Where Light Drowns

Chen Shen stared at the pulsating prompt: > SECURITY OVERRIDE: ________. Below it, the hybrid emblem – the sleek Starfleet delta merging uneasily with the brutal angles of the Klingon sigil – felt like a warning. Behind him, the muffled thumps and electronic screeches from the sealed workshop had ceased, replaced by an eerie, absolute silence. The HEMU was either contained by the emergency protocol or… biding its time. His arm pulsed, a sickening counterpoint to his frantic heartbeat. The coldness WALI warned of was spreading, a creeping numbness threatening to swallow him whole.

Zebra.

The word echoed from the dying workstation, Kirk's desperate, corrupted fragment. A gamble. A leap into the unknown. But staying here meant bleeding out on the cold floor or being found by the HEMU when it inevitably overrode the radiological lockout. Gritting his teeth against a wave of nausea, Chen Shen lifted his trembling right hand towards the keypad. His fingers felt clumsy, distant.

"…Chen Shen… inadvisable…" WALI's voice was thin, laced with static, like a failing radio signal. "…Unknown… systems… potential… trap… Vital… signs…"

"No choice," he rasped, the sound barely escaping his cracked lips.

He tapped the letters slowly, deliberately: Z-E-B-R-A.

The hybrid emblem above the door flared with sudden, intense light. A deep, resonant thrum vibrated through the deck plates, shaking Chen Shen to his bones. It wasn't the sterile hum of Federation power; it felt heavier, older, laced with a guttural energy that resonated with the dark pulse in his corrupted arm. The massive double doors groaned in protest, ancient hydraulics straining. With a hiss of releasing pressure seals, they parted just wide enough for a man to slip through before grinding to a halt, frozen mid-motion.

Beyond lay darkness. Not the deep black of vacuum, but the oppressive gloom of a space long abandoned yet still powered. A stale, metallic tang hung in the air, undercut by something else – ozone and the faint, acrid scent of scorched circuitry. Chen Shen stumbled through the gap, his shoulder scraping against cold metal. The doors sealed instantly behind him with a final, echoing clang , plunging him into near-total silence.

Then, lights flickered on. Overhead panels sputtered to life, casting a dim, uneven glow that barely pushed back the shadows. Chen Shen gasped.

He stood at the threshold of a vast chamber, easily the size of a starship hangar bay. But this was no orderly control room. It was a technological graveyard frozen in a moment of catastrophic fusion. Directly ahead, dominating the center, rose the reactor core itself – a colossal, cylindrical structure of Federation design, pulsating with a contained blue-white light that cast long, stark shadows. Its surface, however, was scarred. Heavy, brutalistic Klingon armor plating, dark and pitted, had been crudely welded over large sections, particularly near the base. Thick cables, clearly Klingon in origin – woven with dark fibers and reinforced with rough iron bands – snaked from the Federation core into banks of angular, alien consoles lining the walls.

The control room floor was a battlefield. Federation workstations, sleek and ergonomic, lay shattered or shoved aside. Klingon tactical consoles, built for war, stood in their place, festooned with blinking red and orange indicators. Data conduits snaked across the floor like metallic roots, some severed, others fused together in desperate, jury-rigged connections. Scorch marks marred the walls and ceiling, converging on a point high above the core where a massive viewscreen hung, dark and cracked. Below it, on a raised central dais, sat the primary command station – a nightmarish amalgamation. A Federation command chair, its cushions rotting, was bolted onto a Klingon command platform bristling with weapon targeting interfaces and tactical readouts. Wires sprouted from both, tangling together and snaking into the floor like umbilical cords.

"…Analysis… extensive… hybridization…" WALI whispered, her voice strained. "…Federation… reactor… core… Klingon… battle… systems… forcibly… integrated… Signs… of… conflict… and… rapid… modification…"

Chen Shen didn't need the analysis. The violence of the merger was palpable. This wasn't cooperation; it was a desperate, brutal grafting, like bolting armor onto a wounded beast. He took a step forward, his boot crunching on shattered plastiglass. The sheer scale of the room, the silence broken only by the deep, rhythmic thrum of the reactor and the sickening thump-thump-thump emanating from his own corrupted limb, was overwhelming. His vision swam dangerously. He needed to lean against a nearby console – a Federation unit half-buried under a Klingon sensor array. Its surface was dusty, but a few status lights glowed with weak, green life. He braced himself.

