Chasing The Turncoat Part V
Posted on Wed May 13th, 2026 @ 12:58am by Lieutenant Commander Calvin Quaid & Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble & Major Edmund Merrick & Sergeant Audie Fitch & Glen Shoshanah Prenar & Warrant Officer Mercy Ryan & Sergeant Major Lachlan Barr
Edited on on Wed May 13th, 2026 @ 6:33am
3,964 words; about a 20 minute read
Mission:
The Cure: Operation Kakori
Location: Breyet Nor - The Badlands
Timeline: MD004 1700 hrs
“Means four’s likely further along this side, unless the grey-necked bastards numbered this place drunk.”
A faint pause, then quieter still.
“Keep ears open. Interrogation rooms are never as quiet as folk pretend.”
Audie nodded silently, hoping not to hear any sounds of torture. On many levels, screaming coming from one of the rooms was just bad!
Quickly, she switched on the tircorder long enough to let it get a reading, she turned it off again. "Room six's clear," she murmured.
"Number Seven." Edmund responded. "Lets check the next door." If she was right in her translation, then they were heading down the oddly numbered interrogation rooms.
"Lachlan report, what's the status." He wondered as to why the rooms were numbered this way but perhaps it was more about confusing those who decided to sneak into this area.
Lachlan glanced back down the corridor, then gave Audie a small nod when she confirmed the scan.
“Room six is clear,” he said quietly over the comm. “We’re on the even side, sir. If you’ve got seven, then four should be further along our run unless the Cardassians got creative with the layout.”
He shifted forward again, keeping his weapon low but ready as he moved with Audie toward the next door. His eyes stayed busy, tracking the seams in the bulkheads, the corners, the places cameras liked to hide.
“Checking next marker now.”
He leaned just far enough to catch the door numerals, then eased back before lingering too long.
“Four,” he murmured, then lifted one hand to hold Audie in place.
His voice dropped lower as he keyed the comm again.
“Found it. Interrogation Room Four, right-hand side. No movement in the corridor. Holding until you’re with us.”
Lachlan settled beside the doorframe, close enough to act, far enough not to trigger anything stupid. His jaw tightened slightly.
“Sooner we open this, the better. Places like this don’t stay quiet for long.”
Getting the information from the brief Coms, Edmund patted Mercy on the shoulder motioning to turn around and head towards Lachlan and Audie.
He avoided the door ways just to make certain they didn't trigger any sensors. Once they reached where Audie and Lachlan were at, Edmund sat on his heels checking the weapons,
He was on high alert, one never knows when someone may come around the curve and see them....
"Flash bang and then we go in." Edmund kept his voice low so they wouldn't be heard. "Don't know how many are inside with Quaid."
Inside, two men faced each other. "As you can see, I am not dead," Typhon snarled at Quaid. "However, if you do not fall in line I can assure you that you will be dead."
He glanced into the darkness beyond Quaid and nodded. Silently, and unseen Shoshanah Prenar began what would be the beginning of the end for Calvin Quaid. The only reason the Starfleet officer was still alive was due to the lack of communication from the Romulans. Prenar needed more of that serum. He needed Quaid for one more mission.
Typhon turned to speak to Quaid again, but a communication device mounted to the back of his hand went off. "I am on my way." He said into the device after a moment of silence.
"You never can find good help." Then he turned to Shoshanah. "If he tries anything other than speaking, end him." With that, Typhon Prenar left the room.
Leaning back against the wall as she crouched down, Audie risked another quick scan, switching the tricorder off as soon as there were readings. For a second, she looked over the information, then muttered, "Six Cardassians, two Bajorans, one Klingon, three Humans... one is in really bad shape."
That was all she risked speaking, but it would give the team an idea of what to expect. As for the Human, presumably Quaid, it wasn't good. If she could, she'd try to find him as soon as they made entry, but eliminating threats was a priority.
Lachlan absorbed the numbers without comment, though his jaw shifted slightly at the mention of the Human in bad shape. Quaid, most likely. Alive, then, but maybe not for long.
