A Mess of Things
Posted on Tue Aug 11th, 2026 @ 3:28am by Ensign Henry Taylor & Petty Officer 2nd Class Quinn Sullivan & Petty Officer 2nd Class Peter Kozlowski & Ensign Lavan McGee & Petty Officer 1st Class Kael Draven & Petty Officer 2nd Class Trisha Reyes & Crewman Erika Yang & Tessa di'Orion & Michelle Erilin
4,141 words; about a 21 minute read
Mission:
Die Hard: Chimera Edition (main)
Location: Mess Hall
Peter heard the sound of his own groans from a bit of a distance, followed by someone uttering the cliche, "he's coming around." Consciousness came rushing back, and he sat up abruptly, pulling a huge lungful of air and rubbing his sore chest. "Goddamn that hurt," he said, coughing.
"And why you did something so dumb, I'll never be able to tell and I'm an empath!" Michelle said stubbornly from behind Erika, who had the pride of place next to Peter. "Men, always thinking they have to save the day and wind up getting themselves hurt while doing it."
"What was that? 'Thanks for trying to stop them from locking us up'? Kinda hard to hear with the ringing in my ears. You're welcome, though," Peter groaned. He turned and sat on the edge of the table they'd put him on and looked up to see Erika watching him. "Oh...hey..." he said, suddenly self-conscious.
“Hey,” she replied. “They got me in sickbay. Caught me by surprise. No one was hurt though.”
Peter let out a sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "Well, not good they grabbed you, I mean. I'm glad you're okay," he said. He licked his lips and pulled himself to his feet, wincing slightly. "How long have I been out?"
"About twenty-ish minutes or so." Michelle said confidently, "Then Erika came in and was able to do more for you than I could. All I could do was try to make you a bit more comfortable. Sorry."
"Thank you both," he said, looking at Michelle, then a longer look at Erika. "All right, let's see if we can get out of here." He beckoned them to follow and walked over to the other group near the door.
Lavan moaned, coming around himself.
"Take it easy for a moment, Ensign," he heard someone say, and he looked to see ship's quartermaster Trisha Reyes next to him.
"Ugh, what happened?" Lavan asked. "Last thing I remember, I was talking with a couple of the station technicians. They kept asking when we were going to be leaving, and seemed to be getting annoyed when I wasn't practically racing out the door after they asked for the umpteenth time."
"I'm not sure," Trisha replied. "Ran into a couple of those technicians myself when I was finishing up a couple of things with Cargo Bay 1, and we were making small talk when suddenly I woke up here." She paused for a moment, then added, "The ones I was talking to seemed surprised for a moment when they first saw me. It may be nothing, but it does kind of stand out now after you mentioned the ones you were talking to seemed annoyed with you being here."
Michelle had moved away from Erika and Peter, a smug feeling inside from the show she'd put on, but wanted to check on everything else, "Peter and I were clearing out my bar with the more unique items when three of them came to us. I don't know why they started to threaten us.. I'm pretty sure they aren't engineers, though." She said with a slight laugh.
"Yes indeed," Lavan said wryly. "Or at the very least they're engineers with plans that definitely do not include running a Baryon Sweep on the Chimera any time soon." He looked around, trying to take a quick count of who was in the mess hall while trying to remember who among the shut-down crew still hadn't checked out yet when he had been so unceremoniously attacked. There were still a few less people in the room than he remembered from those who should still have been on board. Noticing that they still had their comm badges, he tapped his. "McGee to Taylor," he said, noting that the ship's head nurse was not among the crowd. Nothing. "McGee to Draven," he then said, as the boatswain (one of the individuals who should have been in the last group off the ship) was also conspicuously absent. Nothing still.
"I can't raise anyone either, sir," someone reported.
"The doors also aren't responding," someone else replied.
"Well, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised on either count," Lavan said. "When taking over a ship, restricting both communications and the ability to move about freely are two major courses of action."