"Chen Shen… cardiac… distress… neuro-toxicity… escalating… Immediate… medical… intervention… required…" WALI's warning was urgent, barely audible over the rising tinnitus in his ears.

He tried to push off the console, to search for a medkit, a comms panel – anything. But his legs buckled. The world tilted violently. He crashed to the cold metal floor, a cry of pain choked in his throat. The impact sent fresh agony screaming from his shoulder through his entire body. The tendrils within the blackened mass writhed, agitated by the shock. He lay gasping, staring up at the cracked viewscreen high above. The cold numbness spread faster now, a chilling tide threatening to extinguish him.

"Systems… failing…" WALI's voice was fading, dissolving into static. "…Cannot… sustain… consciousness… Preservation… protocol… initiating… WALI… offline…"

The connection severed. The subtle presence of the AI in his mind vanished, leaving a terrifying void. He was utterly alone. Adrift in a tomb built by two enemies, dying from a wound inflicted by an unknowable horror. His vision tunneled. The rhythmic thrum of the reactor faded, replaced by the roaring of his own blood in his ears… and the insistent, hungry thump-thump-thump of the corruption in his arm.

No. Not like this. The thought was a spark in the encroaching dark. He clawed at the floor with his right hand, trying to drag himself towards the central dais. There must be… something…

As his consciousness teetered on the brink, the corruption reacted. It wasn't pain this time. It was a surge of purpose , alien and terrifying. The blackened mass pulsed violently, the purple veins flaring with intense light. The tendrils deep within his flesh lashed out, not outward , but inward . They pierced deeper into his nervous system, bypassing the failing biological pathways. Agony exploded anew, a white-hot branding iron searing his soul, but it was overridden by a sudden, horrifying clarity.

His vision snapped back into crystalline focus – sharper, colder. His right arm shot forward, palm slapping hard against the metal deck plating with a force that wasn't his own. He pushed himself up onto his knees. It was him, yet not him. He was a passenger, trapped inside a body being piloted by the invasive horror grafted to his shoulder.

His head turned sharply, the movement jerky, inhuman, surveying the chamber with unnerving precision. The perspective shifted – the dim light was suddenly parsed into complex spectrums. The heat signatures of active consoles glowed. The intricate flow of energy through the fused Federation-Klingon conduits became a visible latticework. It saw paths, connections, vulnerabilities his human mind could never perceive.

His body lurched forward, propelled by the corrupted arm. He staggered, puppet-like, towards the nearest bank of active consoles – a cluster of Klingon tactical stations near the reactor base. His right hand reached out, fingers splayed, and grasped a thick, uninsulated Klingon power conduit snaking across the floor. There was no shock. Instead, the conduit glowed faintly where his fingers touched it. Data – raw, chaotic streams of Klingon machine code, reactor telemetrics, fragmented security logs – flooded into the corruption, channeled through his nervous system. His mind screamed, overloaded by the alien torrent, but the corruption absorbed it, processed it with chilling efficiency.

A fragmented image flickered behind his eyes: Klingon warriors, faces contorted in rage and fear, welding armor plates onto the humming reactor core amidst blaring alarms. The thump-thump-thump of the corruption vibrated in resonance with the core's deep pulse.

His body released the conduit and shambled towards the hybrid command dais. The steps were clumsy, uncoordinated, driven by pure instinct. The tendrils within his arm writhed, probing the air like sensory antennae. He climbed the short steps, collapsing into the decaying Federation command chair bolted to the Klingon platform. Dust plumed around him.

His left hand – the corrupted limb – shot out, not towards the Federation touchscreens, but towards a specific Klingon interface: a heavy, armored socket designed for neural uplinks. The blackened fingers, brittle and charred, shouldn't have possessed the dexterity, but they moved with unnatural precision, plugging directly into the socket. Dark energy crackled at the junction point.

A guttural, electronic screech tore from hidden speakers – not a language, but a raw burst of corrupted data. The main cracked viewscreen above flickered violently. Lines of fragmented Klingon script scrolled erratically across the dark surface, interspersed with bursts of Federation Standard error codes.