He glanced to Merrick and gave a small nod. “Flashbang works. Fast and ugly.”
He shifted into position just off the door, close enough to be first through after the charge but not crowding the breach. His sidearm came up, muzzle down, finger clear of the trigger until the moment called for it.
“Mercy, first threat left. I’ve got right. Audie, straight to the casualty when there’s a lane. We’ll make you one.”
His eyes flicked once toward the corridor behind them, then back to the door.
“No names once we’re in. No hesitation either. Anyone holdin’ a weapon gets dropped.”
He pulled one of the flashbangs from his kit, thumbed it live, and held it low against his thigh.
“On your mark, sir.”
Just a half-second beat, noting the readiness of his people, Edmund prepped to go in after the flash bang.
"Now" was all he uttered, hitting the sensor to open up the door, his eyes lowered to prevent from catching the flash.
Edmund muscles were primed and ready to move in, the importance was for Audie to get to Quaid, and her retrieval of Quaid being covered. That was his assignment.
Crouching low to the floor, Audie held her breath, waiting for the cue to go. While she was clutching a phaser, that would be abandoned as soon as she got to the mark. Her goal at that point would be to get him out of here and to safety, so the rest of the crew was free to get themselves out as well...
Mercy, went left a shot from 'Ruby' took out the first hostile, and took cover as the flash bangs caused mayhem for the enemy.
Lachlan moved on Merrick’s mark.
The flashbang went in low, bounced once, and burst inside the interrogation room with a white-hot crack that turned the doorway into daylight for half a heartbeat. Against Humans it would have stunned, dazzled, and bought a few seconds. Against Cardassians, in a room already kept dim by design, it was something far uglier.
Their eyes were made for the low amber gloom of Cardassian ships and stations. In that light their pupils sat wider, slower to recover, and the sudden flare cut through them like a blade. It was not just disorientation. It was pain. Close enough, bright enough, it could leave damage that didn’t fade when the spots cleared.
The first scream came before Lachlan crossed the threshold.
He didn’t dwell on it. Couldn’t afford to. He entered tight to the right, weapon up, eyes cutting through smoke and hard glare as Mercy broke left. The nearest Cardassian guard was reeling, both hands clamped over his face, blood already dark at the edges of his eyes. His disruptor hung useless at his side. Lachlan swept past him and put two controlled shots into the next armed shape coming out of the haze.
“Right side,” he called, voice low and controlled.
Another guard lurched blindly into his path, more rage than aim, weapon half-raised and barking a wild shot into the ceiling. Lachlan drove into him hard, shoulder first, pinning the Cardassian against the wall long enough to twist the disruptor away and fire once into the man’s chest. The guard folded beneath him, armour scraping against the deck.
The room was all hard light and shadows now. Interrogation lamps, weaved hypnotically through the smoke, painting the prisoners with fragments of ghostly white. A Human slumped in the centre chair, two others bound and barely moving, Bajorans curled close to the wall, and a Klingon strapped to a restraint frame near the back, head hanging forward, blood threaded through his beard.
Quaid was alive. Bad shape, but alive.
“Lane’s open,” Lachlan said, stepping to cover Audie’s path. “Quaid’s centre. Go.”
A flash of movement dragged his attention back toward the Klingon. The warrior had lifted his head, eyes narrowed to slits against the glare, fighting through pain and confusion. He saw Lachlan crossing toward him and reacted the only way someone tortured by Cardassians for gods knew how long would react.
With violence.
The moment Lachlan cut the first restraint, the Klingon surged forward and caught him by the throat, slamming him back against the wall with a growl that sounded like broken stone. Pain flared white behind Lachlan’s eyes as his shoulder hit metal, but he didn’t bring the weapon up. Didn’t panic. Didn’t escalate.
“Easy,” he rasped, one hand clamped around the Klingon’s wrist, not trying to pry him off so much as keep the grip from crushing his windpipe. “Easy, big man. I’m not Cardassian.”