"Well, let's see if we can screw with at least one of those," Peter said, approaching them. "They've got an override device on the door, so even if we get to the controls, we can't override. I'm guessing they've also sealed the emergency exits to keep us in here. So, we have food replicators, tables, chairs, light fixtures and no tools. Any ideas?"
"We could get ready to bash them over the head when they come in." Michelle mused, "Risky, yeah, but better than sitting here and just waiting, don't you think?"
"Not necessarily a good idea, at least not without more information about who we're up against," Lavan said. "Unknown number of people coming in, in an unknown formation." He glanced over at Michelle. "You're half-Betazoid, right? i realize that means that your empathic abilities aren't the same as a full Betazoid, but any chance on getting any sort of a read on anyone else on the ship, or at least anyone approaching our location? Numbers, or even intent, in the off-chance they might be friendlies?"
"Normally I would need to be in visual sight of someone to be able to sense them, unless they're fully telepathic... But I can try." Michelle closed her eyes and 'reached out' with her empathic sense before placing her hand on the door to try to sense anything. To be truthful, she did feel... Something out there, anxiety, excitement, concern. The problem was that she couldn't tell how many people were out there, and those emotions weren't necessarily precluding different people. She shook her head, "I don't know, Ensign, I'm sorry.. Someone out there is nervous about something, worried even, but I don't know how many or anything more than that."
"Well, it was worth a try. Thank you," Lavan said. He looked around. There wasn't much to work with, not in terms of making an escape. He wondered if they could somehow force the doors open, but knew it would be challenging even under the best of circumstances. Even standard doors on a starship were designed to hold securely as a safety measure in case of sudden decompression and exposure to space caused by a hull breach. Transporters were already down - they'd been among the first things taken off-line when the shutdown procedure had started. Perhaps ambushing anyone who came in through the doors, as Michelle had suggested, might be the way to do it, but there was still the chance of there being an unknown number of them, plus the likely chance of not having a sufficient enough advance warning to be able to get set up anyway.
"Any other thoughts?" Lavan asked. "Could we use the food replicators to replicate something, like, say, eating utensils, that could be modified to do something else?"
Peter was listening to the conversation with only half an ear. The door override device looked to be fairly basic. With even minimal tools we could break into it. Of course, there's the small problem of it being on the other side of the door. He stared at the door, trying to see the device attached to it through the bulkhead.
"Good idea," he said, turning towards McGee. "I need a butterknife, two forks, a spoon, and a bowl of Idanian spice pudding," he said, turning to the others.
Tessa and Henry might have made faster progress had they not constantly been jockeying for position. Henry's reasoning was that being taller, he could see ahead better. Tessa had countered that with him in the way, she had less of a clear shot. While he didn't disagree, he wasn't about to let her put herself in harm's way if he had anything to say about it. They'd settled for each taking a side of the corridor, Henry on the inside, Tessa on the outside with the most room to aim.
They approached the Mess hall carefully, hearing voices whispering between each other. Henry held his phaser up and gestured for Tessa to approach slowly.
Footwork was important to archery and she carefully crossed her steps over, drawing to a full draw and prepared to shoot one of the stun arrows. She'd been looking forward to using them for real and this would probably be her best opportunity.
As they came around the corner, Henry saw the two targets and immediately put a hand out, shouting "woah, hold your fire!" both to Tessa and to the other pair.
Quinn and Kael stood opposite the medical duo, weapons drawn and aimed. Quinn immediately stood down, glad he didn't have to fire. He hated weapons. "Did you see any other guards?" he said.
Henry shook his head. "Not since I shook mine. I sent him to the bridge and sealed it with a medical quarantine."
Tessa scowled she relaxed the bowstring, but didn't un-nock the arrow, just in case, "Why do you guys get to have all the fun? I've got a mind to let you boys stick together while I go and have a bit of a hunt."
"I promise you and I will be doing plenty of hunting shortly," Henry said.
Kael lowered his phaser with a relieved sigh.
“Okay... can we all agree that almost stunning each other should count as this week's emergency drill?”
