The Orpheus bucked slightly as it made its descent back towards the surface, its hull groaning slightly under the strain. Garion kept a firm hold on the controls, but his jaw was set more firmly than usual. The southern continent spread out before them once again, the scar of the Winslow’s crash landing still raw, even after four decades. In the cabin behind him, the rest of the away team sat in tense silence. 

Bema reviewed the updated scans on his tricorder, occasionally looking up to scan his away team. Craig was muttering to himself, pouring over sensor readings and making adjustments to the spectral filters. Vail checked and re-checked her phaser rifle with methodical care, but her usual offhand banter was noticeably absent. Dathasa sat in silence across from Vail, staring at the floor, the sunlight glinting off of a crest on the shoulder of her armor. Tom stood stoically by the rear door, one hand holding onto an overhead panel and the other on the handle of his phaser rifle. 

“Touchdown in two minutes.” Garion called over his shoulder. “Same LZ as last time.”

Bema nodded his acknowledgement. “We go in cautious. No assumptions.” The last part may have been for Dathasa, but she didn’t look up to meet his eyes. She just nodded, flexing her fingers briefly at her side. 

The shuttlecraft set down with a dull thud. With a hiss and a hydraulic whine, the rear landing ramp lowered slowly, kicking up dust as it hit the ground. The away team’s boots kicked up even more of the fine dust as they tramped slowly towards the entrance to the Cardassian mine once again. They switched their lights on as they passed back inside the half-collapsed entrance tunnel into the consuming darkness beyond. Jagged remnants of long dead ore conveyors jutted out from the rock like fossils, and the stale, dusty air grew colder with every step further down. 

Dathasa swept her light across the walls, revealing faded Cardassian markings beneath layers of grime. “I don’t think these passageways were designed for visitors.” she muttered. 

Vail checked her tricorder, the screen lighting her face in a ghostly blue light. “I’ve found half a dozen false leads already.” she said. “It’s like they build the place in layers to avoid anyone finding it.”

Bema walked at the head of the group, beside Dathasa. “If the lab was powered separately, there should be a tap-in node for it in the distribution grid.” 

“Hang on.” Craig said, watching his tricorder. “I’m picking up residual power signatures. It’s faint, but it’s there.” 

Vail spoke up next, the flashlight at the end of her phaser rifle shining a puddle of light on the dusty floor. “Footprints. Faded, but fresh, considering the surroundings. One set, and look, those are for sure Starfleet EVA boots.”

A narrow, claustrophobic corridor angled downwards from the left fork in the tunnel they had been following. Craig raised his tricorder, but froze at the entrance. “There. Behind the rockfall. I’m picking up faint EM readings. Their pattern is consistent with old Cardassian science tech.”

Dathasa tightened her grip on the grip of her rifle. “Do you think it was intentionally sealed off?” 

“That or it was an accidental collapse.” Craig responded.

“Either way, it doesn’t matter.” Bema said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and stepping up to the pile of rocks. “Let’s clear it. If we find a door, we find answers.” Tom waded forward to help Bema lift and move stones from the pile. 

“Yea, that or something the Cardassians didn’t want found.” Garion replied with a snort.

Vail cracked her knuckles and moved to help the other two. “One way to find out, I guess.”

After a while, the team uncovered a solid duranium plate blocking the tunnel. Garion adjusted his tool belt and stepped forward. He tapped the plating with a gloved knuckle. “I’d say about three or four inches thick.” He said with a sniff,  “I can cut through it, but it’s going to take some time.” 

“Do it.” Bema said pointedly. “Tom, you’re on breach. When he cuts through that thing, I want you through the hole first.” 

“Yes, Commander.” Tom said, a glint of excitement in his dark Klingon eyes.

Garion pulled out a plasma cutter and knelt beside the duranium. The tight corridor suddenly brightened with the pale, blue green light of the plasma torch, and Garion cut a quick line through the duranium like someone who has rebuilt starship hulls in his sleep. Everyone else stood around him, unmoving, weapons ready. 

*HISS*

The section of the wall fell inwards with a heavy thud, revealing a small ante chamber, and against the far wall, a Cardassian console, blinking slowly in amber. 

“It’s still drawing power from an independent source.” He said, scanning his tricorder. “It looks like this lab is sealed, but not shut down. And look at this…” he added pointing to the arched doorway in the adjacent wall. “This is a prefab unit. It was probably dropped in here once the mine was already operational.”

