Chapter 2: A musical meeting

Posted on Sun May 7th, 2023 @ 1:50pm by Captain Daniella Le Williams & Commander Robert Williams & Lieutenant Wann Tinyo & Lieutenant Alyssa Walker & Crewman Recruit Samantha O'Donnaghue Meran & Commander Pierce Reagan & Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Sharpe & Lieutenant Jasmine Traconis & Ensign M'Ralla

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: [USS Ottawa]Bendy and the Dark Star Trek
Location: Varieted
Timeline: MD002 0015

---Observation lounge---
The jingle stops and then they hear something like a clicking sound. Then a message is heard over the coms.

“Musical Director's log, supplemental.
So first, Joey installs this ink machine over our heads. Then it begins to leak. Three times last month, we couldn’t even get out of our department because the ink had flooded the stairwell.
Joey’s solution? An ink pump to drain it periodically.
Now I have this ugly pump switch right in my office.
People in and out all day.

Thanks, Joey. Just what I needed. More distractions.
These stupid cartoon songs don’t write themselves, you know.”

The recording stopped and just then a message came in from the bridge. "This is Lieutenant Day. We noticed ink coming out of the turbo lift. We can't seem to open. Scans seem to indicate the lift systems are jammed because they are flooded with ink. There are no life signs in the lift, so that is a relieve. What should we do, Captain?"

Daniella looked around the room as she got up. "Lieutenant, please stand by. We will return to the bridge immediately." She nodded to everyone present. "I think we have to continue this on the bridge. "

"I certainly agree with you, Captain." Pierce replied rising from his chair to proceed to the bridge. He shot a glance towards Daniella when he heard about the ink coming from the turbo lift. "How very strange."

---Sickbay---
Nurse Nichole Jensen was on dutyy right now as head nurse. She was organizing medical tools in sickbay when she heard sloshing. She looked down as that was where the sound was coming from. She saw the black liquid surpassing her ankles and it was rapidly rising. She ran out of the office to the main infirmary. "Everyone out now!" And then she rushed to help the only patient that was in to get out and the rest of the personnel followed. The doors closed behind her as a bit of ink sloshed out as it closed. She looked through the window from the hallway and then saw the ink was now blocking the view of the entire sickbay. She took a deep breath and hit her combadge. "Bridge, Lieutenant Karri, this is Ensign Jensen. Sickbay and the adjacent offices are flooded with a black substance. My tricorder registers it as...." She looked at her tricorder and her eyes widened as she couldn't believe it. "...ink."

"Did you manage to get everyone out?" Daniella asked. Her reply came quickly.

"Aye, captain, the doors closed behind me. There is ink everywhere in the room." Nichole replied.

Daniella then continued, "Please set up a temporary sickbay for the time being as we figure this out. We will try to have it resolved as quickly as possible. Can you manage without sickbay?"

Nichole wanted to ask what was going on, but decided to let that rest. She replied to the Captain: "I can set up one of the medical labs on the deck as sickbay, I believe there is also one of the surgical suites we can use, and let's hope we don't get many casualties, captain. We can also make use of the counseling offices if needed. If that is ok with Lieutenant Walker."

---Bridge---
Meanwhile the senior staff had stationed themselves on the bridge. Daniella looked to Alyssa. Alyssa just nodded.
"Ensign, You have a go, use what ever you'll need. We also hope it don't become necessary. Williams out."

She then tapped her badge again. "Ensign Connoly, this is Captain Williams, will you assist Ensign Jensen on the medical deck. I believe this is a stressful situation and the crew may need counselling support. Lieutenant Walker is currently unable to get down there."

"Yes, Ma'am. "I'll head there now", Ari said immediately. She headed to the medical deck, praying that people would be unhurt. And even more so that people wouldn't break mentally under all this pressure.

"Okay we've got more in store for us." the XO responded. "Are we being able to see what is going on the other levels or are we being blocked from doing so Captain?"