He clipped the phaser back onto his belt and looked between Henry and Tessa.
“Good news, you're both alive. Better news, you brought backup. Best news, Tessa didn't put an arrow through my shoulder because apparently I have terrible timing.”
He nodded toward Henry. “Nice thinking with the medical quarantine. Quinn and I just scared three boarders out of the shuttlebay with a fake decompression alarm, an escaped science lizard, and... honestly, I still don't know how that worked.”
His attention shifted to Tessa, who still had an arrow nocked.
“I admire the enthusiasm,” Kael said with a grin. “But let's try to keep the hunting limited to the people shooting at us. I'd hate to explain to the Captain that we survived a hostile takeover only to be taken out by friendly archery.”
He glanced down the corridor.
“From what we can tell, this isn't just a few random intruders. They've picked the perfect time to board while ninety percent of the crew's off the ship. We need to stick together, keep moving, and find anyone else who hasn't been rounded up.”
He looked at the group with a determined smile.
“So... who's ready to go steal our own ship back?”
Peter had jabbed the butterknife into the side of the panel and wrenched it open. The forks had sacrificed their tines to become tools, and the bowl of pudding had been consumed quickly as he worked. He was rearranging circuits, Lavan assisting, and finally sat back. "All right...this replicator is thoroughly broken," he said.
"And how is that supposed to help us?" Lavan asked.
"Well, broken the way I want it," he said, grinning. "I've modified the reintegration pattern buffer to act as a mini transporter. Replicate some paper and a stylus and we can beam a message out into the corridor."
“And then?” Erika asked.
"Well, either the people out there are friend, or they're foe," Peter said. "If they're friendly, we send a message that a human would recognize and know what to do with. If they're hostiles, they might come in to investigate, and we go with Michelle's plan to jump them."
Peter looked around the group. "Best case scenario, we can communicate with them how to disable the door lock. Worst case, our captors are idiots and don't even come inside to check on us and we're no worse off. Who's on board?"
"From what little I read," Lavan said, "the technological level of the locals is quite a few years behind current Federation technological levels, and it's also likely that these particular people grabbed whatever they're using to lock the doors off of whatever passes for the black market around here. As such, it shouldn't be too hard to disable the mechanism. As far as addressing the situation if our intended captors come in here instead, brawling is not the best option. The element of surprise will be our best weapon by far."
“I think it could work,” Erika said to Peter. “Put me however you want me.”
Peter looked at her for a long moment and couldn't help but grin. He stood up and grabbed her, giving her a kiss and then stepping back, clearing his throat. "Okay, Erika, I need you to replicate me a stylus and two pieces of paper." He turned to the others, looking at Lavan. "I need you and anyone else who's good at wrestling to stand by the door, ready to jump anyone who comes in if they aren't one of us. I think I know how to figure out if it's a friendly or not."
Erika rushed to another replicator and got him what he asked for.
Peter sat back down and continued to tweak his half-disassembled replicator until Erika came back with the materials. "Great," he said, taking one piece of paper and quickly writing a note. He checked he wrote it correctly, folded it up, and stuck it into the replication bay. "All right, either grab something to fight with, or get hidden. Here goes nothing," he said. He put two wires together and the replicator hummed to life and the paper disappeared.
In the corridor, the sound of a transporter briefly interrupted the conversation and a piece of paper appeared in the air near them and fluttered to the ground.
Quinn picked it up as it landed near him and opened it up. His brow furrowed and he looked at the others. "It says, 'shave and a haircut.'"
Tessa giggled as the memory of a cartoon she’d watched the other day came back into her head, it was the bunny again, “Shave and a haircut, two bits!” She sang the little ditty, twice before giggling again, smile wide, “But why would they send this? Maybe it’s a passcode?”
"No, it's that knock," Kael said. "That bum-bah-dah-bum-bum thing."
Quinn looked at them both like they were speaking a foreign language, but Henry got the idea and raised a fist, hitting the mess hall doors hard in the "shave and a haircut: two bits" rhythm. Centuries old, and as familiar to most Terrans as S.O.S.