Tom stepped forward and placed his hand on the door. “Can you open it?” he asked, turning back to look at Craig. 

“Probably” Craig replied slowly, “but if it’s running independently, it might have its own security protocols.”

“What, no Cardassian welcome mat?” Garion asked, cocking an eyebrow. 

“More like a deadbolt, and a gun behind the door.”

Bema gave Craig a small nod. “Do it, we’ll deal with what’s inside.”

Craig tapped away at the control panel, his fingers moving carefully over the old alien console. After a moment, the console responded, and with a deep mechanical thunk and the metallic grinding of ancient gears, the bulkhead door slowly opened. 

The warm, recycled air flowed out of the doorway as they stepped through, and lights flickered into life overhead, casting a sterile yellow light over the lab. They filed into the room, which had still running consoles that lined the outer walls, and in the middle of the room, under a bright surgical lamp was an oddly clean biobed, but the biggest shock of all was the back wall. It housed a large, sealed containment chamber, made of glass that was cloudy with age, and its internal lights still pulsing softly. A second containment chamber stood beside it, lights dark and the glass was shattered outwards and covered in a dark liquid. Craig moved forwards, scanning the area. “It looks like the containment field on the left chamber is still holding, but the right one was depowered some time ago. There’s no sign of its contents. 

Bowman to Away Team. Report Please. The captain’s voice broke the eerie silence inside the lab, almost echoing off the walls. 

“It looks like a research lab, Captain.” Bema responded. “We’ve found two containment cells. One is intact, the other has been breached.”

Understood Commander. Keep me posted. Bowman out.

Garion crossed the room to examine the breached containment cell more closely. “The chamber’s integrity is intact. It doesn’t look ruptured, it looks like it just…shut down.”

“Or was shut down.” Tom said, narrowing his eyes. “From inside…”

Craig took a step closer to the sealed unit. The inside of the glass was obscured by age and condensation. Behind it, they saw a faint figure, slumped over on the floor inside, humanoid but gaunt and unmoving. A few taps on the glass caused some of the condensation to bead and run, allowing a more clear view into the interior of the cell. “There are still life signs in there.” he said in a quiet voice, like he didn’t want to believe it. “It’s faint, but there. The stasis in the cell is barely holding.”

The figure stirred inside. When Craig took a reflexive step backwards, the team raised their weapons instinctively, from muscle memory more than fear. 

It was a Romulan, or rather, was Romulan. Its facial features were unmistakable, but something about it was…off. Its skin had a sickly grey-green hue, and wires snaked from its spine into the wall of the stasis pod. It twitched slightly, then fell still once again. 

Craig was scanning frantically with his tricorder. “It’s been genetically altered,” he said. “Its genome markers have been cloaked, there are traces of nanite threads, neural stimulation implants… this was a project, not a prisoner.”

“One of them got out.” Bema said with a grimace, moving to examine the broken cell.

“And we have no idea what it is.” Dathasa confirmed.

Tom adjusted the power setting of his rifle. “Or where it is now.” 

Garion threw up his hands. “That’s it, I’m leaving.” he said as he turned and walked to the door, stopping and wheeling back around just inside the archway, “Anyone else?” He asked. When no one answered or moved, he scoffed. “C’mon guys, we obviously should not be down here.”

“If they’re alive, maybe they remember what this place was.” Vail said. “Or who they were. That’s not worth nothing.”

“I’m not opening anything.” Craig said flatly. He stepped over to the nearest terminal and began working on it. “I can decrypt any files we can find stored in the computer. We can download them and learn that way.” 

“What if they’re just trying to survive, like us?” Vail asked softly.

“Yea, and what if they’re not?” Garion shot back. 

“I don’t care to find out either way.” Bema said. “We record it, we log it, we leave it. Waking something up wasn’t in the mission description.”

“Bema, you can’t be serious.” Vail said, looking at him with disbelief. “If we find a survivor…”

“We found a variable.” Bema said hotly, cutting her off. “That’s all. What if it’s diseased, or enhanced; dangerous even? We’re already in deep enough. Let’s download the logs, and get out of here.”

The tension among the away team threatened to boil over. Silence hung in the air like a fog, thick and obscuring. 

CLANG

From outside the door, a sound cut through the silence, heavy and metallic, like something hitting the ground. Everyone froze. Tom’s hand tightened on the grip of his rifle. Garion backed away from the door slowly. Bema and Dathasa looked at one another, and a silent knowledge passed between them. She nodded, and he returned it. 

