Lifeforce: A Star Trek Discovery Horror Story

The Falling Night

Wilco Colony Operations Center

Planet: Tobe VI

Night was falling on Wilco by the time Landry arrived. The little Gilmore-class courier had made a looping pass over the colony, giving her an expansive view of the world still in the midst of terraforming. It was beautiful in its own way, she supposed, with hundreds of kilometers of farmland stretching out in great spokes from a modest urban center. Endless rows of crops teemed with automated tenders and harvesters, mindlessly, ceaselessly doing the work necessary to help feed the spreading Federation. Beyond the massive plots of farmland, ringing the colony and creating a border between the terraformed land and the still-poisonous wasteland were kilometers of coniferous forest, dutifully exhaling the oxygen that sustained the inhabitants of Wilco.

The Operations Center was 73-story tower in the center of the urban hub, and at the top was an enormous command center that looked to be staffed by close to fifty or so people, all doing the work necessary to keep the colony running smoothy. The Chief Administrator's office, just off of it, was an oasis of calm by contrast. The orange light of sunset flooded through the windows, bathing the elegant, but understated room in a warm, autumnal glow, and deepening the honey-blonde highlights of Doctor Christine May, the colony's Primary Administrator.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," she said, slightly breathlessly. "As you can imagine the last few hours have been...well, busy doesn't quite capture it. Maybe surreal is a better word? However you choose to describe it, it's more than we can take on here." May pinched the bridge of her nose. She had strong Nordic features—right down to the upturned ski-jump of a nose—and she was probably beautiful under other circumstances, but at this moment, her ice-blue eyes were red-rimmed and bleary, and portion of her honey-colored hair had escaped its practical braid and made commas around her cheeks.

"One riot, one Ranger," Landry shrugged. "The Yamanaka, what's happened?"

May shook her head. "Hopefully, you can find out for us. She dropped out of warp last night—about eighteen hours ago—without any warning or communications with the colony. It's systems appeared to be automated."

"A ghost ship?" Landry raised an eyebrow. She'd reviewed the data on the USS Yamanaka on the trip over. She was a pocket-sized Magee-class research vessel with a crew of 83 and assigned to outer edge of the quadrant with no reason to be visiting or even passing near Wilco. Her skipper was an intense-looking woman named Gloria Paredes, who hailed from Luzan, Earth. According to her personnel file Captain Paredes was 34 and driven--a fiercely intelligent Science officer who'd served with distinction on a half-dozen vessels before receiving her own commission. There was no record of erratic or insubordinate behavior.

"For all intents and purposes, yes," Doctor May nodded. "We didn't find any lifesigns when we scanned the ship, What we did find...well, the readings were like nothing any of our scientists have seen before. Granted, Lieutenant, we're an agricultural colony, so our people don't have a heavy background in xeno-biology, but we've all dabbled some—you can't work at a colony and not have a basic familiarity with examining alien lifeforms. But what we found...what was on Yamanaka..." Doctor May visibly shuddered and looked out the bank of windows. The deepening shadows carved dark lines and angles into her face. She inhaled sharply through her nose, then looked back to Landry.

"It's...easier to show you."