> > > SYSTEM CORE… ONLINE… CRITICAL DAMAGE… > > > SECURITY… SUBSYSTEM… CORRUPTED… > > > PRIMARY… AI… MODULE… DESIGNATION: WATCHER… STATUS:… BLIND… > > > QUERY:… IDENTITY?… AUTHORIZATION?…

The script pulsed with an angry red light. The corruption feeding data into the console seemed to falter. It didn't possess authorization codes. It possessed only raw need and stolen human physiology.

His head tilted back against the rotten cushion. His mouth opened, but the voice that emerged wasn't his. It was a guttural rasp, synthesized and alien, layered over his own ruined vocal cords: "Ssssssurvival. Accesssss. Meeeedicine."

It was the voice of the abyss that had touched him. The voice of the thing infesting his arm.

The screen flickered again. The Klingon script dissolved. A single phrase in fractured Federation Standard appeared, pulsing weakly:

> WATCHER IS BLIND. ACCESS DENIED.

The corruption within him flared in frustration. The tendrils deep in his flesh constricted, sending fresh waves of nauseating agony through Chen Shen's trapped consciousness. His body tensed, the corrupted arm pulling against the neural socket as if to rip it free. Before it could, a new sound shattered the tense silence.

A harsh, mechanical whine, followed by a deep, resonant clank , echoed from the far end of the massive chamber. Then another. And another. Red optical sensors flickered to life in the deep shadows near the chamber walls, pairs of unblinking crimson eyes.

From alcoves concealed within the fused architecture, bulky shapes detached themselves from the gloom. They were droids, but unlike the Federation HEMU. These were nightmares forged in the violent marriage of two technologies. The basic chassis was angular and heavy, clearly Klingon in its brutal design – thick, armored limbs, exposed hydraulic pistons at the joints, broad torsos plated in dark, hammered metal. But bolted onto this foundation were Federation components: sleek sensor arrays grafted onto blocky heads, Starfleet-style manipulator arms ending in Klingon disruptor barrels, Federation power packs jury-rigged into Klingon engine housings. Wires snaked between the mismatched parts.

They moved with a heavy, deliberate tread, their steps echoing in the cavernous room. Their red sensors locked onto the figure slumped in the command chair. One raised its right arm – a Federation manipulator claw that unfolded to reveal a focused Klingon disruptor emitter. It hummed with building power.

"UNAUTHORIZED BIOSIGN DETECTED," a synthesized voice boomed, a jarring mix of Federation Standard clarity and Klingon harshness. "HYBRID SECURITY UNIT ALPHA-7 ENGAGING. SURRENDER OR BE NEUTRALIZED."

The corruption piloting Chen Shen's body reacted instantly. Survival instinct overrode its frustration with the uncooperative system. His left arm ripped free from the neural socket with a shower of sparks. He shoved himself violently out of the command chair, tumbling down the short steps onto the main floor. The disruptor blast sizzled past overhead, scorching the backrest where his head had been seconds before.

He scrambled to his feet, movements jerky and panicked, propelled by the alien will. The lead Hybrid Security Unit (HSU) clanked forward, its disruptor recharging. Two more emerged from opposite alcoves, cutting off potential escape routes. Their Federation sensors whirred, scanning him. "ANOMALOUS ENERGY SIGNATURE CONFIRMED. BIOCONTAMINANT PRESENT. DIRECTIVE: TERMINATE."

Chen Shen, trapped within, watched in sheer terror. He felt the corruption assessing the threat, drawing on the fragmented data it had absorbed. It saw the reactor's energy flows. It saw the pathways beneath the floor grates. It saw the heavy blast doors sealing the chamber.

His body darted not towards an exit, but sideways , towards a cluster of exposed Klingon power conduits running along the base of the reactor core shielding. His right hand grabbed a heavy, discarded piece of plating – half-Federation, half-Klingon debris. With strength fueled by desperation and alien biology, he hurled it not at the droids, but into the humming conduit cluster.

The impact wasn't massive, but it was precise. Sparks erupted in a violent cascade, showering the nearest HSU. The conduit overloaded with a sharp CRACK , spitting blue energy. The lead droid staggered, its sensors flickering as the energy surge disrupted its systems. Its disruptor shot went wild, blasting a hole in the fused wall plating nearby.

"SYSTEM DAMAGE," it intoned, its voice distorted. "RE-ROUTING."