“You’re with me.” Bema said quietly, motioning Dathasa to join him. “The rest of you, stay here and keep downloading those files.”

“On your six, Commander.” Dathasa said, shouldering her rifle. Without another word, the pair slipped out of the lab into the dark antechamber, disappearing into the dark corridor that led back into the depths of the mine itself. 

Their boots crunched faintly over the gravel, the only sound in the suffocating silence outside of their own breathing. The lights on their rifles cut narrow beams through the dust and gloom as they worked their way deeper into the abandoned facility. Bema led, his phaser rifle scanning low as he moved. Dathasa was a half step behind, eyes sharp, with her tricorder in hand.

“He’s moving.” she whispered. “Or… it’s moving, but it’s not far. The heat signature is recent. Its body temperature is unstable, like it can’t, or isn’t, regulating its temperature at all.” They paused at a bend where the corridor sloped down. At the edge of their lights, they could see a rusted ore cart, sitting half off its track, and beyond the walls of the corridor widened into a chamber of some kind.

Bema knelt and examined a stain of dark ichor on the wall. “This is the same stuff that we saw in the lab.” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I think it’s bleeding.”

“If it was injured, it would just run.” Dathasa said, “But this one has doubled back.”

“You think it’s hunting us?” Bema asked, straightening up. 

“I think it’s scared.” She replied flatly, “And scared things are dangerous.”

There was a loud metallic scraping sound that echoed from the chamber ahead of them, and both officers froze for a moment. Dathasa raised her tricorder, but it only showed static. 

“I think we’re being jammed.” she said in an uneasy voice. 

Bema nodded grimly. “Keep you back to mine.”

The pair moved slowly forward, deliberately scanning every crevice and bit of rusty scaffold. They could hear the pipes overhead dripping water into unseen black pools on the floor. On the wall, a handprint with elongated fingers was pressed in oily black against the rock surface. 

There was a sudden clatter behind them. 

They spun – nothing. Just their flashlights casting pools of light along the jagged, moisture slick walls.

“Okay, I officially do not like this.” Dathasa whispered. 

Another sound, frantic skittering, this time from above. 

The thing dropped from the rafters, a blur of desaturated flesh and wiry limbs, all elbow and joints, landing on taloned feet with a screeching hiss. 

Dathasa wheeled around fast, lifting her phaser rifle; but it was on her in an instant, raking her side with its sharp claws. Sparks flew as it tore through the plating of her EVA suit. She shouted in pain, staggering backwards as dark green blood began to stain the torn fabric at her waist. Bema shouted, levelling his phaser at it, but it was on Dathasa now, grappling and biting, its teeth scraping across her shoulder plating. More sparks flew as it continued to tear through her gear. 

She slammed her elbow into its face… once, twice… and then it reeled, snarling and spitting something thick and dark. As soon as it was far enough away from her, Bema opened fire. Three shots, center mass. 

The creature screamed in a warbling, high pitched way that wasn’t quite animal or human. Its arms spasmed, claws curling inwards like steel hooks. It staggered backwards then, with another screech, it lunged forward again, its jaws wide open. Bema fired another shot, and it slammed into the creature’s forehead, whipping its hideous head backwards and sending it reeling into the cavern wall, crumpling pathetically to the cavern floor, twitching and smoking. 

Bema was at Dathasa’s side in an instant. She was leaned back against the wall, and blood had soaked her side.He could see deep lacerations through the torn EVA mesh. “Still with me, Dath?” He asked, trying to assess the damage. 

“I’m fine.” She growled at him through gritted teeth. “That mother fucker bit me.”

“It looks like it might have been, I don’t know, designed to tear through EVA suits” he said. 

“Well it was effective.” she said, wincing. 

Bema looked at the creature. Its long, clawed hands curled up like the legs of a dead spider. Its jaw hung slack, full of long serrated teeth, like a sharks. Its eyes were open, large and black, but they didn’t look angry. They looked afraid. 

“Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural.” Bema muttered, hoisting Dathasa up and throwing her arm over his shoulder.

“No, but it wasn’t born a monster either.” Dathasa replied through ragged breaths. 

“Let’s get back to the others.” Bema said finally, and the pair shuffled slowly back towards the lab, leaving the creature in the darkness, forgotten.