Daniella looked over her shoulder to the ops station where Lt. Day was seated. She looked a second on her console. We are able to access internal and external sensors. I have been scanning the entire ship, and so far only sickbay seems to be flooded." She then stopped and checked her scans again. "Hold on, there is one more deck effected. Or rather it looks like one specific room. I have camera lock on the hallway outside. Showing it on the big screen now." A big sign appeared n the screen. It said 'Sammy Lawrence'. The camera moved a little through the hallway and the door became visible. 'Believe' was written on the door with ink and surrounding the door were white candles placed that were lit.

Daniella got up. "And this room is flooded with ink?" She asked looking at the screen. Day nodded. "Yes, Captain. The sign is blocking some of the view and we can't see the whole hallway for some reason, but that is Commander Reagan's office."

Pierce's eyes widened, "What in the world? I was in there earlier. My thanks for calling this briefing. Now what is the suggestion for us to do? And that looks like a setting for a chapel."

Daniella sat down in her chair as she was in thought a moment. "Computer, please replay the supplemental log of the musical director." The computer tjirped and the voice of the musical director, Sammy Lawrence sounded over the com system. "The pump control is in your office, Commander, the only way we can get the ink out of the lifts as well as sickbay, so we need to find a way to drain the ink from your office. Once miss O'Donnaghue is on the bridge, I will need to hear her suggestions. She seems to be the only one that understands how to go through this game."

Pierce gave a nod "It would be good to find out what can be done. That looks like a huge mess to clean up. And what happenes if the ink touches living flesh. Do we become an ink monster?" turning towards Daniella.

Daniella shrugged. "when miss O'Donnaghue arrives will have to ask her. She knows the game better than anyone on the ship."

---Away team 1---
M'Ralla lifted her head as the music sounded and then was disrupted by a com from the bridge. Just what they needed now, and on top of that was a summons to the bridge. Considering the lifts were inoperable, that meant a lot of climbing in the Jefferies tubes. She wondered about what that message had said, something about a pump, and the switch in 'his' office. She and Gabriel were still down in the engineering section. "Well, I guess we have some climbing to do, Sir. I am not looking forward to this, three levels up, then cross to access shaft c-12, up two levels, cross to access shaft b-22, then up ...I don't even want to count the number of levels before we can cross to the Bridge access shaft." M'Ralla sighed heavily and shook her head, what normally took under a minute was going to take at least an hour. And that was if there weren't any barriers in the way that would force them to find a different route.

Sam looked around. She played the came a lot of times, so she knew what was coming next. She grabbed the axes and handed one to M'Ralla and the other to Gabriel. "Trust me when I say you're going to need these. Phasers or other energy weapons won't work. If I remember correctly, Chapter 2 is where we come across these ink monsters for the first time. They are called Searchers. They can pop up at random from ink pools and don't hesitate to attack. Make sure you aim for their heads. Also they crawl around pretty slow, so you could also out run them."

M'Ralla took the ax that Sam had offered and frowned slightly. "So avoid ink pools, chop off a paper heads or run? And what happens if one of these ... Searchers pops up behind us? And what happens if they catch us?" M'Ralla was not happy to be forced to play a game that made absolutely no sense to her and shook her head in disgust, "This is absolutely crazy! Why would anyone want to play a game like this?" Without waiting for the others, she headed off to the first jefferies tube and started to climb.

Taking the Axe from Sam, Gabe spun it around in his hand before taking a few test swings. "Finally, something I understand in this badly written, monochrome nightmare." He nodded to Sam and started to follow M'Ralla.
"M'Ralla has point, I'm the Rearguard you're in the middle, hope you've been keeping up on your cardio coz this is gonna be quite the crawl." He said to Sam as they crossed the engineering bay.

