, magnetic locks were disengaging around the warp core. Safeties and built-in redundancies were being disabled as some internal timer began to count down. The Romulan program was insidious--it wasn't a timed self-destruct sequence, rather, it was meant to attract attention. To sow chaos.
"Ka'thir ven-sha. Ka'thir ven-sha. Uloi carekt-fas."
Sakkar tried his commbadge again. "Sakkar to Hakobyan, do you read?"
"My Nidian is rather bad but that sounds rather bad." Xalanth said. " Let's double time to the engineering bay."
"Agreed," Sakkar said with a nod. He would trust that the two men on the bridge could also hear the ominous announcements and take care of themselves.
"This way, Sirs." Petty Officer Enam had been mostly quiet until now, taking shots when he could get them, assessing the situation and taking in as much information as he could, but on hearing his chief's orders he moved ahead confident of where to go, having taken careful note of the schematics as they made there way here from the Bridge.
The Marines moved through the ship, securing it, section by section. Clay had point. A good leader always takes point, leads by example. His rifle was raised, sweeping as he moved, checking his corners, blindspots. He knew his new XO, Angel was to his back left at the 9 o'clock position. Eden had the rear at the 6 o'clock and another at the 3 o'clock.
A calm, almost robotic announcement began repeating on the shipwide comms. Words from a language that the universal translator did not understand.
"Ka'thir ven-sha. Ka'thir ven-sha."
Clay made the hand motion to stack up at a large bay door, getting into position and waiting for his fireteam to do the same.
1st Lieutenant Martinez took their position, phaser rifle ready. There was a tension in them, not rigid, but tuned. The way a body held itself when it had done something a hundred times before and expected to do it a hundred more. Their posture was measured, movements quiet, efficient. They watched the Major for the hand signal, eyes alert. Not out of doubt, but for the same reason they checked door frames and reflex angles. Situational awareness was by now a habit, not a choice. And when it came to silent comms, hand signals were gospel.
They spared a moment to check the rest of the fireteam, gauging the spread, the spacing, the readiness. Then returned their focus forward, breath low and steady.
Clay moved to a door, motioning for his marines to stack up and make ready to breach.
"Ka'thir ven-sha. Ka'thir ven-sha. Uloi carekt-fas."
"What the..." Eden said as she stuck to her position and aimed her weapon at the door. She was becoming steadily more and more uneasy with being on the freighter and was at the point of wanting off it and back to the familiarity of her hangar bay. "What language is that?"
"I'm not sure" Clay replied as they kept moving.
Nemec held his phaser in the low and ready position as he stood at the threshold of the Cargo Bay doors. He nodded, the signal that he was ready to clear the corridor once the doors were open.
Sakkar found the maintenance panel for the doors embedded in the bulkhead. He opened it and peered inside. Thankfully the manual override was a simple, mechanical lever. With one vigorous pull the lever came down. Then, with a brief electronic horn, the doors motored open to reveal a squad of Marines, weapons at the ready.
“WEAPONS DOWN!” Clay barked before realizing he was aiming at his fellow crew mates.
“Lieutenant,” Clay nods, lowering his phaser, motioning for his marines to do the same. “Petty Officer. Aft section secured it seems?” He asked and stated at the same time.
Xalanth lowered his own phaser. " Major. Aft section is secure, though i'd like to pull the power to the ship's holo matrix. We had to fight our way through an ambush a few sections back."
"We need to figure out what this ship is saying," Nemec cautioned. "Some sort of red alert or a self-destruct sequence?"
Martinez looked over at Nemec, their weapon lowered the moment the Major had shouted the order. The Bajoran made sense, as did the...their brain stopped at the species. The Lieutenant Commander. "If the Universal Translators can't decipher it, we need more of the language to parse it," they said, a slight frown tugging between their eyebrows. They exhaled, their body loosening a little with it. "Keep track of the pattern changes, if there's a self-destruct...it'll be counting down somehow, either by speeding up, slowing down, or a change to the sounds." And this was where they really missed a linguist. Or someone with a good ear. Because Martinez might be saying all this, but they knew it wasn't in their skillset to be able to be the one to give that info.
Nidean was a language known to the Federation. Why the UT wasn't picking it up was a mystery. Perhaps it was an archaic sub-dialect, or another language altogether. True, with additional words the UT would eventually sort it out, but there was no guarantee that the freighter's computer would give them any. "Proper analysis and deciphering takes time," Sakkar said. "Time we may not have. For all we know we may have only seconds. As automated announcements are often warnings, I propose we take it as such and evacuate immediately. However, two people should return to the bridge to retrieve the two men there. I volunteer myself." He looked among the assembled faces to see who would tag along.
"I'll go." Xalanth said without hesitation. " Major, make sure my men get home safe." he said to the marine commander.
Martinez watched, jaw tightening for a moment as they glanced over at Xalanth. "Sir," they said, voice quiet. "You're a Department Chief. In fact, you both are," they looked over at Sakkar at that, eyes on the Vulcan. A soft breath as they ran the scenario. "Losing you both would jeopardize the smooth operations of the ship. I recommend one go...and I'll volunteer."
"We're not losing you on the first OP. I'll go" Clay voice boomed over the others.
"Here." Xalanth said, pulling the organic grenade from his belt and offering it to the major. "Twist clockwise and throw if you bump into more holograms."
"Thank you, my friend." Clay nods as he took the grenade from the Dragonian. He turned to the others.
"First Lieutenant, Fall back to the ship, follow Commander Xalanth, make sure everyone gets safely off, First Lieutenant." Clay addressed his detachment XO before he turned, withdrew his phaser from his holster and moved towards the bridge with grenade and phaser in hand.
Martinez had bit their jaw together, emotions shining in their eyes for a brief moment, wanting to argue against their Marine CO that losing him would be just the same impact as losing another Chief. But they also knew an order when they heard it, and arguing was not done.
Sakkar raised his brow at the scene before him. Again the seconds were ticking by as they debated a course of action. Two men needed to be retrieved from the bridge. Logically, two should be sent to retrieve them in case they were wounded and had to be carried. Ideally, one of the rescuers should be someone who knew their way back to the bridge. The relative expandability of those present was of little concern. Sakkar recognized, however, that these Marines were eager to do what they had been sent to do. He handed his tricorder to Martinez. "The navigation feature will guide you. It's one deck up and all the way forward. Hurry." He offered one final nod to the two Marines.
Lt. Commander Xalanth
Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
Lieutenant J.G. Sakkar
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Astrea
Petty Officer 1st Class Enam Nemec
Tactical Officer
USS Astrea
(NPC of Remy Johansen)
Major Clay McEntyre III
Marine Commanding Officer
USS Astrea
1st Lieutenant Ángel Martinez
Marine Officer
USS Astrea
Corporal Eden McKenzie
Combat Engineer
USS Astrea
(NPC of Eirly Andersen)
&
GM Shep (AKA Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil)
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea
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