Dream No More

• Real Life Date: 9th - 12th of January 

• Stardate: 93023.6

• Archive Link

Starbase 777 was sent to investigate a science outpost that mysteriously reactivated after over one hundred years in the darkness— a moon called Capere, once a rich place for study, now overgrown with the thick, fleshy substance that made up the planet’s surface.

Poking around with a console revealed it was somehow active, though with no input from the away team they were swiftly separated into two groups by a lockdown system. Digging in further revealed attempts made by previous landing parties to contact the outpost to no avail— the only response being an ominous warning to ‘not let “it" take them’... With no other option, the away team went down separate paths. 

One group went to the engineering hub, finding sinew and machinery tangled in unholy matrimony; diagnostics showed the life support systems intact, with some power outages, with the most peculiar occurrence being spikes of power activity perfectly timed with the occasional shuddering pulses of the flesh, and the mysterious echoing of one of the officers’ voices. A half-corrupted log mentioned an incident report, and with some digging, they were able to uncover the report itself; hinting at some sort of growth that outgrew its enclosure, with no casualties mentioned. 

They moved on to the sickbay, the echoes of their colleagues still following them, uncovering a report on some sort of infection— a parasitic mass that slowly consumes its host, able to puppet its host while keeping it alive and semi-conscious. Removing the mass was non-viable, and phasers were practically useless as well. The source of the voices soon made itself clear; a shambling, flesh-covered husk, gargling out apologies and begs for the officers to stop as they opened fire, soon collapsing the ceiling on top of it. With their exit blocked, they moved through the vents. 

Not much of note was found in the briefing room covered in overgrowth. Under the tissue was a half-digested leg, some improvised weaponry, and a shattered old PADD. Evidently, the fleshy infection was preserving its food so it wouldn't rot before it was done consuming, allowing it to use the energy to spread further. 

The other group began in the oddly clean mess hall (if you ignored the meat), deciding to try fixing up an old replicator to test how it reacted to organic matter. They tossed a bit of meat to the ground, and within a matter of minutes, it was under a very thin layer of viscera being ‘digested’. The officers within the hall theorized that the virus was dormant until the building of the outpost, or it was surviving off of alternate energy sources (minerals, self-cannibalization), but the beef had been consumed, and it was time to move on. 

The crew quarters had mostly been glued shut, save for one room with evidence of a struggle now perfectly preserved beneath the flesh. Some digging revealed the PADD of an engineer, security measures stripped by force— as the group listened to her last message, it became abundantly clear that she'd left it in hopes someone would find it. The final survivor, hearing the voices of her fallen friends and preparing one last stand. One that was, by the looks of it, wholly unsuccessful.

Whatever stars may have streamed through the observatory’s windows had been blocked out by flesh. The officers’ attempts at creeping by unseen were soon proved futile, and they were ambushed by two of the zombies, exposing a few of their own to the virus lingering in the outpost before being put out of their misery. The bodies were dead, but the infection still remained.

The split party reconnected and entered the labs as one united force, spotting a pulsing, spherical mass of tissue that could be assumed as the virus’ “heart”. The away team was faced with an encounter with the husks of what once had been the outpost’s officers, now hollowed out with only the virus left alive inside. Again, they divided; one group keeping the creatures at bay as the other furiously sawed at the central mass, before it fell to the ground, and the living dead… were finally allowed to rest.