The Klingon’s grip tightened, breath hot and ragged, eyes still unfocused.
Lachlan forced the words out, rough and steady. “Starfleet Marine. We’re here for our man, and we’re leavin’. You want revenge, there’s still Cardassians standin’.”
For a second, it looked like the Klingon might kill him anyway.
Then something shifted. Recognition, maybe. Or just the shape of an enemy that wasn’t wearing Cardassian armour. The grip loosened by inches.
Lachlan swallowed hard, giving him a tight nod. “That’s it. Save it for them.”
A Cardassian guard came out of the smoke behind them, blinking blood from his eyes and dragging a sidearm up by instinct. The Klingon saw him at the same moment Lachlan did.
The restraint cable snapped under the Klingon’s hand.
He turned with a roar and struck the Cardassian with the broken metal still locked around his wrist. The blow took the guard across the side of the head and drove him into the floor with a crunch that was final enough for anyone.
Lachlan took one breath, then another, rubbing at his throat as the Klingon straightened to his full height beside him.
The warrior looked down at the dead Cardassian, then at Lachlan.
“I owe you a debt,” he growled.
Lachlan’s voice came back rougher than before, but the dry edge survived. “Aye, well. Start by not killin’ me before we’re properly introduced.”
The Klingon bared his teeth. It might have been a smile. It might have been a promise.
Lachlan nodded toward the room. “Fight now. Honour later.”
That, the Klingon understood.
Lachlan turned back toward the centre of the room, weapon up again, voice cutting through the smoke.
“Major, extra prisoners confirmed. Klingon’s loose and friendly enough for the moment. Quaid’s still our priority.”
His eyes swept the remaining chaos, tracking Mercy’s position, Audie moving for the casualty, and the last Cardassians still trying to recover from the blast.
“Let’s lift him and get gone before this whole deck wakes up.”
From the shadows, Shoshanah Prenar watched with the trained eyes of an assassin as the Marines breached the door and engaged the guards. She was trained to find the head of the enemy and cut it off. To that end, she took her time to find that head now.
It did not take long for her to recognize Edmund Merrick as the snake. Slowly she slipped out of the shadows. Her movement was deliberate, light, and sinuous, like a cat stalking its prey. Ready at any given moment to pounce.
Before he was aware of her presence, a spinning back fist caught Edmund in the jaw. "You and the rest of Starfleet will never leave this station alive." Her foot flashed forward in a snap kick to his gut.
He dodged the kick as Shoshanah spun and crouched low, ready for what her enemy would do next.
Edmund moved in quickly, striking with a sharp uppercut, snapping the woman's head back. Before his opponent could recover, he twisted, slamming his elbow into her ribs and forcing the air from her lungs.
Continuing the attack, he pushed forward, pummeling her.
Shoshanah stumbled back. She didn't expect this level of skill and timing. From what she knew, Starfleet didn't know how to fight. Her information was clearly flawed. She would not underestimate her opponent again.
The female Cardassian charged toward Edmund, ignoring everything and everyone in her need to take him down. Just before she got in range, she pivoted to catch him off-guard and avoid another head-on attack.
Choosing strength over finesse, Edmund threw a right hook.
Using his momentum against him, Shoshanah responded with a silken parry, grasping her opponent's wrist and twisting sharply, causing Edmund to scream in pain.
Still holding his wrist, she punched him in the chest, disrupting his posture and causing him to rotate sideways. She gave him a feral grin as his wrist snapped.
Holding his right arm in a whisper lock to prevent him from retaliating, she slowly pulled him by his broken wrist toward the door. It had the benefit of causing more pain and keeping him with her as a human shield.
But it wouldn't be enough against the fleeters. In one swift motion, she swept her left foot across Edmund's legs, knocking him off balance. As he fell, she rotated around his shoulder to keep him between her and the other Marines. As she did, she used her hip and momentum to launch Ed toward the wall.