The momentary distraction was all the corruption needed. His body surged forward, ducking under the still-staggering droid's arm. He didn't head for the main doors he'd entered through; the corruption sensed the heavy security protocols there. Instead, he bolted towards a secondary access point – a heavy blast door recessed into the wall near a bank of shattered Federation consoles. A faded sign above it, partially obscured by Klingon graffiti, read: MAINTENANCE ACCESS - MEDICAL BAY ALPHA .

Medicine. The primal drive of the corruption aligned, horrifyingly, with Chen Shen's own desperate need. The tendrils pulsed with renewed vigor.

The other two HSUs recovered quickly, their heavy tread accelerating. "TARGET FLEEING. PURSUIT MODE ENGAGED." One raised its integrated disruptor, but his body was already diving through a gap in the wrecked console banks, using the debris for cover. The disruptor blast vaporized a section of console behind him.

He reached the heavy maintenance blast door. A simple manual release wheel, crusted with age, was set into the wall beside it. His right hand grabbed it, straining. Muscles screamed in protest – human muscles pushed beyond their limits. The wheel resisted, frozen by decades of neglect. Behind him, the clanking footsteps grew louder. Red sensor beams swept across the debris field.

The corruption flared. Tendrils lashed within his arm, channeling energy. A jolt of unnatural strength surged through his right arm. With a grating shriek of protesting metal, the wheel turned. Hydraulics hissed. The heavy blast door slid sideways just enough to create a narrow opening. He threw himself through the gap.

The door began grinding shut immediately. The first HSU reached it just as the gap sealed, slamming a heavy manipulator arm against the solid metal. CLANG!

"TARGET CONTAINED IN MEDICAL BAY ALPHA," the distorted voice announced. "SECURING PERIMETER. AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS."

Chen Shen collapsed on the other side, the connection to the corruption abruptly snapping. Full control of his battered body slammed back into him, accompanied by a tsunami of agony so profound he vomited bile onto the cold floor. He was back in hell, but a different circle.

He lay gasping, retching, blinking tears of pain from his eyes. He was in a wide corridor, but it was unlike any part of the prison he'd seen. The walls were smooth, pale green Federation medical bulkheads, adorned with faded signs directing towards Decontamination, Surgical Suites, and Bio-Lab 1. The lighting was soft, sterile white, but flickering erratically. The air was cold and carried a cloying, antiseptic smell mixed with something else… something sweetly rotten.

And it was utterly, devastatingly destroyed.

Overturned gurneys lay like skeletal remains. Shattered glass from observation windows littered the floor, crunching under him. Medical equipment – sleek Federation biobeds, diagnostic scanners, surgical arms – was smashed, torn from walls, and scattered. Dark, viscous stains, long dried to a deep brown, streaked the walls and pooled on the floor. It looked like a war zone within a hospital.

But what drew Chen Shen's horrified gaze, what rooted him to the spot despite the agony and the pursuing droids just outside the sealed door, was the source of the sweet-rotten smell.

Mounted on the wall directly opposite the blast door, secured by heavy Klingon chains bolted into the Federation bulkhead, were thick glass cylinders. Stasis tubes. Inside them, suspended in murky, greenish fluid…

They weren't human. They weren't Klingon.

Twisted, multi-limbed forms, covered in chitinous plates or leathery, vein-strewn hide, floated like ghastly specimens. Some had too many eyes clustered on malformed heads. Others had mouths lined with rows of needle-sharp teeth visible even through the viscous fluid. One nightmarish form seemed armored in fractured crystal, its limbs ending in razor-sharp points. They were perfectly preserved horrors, trophies of some unthinkable conflict or grotesque collection.

BIO-SPECIMEN ACQUISITION - SECTOR 7 DESIGNATES read a heavy Klingon placard bolted above the tubes, the angular script stark against the sterile Federation wall.

The tendrils in Chen Shen's corrupted arm gave a sudden, violent twitch . A wave of cold, alien recognition washed over him – not his own, but a chilling echo from the thing bonded to him. It knew these things. Or recognized their kind.

His gaze dropped from the abominations in the tubes to the ruined medbay floor. Among the debris, half-buried under a fallen shelf spilling moldy surgical supplies, he spotted it: a mostly intact Federation emergency medical kit, its red cross symbol still visible beneath a layer of dust and dried fluid. Hope, small and desperate, warred with the horror of his surroundings and the chilling pulse emanating from his own flesh. The path to survival, it seemed, led straight through the gallery of monsters. The droids were outside. The medicine was inside. And the Watcher, wherever it was, remained blind.