View from Above

Posted on Sun May 17th, 2026 @ 3:04pm by Captain Rovak & Colonel Ashaan Vhau & Lieutenant JG O'Raan & Lieutenant Commander Intharia T'Zor & Lieutenant Asami Sugimoto & Lieutenant Michael Mazur & Lieutenant Yosef Zabaan & Lieutenant Palatos & Lieutenant Ulloriaq & Lieutenant JG Kraz Closhé

2,032 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: UnderMind [4]
Location: USS Faraday - Dreizhen III Surface
Timeline: MD04 - 1515

O’Raan ran so hard and so desperately that he hadn’t even noticed that he was still running when he was beamed onto the transport pad, and bounded ahead into the wall. The surprised transporter staff rushed to help him.

“No, get the others! They’re right behind me!” O’Raan ordered, waving them back.

He waited for the transporter to flare up again as he caught his breath, and held the tender part of his face that hit the wall.

“Lieutenant, we’re not reading anyone else. Bridge, can you confirm?” Lieutenant Closhé asked from the transporter controls.

“Confirmed, nobody else has left the structure.” Ulloriaq confirmed from the bridge.

“Oh goddess, no.” O’Raan cursed quietly, the thought of the horror below having taken them was almost too much for him. “We have to go back for them!”

“Mr O’Raan, we’ve got insectoids approaching from the tunnel, lots of them. How do you suggest we proceed?” Came Ulloriaq’s voice over his combadge.

O’Raan snapped suddenly back into tense, combat-ready position. “Those things are brutal, mindless killers. No sense of self-preservation. Commander Creon’s orders were to fire with lethal force if they approach.” He explained honestly.

Ulloriaq heard the suggestion, but she didn’t like it. “Get us off the ground, now.” She ordered, and a few moments later the ramp was retracted and the ship was ascending. It was outside the reach of the warrior bugs now, and they seemed to form a pile atop one another, growing slowly as they heaved innumerably from the spire. The science team immediately began to review the data, presenting profiles on the great walking jaw that was dubbed by the system as the warrior bug.

The numbers of them immediately made Ulloriaq wonder if she hadn’t made a mistake.

“Ma’am, we’re detecting flyers, coming in at mark 285. On-screen.” Another variety of bug appeared, like the warrior below, but with wings, a jewel-green tinge and an aerodynamic cousin-form to the ground-based warrior, an assembly of jaws and claws. A massive cloud of the things was emerging in a horrifying thick column that came towards the Faraday.

“Engage sonic repulsors. Deploy any and all non-lethal countermeasures.”

The countermeasures deployed, but nothing slowed the approach.

Despite the shield shocking and eventually killing them within the space of two minutes of their exposure to it, the flying bugs grabbed, hacked and bit at the shield with every last ounce of tenacity, clinging to it eagerly. And slowly, even as they disintegrated against it, the bugs began to erode the Faraday’s shield with their furious swarming energy. 99%. 98%.

“Fire on all flyers!” Ulloriaq finally ordered. “Get us out of here!”

The phasers lanced out from within the swarm that had ensconced the Faraday’s shields, causing great thick rows of the flying bugs to fall dead. The ship rose and moved away, moving more sluggishly from the sheer weight of the ever-growing swarm of flying bugs.

After further phaser barrages put another few dozen of the creatures down, they suddenly stopped, abandoning the shield-surface immediately. “Where are they going?” Other than the number of them that had fallen, nothing seemed to change. Maybe that was what it took, what they called ‘the Vulcan hello’?

“I’m reading another creature emerging from directly below.” To review the site where it emerged, it seemed the warriors had started digging down to it when unable to reach the Faraday.

“I’m reading a massive energy buildup, ma’am it’s firing something!” The helm officer explained with shock.

“Evasive –“ Before Ulloriaq could get the order out, a plasma bug below had deployed a single shot of its interstellar artillery that had grazed the side of the Faraday, blasting away its shields and puncturing the portside nacelle and strut. The ship was suddenly accelerated upwards, it lingered on a few more spiralling kilometers before power failed completely, and it fell from the sky, supported at the last moment by the manual thrusters and inertial dampeners to ensure a soft landing, even if it did land upside down.

---

CIC - DS13
1525

“What do we know about this atmospheric effect?” Rovak asked from the CIC’s centre chair as he turned from the latest projections he was reviewing at the nearby Tactical Screen.

“It’s some sort of plasma storm Captain, but it doesn’t match anything in our experience. Its disruptive effect is profound. Scanners simply cannot penetrate it, and it is spreading.” Lieutenant Palatos explained in his distinctive Ligonian accent. “We may shortly lose contact with the surface teams."

As if prompted, Commander T’Zor was received from the surface. "T'Zor to DS13. We've just received a distress call from Captain Palamas, he reported damage to the Faraday. We're also seeing some kind of atmospheric effect we don't recognise. Can you provide any insight?" Intharia asked as she tapped her combadge.

"We haven't received it, T'Zor. Planetary interference remains significant. We're just coming up on visual range of the Faraday's last location, but whatever this new atmospheric phenomenon is it's interfering with our sensors even further, we've got visual only. Just a moment." Commander Frak responded.

“Lieutenant Zabaan, how long until we have visual?” Rovak asked for what must have been the tenth time in five minutes.

“Coming into focus now, sir.” The human told the Captain.

"Commander, we can see the Faraday, it looks to have taken heavy damage to the port nacelle, it's currently upside down. No sign of the crew on scopes. We're also seeing what looks like.. the remains of a Valkyrie fighter. High-speed impact from the wreckage dispersal. We're trying to get a better picture. We'll keep you updated as soon as we know anything." Frak explained.