The maneuver caused him to hit the wall and slump to the floor in a heap, a trickle of blood drizzling down the corner of his mouth.
She quickly took in the fight around her. Damn the Marines, they might actually win this round. Leaping behind Edmund, she flipped her long braid across her shoulder and wrapped it around his neck and pulled.
Darkness encircled Ed's vision as he gasped for air. The last thing he heard before blacking out was his attacker whisper in his ear.
Letting him know exactly what she thought of him, Shoshanah hissed, "It's a pity. You had such potential."
After Edmund collapsed, Shoshanah looked up. She was outgunned and outnumbered, but she would never be caught. With one last look at the Marine's body, she slipped silently through the same door as Leyton and disappeared. She'd catch up to the Cure another time. For now, it was enough to know she'd decapitated this particular snake. It was a start.
Chaos was objective, and while there was no particular organization around her, Audie had focus to keep her centered, and trust in her comrades to keep her safe as she crawled across the floor to her objective. Once she reached Quaid, she had to holster her weapon so she could grab the thermal knife to cut him free.
"Sir," she muttered above the noise of fighting, "hang on, we're going to get you out of here." From the corner of her vision she noted Merrick in close-combat fighting, but that wasn't her concern, her goal was getting the Lt. Commander to safety.
Quickly, Audie cut through his restraints, then pulled him to the ground, using the chair and her body for cover until things settled down and they had better conditions for her to examine him, and they could finish the extraction.
Calvin saw the woman that tried to cut him free. He could not make out her features, as she seemed to be in a haze. But he heard her loud and clear. He groaned words, which sounded a bit more like grunts. "No, I work for them. They told me so... But... But... But, how is it possible. I don't remember what they said I did. You have to believe me. I don't remember, I am loyal." He kept mumbling and repeating variations on that phrasing.
"We'll figure that out later, Sir" Audie muttered in his ear, "our job is to get you out." Not their place to pass judgement, although it was a bit sad to think of going to all this trouble just to have him court marshaled. Besides, if he was a turn-coat, why would 'they' be treating him like this?
"No... leave me... I am one of them..." Calvin was borderline on consciousness. He did not look it but he was severely injured. He tried in vain to stop Audie. "You have to get out of here. They are going to kill you, there is simply too many of them."
"We're Marines, Sir." The only reply that Audie needed!
Mercy saw the last Cardassian making his way to intercept Audie and Quaid. Unable to get a clean shot, she strapped 'Ruby' to her back.
She then performed a series of forward flips accumulating in her landing feet first on his upper back and forcing him to the deck hard.
His disruptor skidding across the deck, out of reach.
Still on top of him, she grabbed his arms and secured them behind his back with ties.
Lachlan saw Shoshanah come out of the dark too late to stop the first hit. By the time his weapon started to shift, Merrick was already moving with her, trading space and violence in the middle of the room. Every instinct in Lachlan wanted to step in, to put the Cardassian woman down and drag the Major clear, but the room was still moving around them and there were too many other lives loose in the smoke.
He had to trust Merrick could handle himself.
That sat badly, but it sat.
“Big man,” Lachlan snapped toward the Klingon, catching his eye before the warrior could throw himself straight into the nearest corpse. “You want to hurt Cardassians, help me get the rest of these folk free first. More bodies out the door, more chance we all live long enough to enjoy revenge.”
The Klingon looked like he might argue on principle, then snarled something low and guttural before turning toward the nearest restraint frame. Good enough.
Lachlan moved to the next prisoner, cutting through the binders with a thermal edge and hauling a shaking Human upright long enough to point them toward the door. “Move. Stay low. Follow the Klingon if you fancy survivin’.”
His eyes flicked across the room again. Mercy had one Cardassian flattened and tied. Audie had reached Quaid, but the man was resisting her in that broken, half-conscious way that made people twice as hard to move and half as useful.
Lachlan crossed two steps toward them, weapon still up, gaze splitting between the fight, the door, and the prisoner they had come all this way to collect.