A moment later, another piece of paper appeared in the air. Henry grabbed it and opened it. "It says, 'Hallelujah, stand by' with hallelujah spelled wrong."
"Looks like they can communicate with us," Kael said.
"Or at least send us messages," Henry said, thinking. "Okay, let's split up. You two stay here, help whoever's in there figure out how to get them out. I need to get to the bridge to unlock the quarantine and get it secure." He turned to Tessa, "join me?"
Tessa's eyes glittered as she extended her hand to him, "I would love to. Finally, we can have some fun!"
Henry took her hand and gave Kael a pat on the shoulder on the way past as they took off, heading for a Jeffries tube to get them closer to the vertical shaft to the bridge.
Kael watched Henry and Tessa disappear down the corridor before looking back at Quinn, then down at the two slips of paper.
“Well... this day just keeps getting weirder.”
He took the second note from Henry's hand before he'd gotten too far and looked at the misspelled word.
“'Hallelujah' spelled wrong...” He scratched the side of his head. “Either whoever's sending these is in a hurry... or they're trying to tell us something.”
He folded the paper and tucked it into a pocket.
“Henry's right. Somebody's trying to communicate with us, and if they're trapped in there, they're probably one of the few people left aboard who isn't wearing a fake engineering uniform.”
Kael stepped toward the mess hall doors and glanced at Quinn.
“Well... no pressure. We've already survived hostage-takers, an escaped science experiment, and I almost vented the shuttlebay into space.”
He smiled.
“Let's see if we can add 'breaking into our own mess hall' to the list without blowing anything up this time.”
Peter sat back in his seat and let out a breath. It worked. "Okay," he said to himself, "first hurdle over. We know they're human. Now, how do we talk with them?"
"If we can beam one more message out," Lavan said, "we only need to tell them to remove the locking mechanism on the door. My main concern is that the mechanism itself could be one of two things. Either it's just a basic variety and can be removed without too much effort, or it's a more complicated version that may have some sort of explosive attached to it that would detonate if tampered with. Don't suppose anyone happened to get a look at it as they were brought in here?"
“I was really just trying not to get shot,” Erika admitted.
"Did better at that than I did," Peter muttered.
Peter shrugged. "I don't remember much from when I got stunned, but the casing was covering up any good look at it. Besides, I'm pretty sure "remove the lock" would be one of the first things they think of. We can send them all the messages in the world, but we don't have a way for them to send one back about what they're dealing with."
Michelle closed her eyes as she visualized the outside of the door as they approached, "Blocky with a cipher lock on it. I didn't get a look at the code when they punched it in to open it, because one of them shoved me, but it was a six digit code, I can tell you that much."
“What about…” Erika said, thinking. “My brothers used to have these two-way transceiver toys. They didn’t work like communicators though. More like short-wave radios.” She smiled at a memory. “They worked even when the comm network went down. If we could replicate two, and beam one to them…”
Peter stared at her, then at Lavan. "Well....we're fuckin' idiots aren't we....radios. Huh. Comm jams wouldn't operate on such a primitive frequency....I think...." He got up and jogged over to the working replicator and overrode its protocols, accessing engineering lists. A moment later he came back with two small rectangles in his hand. "All right, take this," he said, tossing one to Erika.
She caught it and nodded.
He ran back to the other side of the mess hall and put one to his head, turning his back to her. He pressed the button and said quietly, "the password is your favorite color."
She remembered the little devices all too well. The radio in her hand was so much like the one her brothers used. She held down the side button to activate the microphone and transmitter. “You know it’s blue. Over.”
Peter smiled turned, running back to her and kissing her. "You are brilliant," he said. He took her radio and put it in the modified replicator and pressed the button. Once it vanished, he held his up to his mouth and hit the button. "This is Kozlowski. Identify yourself."
In the corridor, Quinn picked up the radio that had appeared and fell to the floor. He looked at Kael and pressed the button. "Sullivan and Draven," he said, simply.
