The Poseidon house mystery: Final chapter

Posted on Thursday December 22nd, 2022 @ 11:32am by Commander Sam Perkins & Captain Franklin Johnson & Lieutenant Commander Ky'la De'Lenn & Lieutenant Commander Paul Sharpe & Lieutenant Commander Michael Stevens & Lieutenant Commander Calvin Hirsch & Lieutenant Commander T'Pri & Lieutenant Miles O'Connell & Lieutenant Commander Kicil Priadden

2,146 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Concluding Affairs
Location: USS Poseidon: Holodeck
Timeline: Current

There is no terror in the bang, only in anticipation of it. …: Alfred Hitchcock

[ON]

-Upstairs Poseidon House-

Something evil had awoken. The interlopers had found the secret room. Soon they would know the truth. It had kept the secret for centuries. Countless near dwellers and scalawags had searched but even in death, he had kept them away. No one in life had exposed him. No one in death would either. He still had the power to kill. He’d done it before. He’d do it again.

Perkins tried to look at the desk. But the more he tried to move. The more the debris started to push down on him. As if it was now alive and intent on squeezing him to death.

“ Having…….a…….problem……here….” Sam said

"What's the problem, Sam?" Franklin asked, looking at his friend. He finally got tired of waiting and decided to jump over to Sam, trying to dislodge the desk.

Hirsch took out his tricorder, realizing there was an odd reverberation frequency that the holodeck was used to collapse and crush Sam in the room below. Seeing the frequency on his tricorder, Cal furrowed his brow thinking quickly…

Ok… Calvin took a split second. “Hold On! I think I’ve got it.” He was going to trick the holodeck program into reversing its crushing hold on Sam. “The Acoustic intensity at collapse time measured in reverberating room Busing a42-loudspeakers TRM and the TRAS.” Cal paused, thinking about the calculations before entering them into the tricorder… “f 0 = 500 Hz and Δ f = 1. 97f 0. The focal spot sections are normalized by the maximum intensity I 0 obtained with a classical TRM.” He furrowed his brow with the help of the tricorder. “Annnnnd Emit!” He pressed the button. What was first a loud-sounding burst had succumbed to reverberate between the four walls below and all around them, destabilizing the program, or at least it should have…

Recovering from his shock Sharpe pulled out his engineering tricorder and scanned the area and shook his head in amazement "I know we all know this has become real, but I cannot detect the holodeck grid, my scanners are telling me that this is real and not advanced tech can be detected" he looked over at the Captain "Captain it will be logical to assume that we no longer have active holodeck safeties here, so any injuries will be serious and we can die if our luck runs out" Sharpe added.

Franklin looked over to Sharpe with a horrified expression, then a determined one as he gave a nod. The reality of the situation they were in was sinking in for everyone now. He continued his efforts to dislodge the desk.

Sam was beginning to have problems breathing. It felt like someone or something was pressing down on the debris. Slowly crushing him. Perkins called also hear laughing.

“ He’s…..here……pushing…..debris…..not….sure…..I….hold…..on…” Sam tried to say.

Sharpe said nothing as what could he say, his mind was saying he was in a haunted house encountering dangers which were real, yet intellectually he knew they were on the holodeck, the only thing that made events serious was the knowledge that the safeties were off.

"Come on, people!" the Captain cried. "Help me move this desk! Help me!" This time, the Captain pushed against the desk to get it off Sam with all his might.

Sharpe jumped in helping with the desk and the little hairs o the back of his neck stood straight as a chilling voice could be heard

A disembodied voice chillingly called out.

“ Nooooooo the inspector mussssst die!!!!”

T'Pri screamed. It seemed the thing to do, so macabre.

The pressure on Sam was starting to affect his eyesight.

“ Oh…..” He moaned

Hirsch jumped down into the pit and began to use the leverage he gained by footing himself into the debris around. He grabbed the corners of the desk and forced the angle of it in an arching move away from crushing Sam. "GGGGrhrraaaahhhhhh!!" Hirsch let out a loud growl as he used all his energies in time to help the captain pull Sam from the crushing bombardment.

T'Pri watched from the corner, cowering and in pain. Her corset was crushing the breath right out of her and the long dress and petticoats she was wearing were twisted about her legs nearly mummifying her. Her ears were bleeding green and she was somehow disoriented. like she was on drugs or something. Her vision was clear though. Something heavy was on top of her. She was pinned. She tried to call out for help but was breathless.

Ky'La was struggling to keep emotions in check as she too lent a hand in helping to free Sam. Yet that erie voice actually had succeeded in getting to her and did the one thing she rarely felt...pure terror.

Shadows seemed to dance all over, and there was some sort of presence that seemed to be sucking the life out of the room. However, she couldn't find the source even with her keen Vulcan senses.

The Captain with the help of Hirsch and Sharpe pulled Sam from the entrapment. He then panted from the exertion, then noted in the distance T'Pri.

"T'Pri!" he called out in shock, rushing over, trying to help her any way he could.

Hirsch breathed just as they had finished with Sam being crushed, only to see ghostly fluctuations circling them above in the room. The light dimmed in the shadows of what could be considered metaphysical.

“T’Pri. Hold on. We’re coming….” Calvin sided up beside Captain Johnson, finding a way that would not injure T’Pri while they attempted to reverse the crushing might of the mystery room.

O'Connell came around the corner to see Calvin and Johnson trying to help T'Pri. "Can I offer any extra assistance? I was stuck in a sort of maze until I saw you."

T'Pri would have waved him over to her but her arms were pinned too.

"Over here," T'Pri said breathlessly...