The visual of the area was stark, there were possibly thousands of bug corpses around the area where the Faraday had risen, and even more still shuffling together, a massive army of warriors swarmed around a single massive bug with a luminous inner rear, significantly more massive than its forequarters. Like a firefly with a living warp core fuelling its fire.

Many more were also digging in the sand, there were three significant dig sites where the bugs circled below.

“Commander,” Frak alerted Rovak, “We’ve just lost contact with the surface teams.”

Below, the massive glowing bug pointed itself at the sky, its rear began to bulge and swell, the glow within grew brighter and more intense, a lethal aurora of pressurised interstellar plasma which finally burst out in a shimmering projectile, flying fast into the sky, aimed with tactical precision.

“Captain, plasma artillery detected, coming directly at the station!”

“Shields.” Rovak ordered calmly but with volume.

Silence for a moment, then a thud throughout the station and a slight shift in gravity, not enough to spill a drink, but enough to make you notice. Several emitters were browning out, the outer shield came back imperfectly.

“Shields down to 73%!” Zabaan explained from tactical.

“Ms Sugimoto, activate navigational thrusters, get us out of the range of the artillery.”

“Captain we’re detecting more of the plasma bugs emerging from the dig sites.” Palatos explained as his teams confirmed it.

“I want every shuttle aboard active and taking observations over Dreizhen III, with immediate priority to the Faraday crash site. We need to maintain visual oversight of the areas where teams are deployed.” Rovak instructed.

“Mr Zabaan, while we’re moving out of its path, please see what happens when you attempt to strike the artillery creature with a phaser at battle strength.” Rovak instructed.

“Calibrating from visual. Firing.” Zabaan hit the button, and the beam lanced down from outer Charlie dock. As it struck the atmospheric phenomenon it refracted, still passing through the atmosphere but scattered in multiple directions as it went down, striking a ring of targets surrounding the intended target. “Negative impact. Trying again.” The same splitting of the beam into chaotic fragments that annihilated small areas up to a hundred kilometers away.

“Captain, we can’t guarantee accurate phaser fire through the effect.” Zabaan cautioned.

“Photon torpedo, level 2 yield. Target the artillery source.” Rovak moved on to his next concept.

“Armed, sir.” Zabaan came back.

“Fire.”

The glowing orb launched from Charlie dock’s arm, and soared with precision towards the atmosphere, but once it struck the strange storm, its glow died and it fell, a useless hunk of composites and high explosives. It fell and smashed, unexploded in the sands, days away from its target.

“A self-sustaining plasma storm as a planetary containment shield. These creatures appear to be equipped for interplanetary warfare.” Rovak noted.

"Smart bugs." Commander Onda observed, standing between two of the terminals near the front of the round end of the command mezzanine.

“Sir, Commander T’Zor’s runabouts are leaving Shitau.”

“Monitor them closely. Attempt every available form of communication.”

“Station is now out of plasma range based on best estimates. Thrusters on standby in case further corrections are required." Lieutenant Sugimoto explained.

“Sir, we have a count from below. 15,732 warrior bugs. Three plasma bugs. Unconfirmed but approximately 5,000 flying bugs. They’re continuing to bombard the atmosphere.” Palatos told the Captain.

“What happens if that storm intensifies?” Rovak asked.

“No way to know, sir.” Palatos said

“First shuttles are away, sir. We’ll have planetary visuals restored within the hour.” Sugimoto assured the Captain.

“Good. I want R&D to drop what they're doing and focus on finding a way to mitigate the interference.” Rovak instructed.

"I'll give them the news, sir." Lieutenant Michael Mazur said with no small amount of dread. R&D were sensitive, but Mazur knew how to talk to them.

"Tactical, coordinate with science to identify potential dispersal methods for the plasma storm. Ensure that deleterious environmental impacts are not an option."

"Aye sir, but respectfully, we don't know that what's happening right now isn't a massively deleterious environmental impact. If this is a form of atmospheric ignition, the entire surface could burn if we don't stop it."

"Then provide methods that may not exclude environmental impacts also." Rovak agreed.

"Sir." Zabaan said, standing to move down to Palatos.

Rovak swiveled the command chair around and walked back down the gangway towards his office. As he got off the command mezzanine, he saw the doors ahead open, and the man he was going to see coming towards him.

"Colonel Vhau, just the man I was looking for."

"Sir, always happy to be sought. Boys were saying you've had a bit of a bug problem. Would you believe it, I happen to know a few fellas with access to firearms, even out this far." Vhau said in his slow, dryly sarcastic-yet-sincere way.

"Indeed Colonel. I appreciate the assistance, but the creatures have somehow deployed an atmospheric plasma storm. Given its effects on weaponry and sensors, I will not send any craft through without further testing."

"Well, if all that doesn't work out, Captain Nema and her team are on assignment to the Faraday, they were planning on doing some tactical exercises. I don't think she's going to be happy if she doesn't get a chance to show off what she can do."

"I didn't hear about that assignment." Rovak said, looking almost surprised. It wasn't as though he heard a lot about marines, generally.

"No, you probably didn't. Commander Creon approved it. They were supposed to be training on the Hercules, but it was unavailable. She didn't want to bother you with it." Vhau said with no sense of hurry.

"Indeed. Colonel, what would you say to the idea of me asking our guest Mr Volsunga about his opinion on our situation, and possible solutions?"

"I'd say 'yes please'. I'd shed actual blood to have him in one of my squads. Even just on Overwatch. Not much blood though. And not mine. But still, I've never shed blood for a recruit before. Never had to. Hoping I won't." Vhau said in a casual deadpan.

"A thought for later, Colonel. If you will excuse me, I must consult. Our guest can still say no."

"Oh, absolutely, sir." Vhau said, standing to the side and gesturing past himself.

 

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