Peter let out a sigh. The Ghost. Better than nothing. "Quinn, we need to disable whatever's keeping the door sealed. It's overriding the sensors and the manual release. We need you two to get the cover off if you can and see if we can deactivate it. Michelle said it had a six-digit code."
Lavan leaned over to the radio. "This is Ensign McGee from security. The outer casing shouldn't be difficult to remove, but once it's off give me a visual description of what you're seeing in the device itself before touching anything. Once I have an idea of what we're dealing with I should be able to talk you through deactivating it."
"Right, and check to see if it's booby-trapped," Peter said.
“And if they’ve seen any patrols around,” Erika offered. “Wouldn’t do if they got caught.”
"Yeah, also good point, have you seen any of those fake workers around?" Peter said, then realized they couldn't respond until he let go of the button. "Over."
Quinn had handed off the radio to Kael and was looking over the device. "No obvious traps," he said, touching the casing carefully.
Kael pressed the button. "Quinn says no obvious traps. Haven't seen any of the hostiles around. That cute nurse and her boyfriend were here but they've gone to take care of the bridge. I think she's gearing up to shoot someone. Over."
Peter looked at Erika, both of them knowing immediately who he was talking about. "Yeah that follows," Peter said, then hit the button. "Okay, see if you can remove the case and give us an idea of what's underneath. Over."
Quinn took a breath and looked the casing over. It was jet black, simple, and there was a keypad in front. He frowned as something caught his eye. He tilted his head and looked again, then looked from the other side, then from below.
Kael looked at him and worried the guy might be cracking. "So can you open it?"
"Only bottom button on the keypad has been touched," Quinn said. "They never changed the password from factory setting." He tapped the bottom symbol six times. There was a beep and a click as the cover unlatched. Quinn removed it quickly and handed it to Kael before looking at the contents. His eyebrows flew up. "It's...a maglock."
"That's it?" Kael said.
Quinn reached in and pulled the lock's power source, deactivating the magnetic restrictor. He detached the locking mechanism and hit the side panel, the doors opening obediently.
"All right!" Michelle cheered as the doors opened onto their rescuers, then turned around to the rest of the prisoners, "All right everyone, let's get to the shuttlebay, I want us to stay together, Ensign," She turned to Lavan, "Can you take the lead?"
"Yes, ma'am, Lavan said with a wink.
Peter jumped up and ran to the door with the others. "I should get to Engineering," he said. "If I can figure out how they're blocking communications, I might be able to get around it.
“I’ll come with you,” said Erika.
"You should get out with the others," Peter said.
“Bullshit.” Erika crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You don’t know what you need to do down there yet. You might need extra hands. I’m coming with you,” she added firmly.
"Well I know better than to argue with that tone," Peter said. "All right, we'll head to Engineering."
"You want one of the radios?" Kael said.
"If I can get the communications system back online, I won't need it," Peter said. "And if I can't, you'll need them to evacuate."
Kael shrugged. "All right, good luck."
Peter nodded at them, then gave Michelle a peck on the cheek. "Thanks for everything, and good luck." He nodded to Erika and ran down the corridor.
Michelle blushed pink after Peter kissed her on the cheek, but sent him a scowl with a glance at Erika, wanting to apologize to her for that.
Erika’s brow furrowed as she watched Peter kiss Michelle, but then followed him at a run toward engineering.
The team encountered no other individuals on the way to the shuttlebay. Entering, Lavan said, "Mr. Sullivan, if you would be so kind as to procure us a shuttle for immediate departure? And if I could have someone get on both the shuttle's comm systems once the shuttle is ready. I want to be able to contact both our people on the elevator as well as on the surface once communications become available. If we were hit here, the others in those may be in similar danger, and I want to be able to coordinate things at the very least."
"The Orthrus and the Ladon have been ready for hours," Quinn said. "All we need to do is load everyone and take off." He activated both hatches and they began loading everyone aboard to make their escape.
RSS Feed