“Quaid,” he said, rough but clear. “You can explain your loyalties when we’re off this station.”
The man kept mumbling, trying weakly to pull away from Audie.
Lachlan’s jaw tightened.
“Audie, if he keeps fightin’ you, sedate him,” he said without hesitation. “Shoot him if you have to. I’d rather carry him out breathin’ than leave him here conscious and stupid.”
He glanced once toward Merrick, still locked with Shoshanah, then back to the others.
“Prisoners move now. Quaid goes with us whether he likes it or not. We’ve made enough noise for half the deck to hear, so let’s stop admiring the room and get gone.”
Audie was fully on board with Lachlan's orders. While sedating a patient without a proper exam wasn't the best thing, sometimes it just couldn't be helped. Quaid wasn't coherent, but he sure could struggle, and that wouldn't do.
"Sorry, Sir," she muttered as she pulled out a hypospray and pressed it against his skin, "it's going to be all right." One way or the other, whether he was guilty or not, this would be figured out, and he'd be better off than he was now.
"Quaid's ready!" Audie called. All she needed now was someone to help haul him out!
Lachlan heard Audie call that Quaid was ready, but his eyes had already found Merrick.
For half a second, the room narrowed.
The Major was down near the wall, slumped badly, not moving the way a man moved when he was choosing to stay low. Lachlan caught the last flicker of Shoshanah vanishing through the door, and something hot and ugly moved through his chest, but there wasn’t time to chase ghosts. Not now. Not with Quaid half-dead, prisoners loose, and the whole bloody deck about to realise someone had kicked the door in.
His gaze snapped to the Klingon.
“Big man,” he said, pointing two fingers toward Merrick. “That’s my officer. Get him up.”
The Klingon turned, saw the fallen Marine, then looked back at Lachlan with the hard, wary stare of someone who had been given too many orders by too many enemies.
Lachlan held his gaze.
“You carry him out, I’ll get you off this station with us. I’ll vouch for you when we’re clear.”
That seemed to land. Not softly, but it landed. The Klingon gave one sharp nod, crossed the room in three heavy strides, and crouched beside Edmund with surprising control for a man still half-covered in his own blood.
Lachlan was already moving to Audie.
“I’ve got him,” he said, dropping beside Quaid and getting one arm under the man’s shoulders. Quaid was almost dead weight now, all fevered twitching and shallow breaths, and Lachlan’s mouth tightened. “Christ, they’ve done a number on him.”
He helped Audie lift, taking most of Quaid’s weight without comment. The sedative had done enough to stop the struggling, at least.
“Stay on his vitals as best you can while we move,” Lachlan said, keeping his voice low but steady. “If he starts crashin’, you shout.”
He looked across the room once more, making sure the prisoners were moving, Mercy was clear, and the Klingon had Merrick.
Then he keyed the comm.
“Barr to extraction team. Quaid secured. Major is down but moving with us. Additional prisoners in tow. We’re leaving now.”
He shifted Quaid higher against his shoulder and nodded toward the door.
“Right. Everybody out. Fast, quiet, and no heroics unless they’re useful.”
Pressed up under Quaid's other shoulder, Audie nodded, knowing they would have to get to some sort of safety before she could do anything more. She glanced back at Merrick, limp in the Klingon's arms, and wished she could check him now, but that would have to wait, too.
"I'll watch our six." Mercy said taking the rear position behind the Extraction Team and the prisoners.
A Joint Post By:
Sergeant Major Lachlan Barr
Chief of The Boat, USS Pioneer
First Sergeant, The Cure
Major Edmund Merrick
Company Commanding Officer Officer, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Sergeant Audie Fitch
Corpsman Team 2, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Warrant Officer Mercy Ryan
Sniper, Team 1, The Cure
USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Calvin Quaid
Suspected Traitor
Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius Tremble
Executive Officer, USS Pioneer
Battalion Commander, The Cure
Glen Shoshanah Prenar
Operative, Obsidian Order
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