Where the goblins go [✱30]

Posted on Sun Aug 23rd, 2026 @ 8:08am by Ramielos Volsunga
Edited on on Sun Aug 23rd, 2026 @ 8:08am

1,045 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: UnderMind [4]
Location: Bug lair entrance
Timeline: After ✱26

With the shuttles gone, Volsunga entered the mouth of the cavern where Creon's team had last been seen entering. He passed the carcass of some kind of giant ant which seemed out of place, he hadn't seen any others like it. Ahead, the signal from the boosters grew stronger. Before he got far inside, his helmet detected an environmental threat, the floor had given way. As if more of a tell was needed, there was a single type-2 phaser on his side of the chasm. He picked it up between two fingers, it was too small for his massive gauntleted hands to operate, but he clipped it to a mag-lock segment on his belt.

While the boosters continued down the trail in the distance, there was a signal his helmet could not fully interpret below. Odds were they had fallen. He removed the phaser cannon the marines had given him from his back, and tested the effects of a single shot into a nearby wall. He tweaked the sittings and tried a second. He got the effect he sought, a small hole deep enough to grip.

He then moved to the edge of the chasm and fired a single shot straight down to judge the distance, his helmet extrapolated the necessary information. He then fired a sequence of bursts against the far wall. Each hole he blew in the wall was about a metre apart, and he fired down as far as he could still hit the desired target with accuracy. He then repeated the process about half a metre to the right, the same distance apart but starting about half a metre above the site of the first shot. He put the cannon away, and jumped straight down the hole.

He landed with a heavy thud on an uneven surface, if not for the servomotors in his greaves, he likely would have toppled over. He continued down the steep, jagged decline carefully. Though there was no physical risk from falling, he was not beneath embarrassment at such a mistake. A few steps down he found another phaser against a jutting-up rock, and put it on his belt. He once again stopped to remove the phaser cannon and fire another set of identical shots to bore holes in the rock face.

It was solid rock. Obviously bored through by determined diggers. Based on the fact that it had collapsed under them, he assumed that the surface under the entrance had been undermined for just such an occasion, ready to trap any interlopers at the verge of escape. They were clever, these bugs. Cleverer than bugs had any right to be.

At the end of the slope, he reached another drop.With his careful steps he took a few minutes to reach the bottom, but once he got there he knew he was in the right place. He could almost reach the roof of the other side, the tunnel narrowed here. He looked down, it was a fall of at least twenty metres, nothing he couldn't handle. Shiny objects caught the light as he observed. The signal was much stronger now, it was a cluster of the boosters he had detected above.

He checked the surface below with his helmet's enhanced vision to ensure he didn't crush anything on landing, and jumped down. He once again made a sequence of holes in the wall with the phaser cannon to allow climbing back up the sheer face. There was some sort of humanoid-shaped device, he assumed a suit, smashed into pieces. The head looked like some sort of containment system for a xenos that did needed a different environment for life.

The boosters spilled out of the suit's torso, obviously used as storage. He took a handful of them and threw them with skill against the surface of the wall one at a time, in increments high up enough to reach the top. He wasn't sure if it made a difference, but the option was better than no option. There were other devices on the floor, smashed phaser rifles, tricorders, pieces of one of the dolphin Saa's suits, shield generator belts. Soon he spotted dried blood, and he knew this was exactly what he needed. One human, three xenos, among a smattering of other fluids. He followed the trail, drawing his chainsword.

Ahead, the encountered a room with two ways to go, almost like two large sideways nostrils. It was a tunnel that had a lower and an upper path, the chamber was split in two by the roof of the lower level, which was too high for Volsunga to reach at its nearest point, and apparently only accessible by climbing the impossibly steep walls that quickly shifted from a gradient he could ascend to one he would slide off. The blood trails seemed to lead to the upper level.

Volsunga knew he had a choice, but decided to take the lower path. He would not go far if it seemed to lead away from his intended destination. He passed into the lower path and moved ahead, passing through a long even tunnel. At the end, there was a narrowing passage, almost like a doorway. Volsunga considered turning back, but he had come this far.

He stepped through the opening, but as his foot touched the ground an energy field activated all around him, causing his suit to lock up and his every muscle to seize with agony. The field continued unabated. He could not move, and pain consumed him, he was unable to escape it.

A few minutes later a pair of Vulcans appeared from the other side. "Curious. Your trap appears to have worked. But you guaranteed this would kill the subject." The first Vulcan said.

"It should have." The second said, reviewing a tricorder. "But this does not appear to be Starfleet technology. Strange."

"Whatever it is, does your field work on it?"

"Evidently. I cannot read the subject clearly through the field, but it will not survive long. We should return in a few hours, the Grandmaster wants the Cetacean supervised."

"I expect that is precisely why the Federation banned this technology of yours. Very well." Both the Vulcans left at that, leaving Volsunga in the agonising embrace of the energy field trap.

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