"Well so far the game, even if it is ship wide, still follows their on safety protocols. I did check the holodeck settings and safeties are on. So my guess is, that if we are attacked by Searchers and to the game defeated, we restart at a spawn point. On the holodeck the game just resets to that point. But I am guessing the game being in control of the ship, might use the internal teleport system." Sam explained and then held up her axe."Also Searchers aren't that hard to beat. a good whack with this on their heads will do the trick. Just be happy you don't have use a plunger, you need 3 more hits to beat a searcher with that. That was one hard level." Sam shivered at the mere thought of Chapter 3. Which was coming after this most likely.

M'Ralla shook her head at the explanation, "Somehow I am not as confident as you are about those protocols. If the game can take over the ship, it can certainly override the safety protocols on the holodeck. And the alternative weapon selections make me wonder why we have been provided with the better option." She spoke as she climbed the ladder, axe in hand to the next level.

"My guess would be to mess with the player, or in this case us." Gabe replied, climbing onto the upper level towards the jefferies tube. "As for the saftey protocols, lets try not to test out whether they work or not hey, given the lifeform we're dealing with here, it's best not to take chances... True me."

He turned around and took another look at the ink filled bay, following the team as they entered the jefferies tube. He let out a small sigh. "It's gonna be a long day."

"We did a system check, ensign, ma'am." Sam started in a friendly and respectful tone. "I did it myself twice. Even though the ship has been taken over, it left key systems intact. Such as life support, external and internal scanners. If it wanted us dead we would be dead now. I can tell that aside from the program showing slight differences to it's key components and the main storyline to fit for us, this is still very much a Holoprogram, we can't however pause or make changes to the program right now. But it does follow the original program. Which is the player can't die and the game doesn't end, unless the player sees it through till the end. So I assume at this point that the ship will be released once we complete the game. I am still working on to see if we can take short cuts, but we are dealing with an unknown entity. If internal scanners are intact it may be watching us all over the ship and it will be hard to bypass systems without the entity noticing."

M'Ralla glanced down as she climbed up the ladder, "I wonder though, if only one player needs to make it to this end point or is it a specific player. It is, after all, your game, is it not?"

"This is based on the game I played, ma'am, yes, but this is not my game." Sam replied. "Everything is different in this game. The fact that all of the ship was effected. The fact that specific places have been effected, mean specific crews or departments are targeted. Not only that, this entity has also mixed in elements of two games from what I can tell. Also the puzzles have been specifically designed for the entire crew to do. If I was the only one that had to go around the ship finding all items and pulling switching, I probably couldn't do it. The ship is too big. I believe this game was specifically designed for the crew."



---Away team 2---
Wann had send his team back to their station for the time being, but they came back to report the lifts were flooded with ink. "Alright, you two stay here and try to fix the situation from here, stay together. I will climb the jeffries tube to the bridge." Then he saw a flash. Three axes were now hanging on the wall. Wann looked confused at them.

Eshi grabbed one of the axes. "Let's not question this game, we may need them. You should bring one too, sir."

Wann nodded and grabbed an axe and hung it on his belt. "Let's just hope I don't need it." He then opened one of the hatches to the jeffries tubes and started climbing.

TO BE CONINTUED

Captain Daniella Le Williams
CO USS Ottawa

&

Senior Cadet Samantha O'Donnghue
Cadet Mission Advisor (PNPC Daniella William)

&

Lieutenant Wann Tinyo
Chief Operations (PNPC Williams)

&

Lieutenant Alyssa Walker
Chief Counselor (PNPC Williams)

Commander Pierce Reagan
XO USS Ottawa

&

Lieutenant Gabriel Sharpe
2XO/Chief Engineer USS Ottawa

&

Lieutenant Jasmine Traconis
Chief Security (PNPC Reagan)

&

Ensign M'Ralla
Engineer USS Ottawa

&

Ensign Eoin O'Donnaghue
Chief Flight control USS Ottawa

&

Ensign Ari Connoly
Counselor USS Ottawa

 

RSS Feed