Sharpe rushed over and scanned the area, "if the possibility of actually dying on this holodeck was not an issue then all this would be both traumatic and terrifying, still how things are going makes it fascinating, to say the least" he commented.

"We must end this simulation," the Captain seethed as he worked with the crew to free T'Pri. As he helped her up, he looked to the rest as they also helped. "We need to find a way out of this mess, and fast!"

Sam lay in a heap by the desk. He tried to move over to help T’Pri with the others but his ribs hurt. Every time he tried to move. Perkins put his hand on the desk. He was determined to crawl over and help his friends. His hand touched a book making it fall to the ground. It opened to reveal it was hollow. Inside a much smaller book was hidden.

“ NO NO THAT IS NOT FOR THY EYES….” A voice bellowed

“ Really….I…..wonder….why?” Sam tried to say through the pain.

He opened the small book. It was a journal of sorts a letter had Ben glued to one page. It was from an orphanage with a picture of a boy.’ This is the child of which we spoke sir.’ Sam read

“You were going…to replace…..your son with this healthy….child!You killed your wife……when she tried ti stop you…….then your son! MURDERER!.” Sam said almost fainting with the effort.

“ Nooooooooo…….” The voice said fading.

Suddenly everything vanished around them. They were either laying or standing on a yellow grid. It was over. Perkins flopped onto the floor out cold.

"I need a medic to the Holodeck!" the Captain said after tapping his combadge, relieved to see the holodeck again but knowing there could be injuries.

Pulling out his tricorder again Sharpe scanned the holodeck "Well what we are seeing Captain is real the holodeck grid, hold on!" he said and walked over to the section of the wall and opened it revealing a console. "Oh great, no wonder the holodeck malfunctioned, this is going to be some repair work I have to do," Sharpe said examining the readouts but not expanding on what he found out, and it was not a happy thing.

A few medics and security personnel rushed in from medical as they began to tend to T'Pri and Sam. Giving Sam a pat on the shoulder, the Captain stood and made his way over to Sharpe. Looking at the console, he seemed perplexed.

"What happened, Chief? Why did the holodeck turn off all safeties?" he asked.

*shakes his head* "I do not rightfully know Captain *pauses* what I am seeing here Captain is a wide holodeck system failure which burned out most of the system but did not affect the doors, but avoiding the supernatural Captain it might be wise to log in your duty log that due to the ship's age some systems failed as to say it was... an unearthly event would have Starfleet Medical start thinking you might be crazy. It is my experience that SFHQ wants only things that are tangible, as for the safeties, the sectors that controlled them are the damaged ones. Now I cannot explain why our tricorders could not detect the doors and such and why we could not end the program on command but seeing this damage report on the monitor here, says we were isolated from the rest of the ship, so no one knows what happened or that we were stuck and the blown circuits are why the safeties went down" Sharpe said looking at the screen shaking his head "just do not mention supernatural Captain, they will think you are nuttier than a fruit cake, but seeing the damage and experiencing I have to echo the words of Sherlock Holmes Whenever you eliminate the possible, whatever left, however improbable must be the truth and I know the Vulcan's use their own version of that, but there it is Captain, I will get to work on fixing this" Sharpe finished.

The Captain nodded solemnly. "I think she's getting old, Mr Sharpe," he said, hesitantly. "Very old. We're doing a good job of keeping her going, but maybe putting in holodecks in the recent refit wasn't a good idea."

"The holodecks may be a strain on the system Captain, but not that much of a strain, the Miranda is surprisingly durable they knew how to build them in the 23rd Century, the ship was built for many modifications and upgrades, but even such a ship has a time and as mentioned previously this ship is nearing the end," Sharpe said.

"I see," Franklin said, "Thank you Mr. Sharpe."

Hirsch stood helping T'Pri and then Sam with the medics. Helping them assess and then move gently as the personnel had begun to flow into the holodeck as the situation progressed.

"It will be ok," Calvin said to T'Pri and Sam. "The Medics are here now."

A terrified Ky'La, knees were drawn tight to her chest, was cowering in a corner as her head kept repeating the words that told the ending of the story of murder. She needed Michael to give her the strength that he always could do.

Michael knelt down in front of his bride-to-be, although in betazoid law they were Imzadi, Micheal said " It's ok love, I'm here" as he put his arms around her shoulders. continued," Take some of my strength I am not leaving your side,"

Kicil guided the medics and went over to Ky'La and knelt next to her, she took one of the medical tricorders a medic had given her and did a quick scan. "You will be okay Commander De'Lenn, however Medical orders from me, and being officially logged is that you see Commander Shakura. I can assure you I will also be seeing her since I apparently froze and do not recall doing so." With that, she touched the Commander on the shoulder and gently guided her.

Perkins gave a groan.

“ …..Gran Cuthbert started it…..” Perkins said in an unconscious stupor.

It was finally over. The Captain observed his crew as they were in their general phases of recovery. He sighed, spent and tired. This was just a horrible fluke, he hoped.

[OFF]

-----------

Lieutenant Commander Sam Perkins
Chief Science Officer
USS Poseidon

&

Lieutenant Kicil Priadden
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Poseidon

&

Captain Franklin Johnson
Commanding Officer
USS Poseidon

&

Lieutenant Commander Paul Sharpe
Chief Engineer
USS Poseidon

&

Lieutenant Commander T'Pri
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Poseidon

&

LT Cmdr Micheal Stevens
Chief Ops
USS Poseidon

&

Lieutenant Commander Calvin Hirsch
Chief of Security
USS Poseidon

&

Lieutenant Miles O'Connell
Deputy Chief of Engineering
USS Poseidon

&

Lt Cmdr Ky'La De'Lenn
Chief Flight Officer
USS Poseidon

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