Stepping up to a heavy industrial elevator door, Anzyl, Alia, Zide'Mok, and Stitch stood waiting, the latter's eyes fixed firmly on their tricorder.
"We are close to the core," Stitch noted, their fingers dancing across the small screen. "I hope we don't have to leave in a hurry; there's no way the Nexus can lock onto us this deep in the asteroid with the transporters."
"Not the best exit strategy," Zide'Mok retorted, his hand resting on the hilt of his weapon.
"Agreed," Anzyl sighed as the elevator doors groaned open. "Let's stay focused on the mission. We find what else this place is hiding, then we get the hell out of here."
—
The turbolift zoomed into the depths of the station, descending down what seemed like an endless shaft into the very heart of the rock.
"Now that we're closer to the signal, I'm getting more specific readings," Stitch stated. "I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure everything that just came online down here has a medical purpose."
"Must be the actual labs where the Founders worked on their... creations," Anzyl said, turning toward the door as the lift came to a smooth halt.
The doors slid back to reveal a sterile, brightly lit laboratory hallway. Metal walls, caked in centuries of dust, were dotted with inlets leading to sub-labs. As the away team moved down the corridor, they passed rooms lined with glass stasis pods—cylindrical structures designed to hold a single humanoid specimen.
"There's something inside them," Alia whispered. She reached out, wiping away a thick layer of dust to peer through the glass. "AH!" She yelped, stumbling back.
Staring back at her from the frost-rimmed glass was a Fek'ihri female, standing upright and suspended in stasis.
"Well, that answers that," Stitch said, scanning the row of tubes. "These are medical stasis pods."
Anzyl peered into the neighboring units. "All Fek'ihri... judging by the power draw we detected upstairs, it's safe to assume all these occupants are waking up. This isn't good news."
Stitch's eyes widened as they looked at their tricorder. "It gets worse, Captain. I'm picking up active life signs just ahead. Some of these pods have already opened, and if they're Fek'ihri, they won't be happy to see us."
"Ready weapons, stay alert!" Anzyl commanded. With a sharp mental command, the Nouliths resting on his back whirred to life, detaching and hovering at his sides like loyal sentinels. "Stitch, is there a self-destruct on this station? If not, can you rig one?"
Stitch tapped rapidly on their data pad. "I can overload the main reactor, but we'd need to start the sequence and then run like hell."
"Once Veirik and Tey'un finish the download, no one else needs to stumble onto this laboratory of horrors ever again," Anzyl said, following Stitch deeper into the facility. "Let's blow this place to kingdom come."
—
The team entered a massive storage area that resembled an industrial brewery, with enormous metal cylinders lining the walls and alchemical equipment scattered across the floor.
"We're not alone!" Alia cried, leveling her phaser.
"Victory is Life!" Zide'Mok roared, his Jem'Hadar battle cry echoing through the chamber as half a dozen Fek'ihri Ravagers and Broodlings scrambled toward them. They snarled and hissed, their forms appearing subtly different from the Fek'ihri the crew had encountered before—these were clearly transitional stages of Klingon genetic manipulation.
Phaser beams, pulse rifle fire, and sizzling energy bolts lit up the chamber. The maddened experiments were quickly overwhelmed and vaporized by the team's concentrated fire.
Barely breaking a sweat, Anzyl let out a breath. "Only a few of them. Let's make sure we're gone before the rest wake up. Stitch, how much further to the core?"
"You mean to kill them all?" Alia asked, her Starfleet morals surfacing as she looked at the remaining pods.
Zide'Mok stepped forward. "These... experiments have no honor, no morals, and no code. They should never have been brought to life in the first place."
With a heavy nod, Anzyl agreed. "The galaxy is a safer place if they never wake up. We're putting them out of their misery."
They proceeded toward the power core, but as they passed the metal tanks, Alia paused, distracted by a new reading. "I'm picking up traces of Ketracel-white in these vats."
Zide'Mok paused, looking at the familiar white residue caked around the valves. "The Dominion likely developed and manufactured the White in these very labs. They must have taken the primary supply with them when they abandoned the facility."
Stitch let out a frustrated huff. "So we have a station full of drug-addicted Fek'ihri with no way to pacify them. Great."
Anzyl motioned them forward. "It's a grim discovery, but it doesn't change the plan. Keep moving."
—
They entered a final storage warehouse, a cathedral-like space several stories tall. Fek'ihri stasis pods were stacked from the floor to the rocky ceiling. Smoke began to curl from the seals of dozens of units, and several were already hanging open. Low snarls and wet thuds echoed through the dark as the maddened experiments began to crawl out toward the intruders.
"Victory is Life!" Zide'Mok cried, opening fire with his pulse rifle.
"Ugh, so is Raktajino, but I don't cry it out every five seconds," Alia grumbled, though her aim was true as she fired her phaser.
The quartet was quickly swarmed by dozens of hissing Fek'ihri. They were gaunt and mutated, some appearing almost Klingon while others were so devolved they moved like mindless beasts.
Anzyl, focused through his Mind Meld Device, became a whirlwind of tactical precision. His four Nouliths—the flying, modified phaser pistols—darted through the air like lethal drones, firing beams with surgical accuracy. In a mesmerizing display of mental coordination, he directed the pistols to weave between the attackers like miniature fighter jets.
Stitch, using all four arms, held a phaser pistol in each hand and fired in four directions at once. However, a natural soldier they were not.
"Maybe focus on one target at a time, Stitch!" Anzyl shouted, ducking as a stray beam from the technician singed the air above his head.
"Oh! That's probably a better idea, Captain!" Stitch yelled back, though their aim remained questionable at best.
"There's too many of them!" Alia called out.
The walls were now alive with movement. Pod after pod hissed open, releasing an unending tide of insane, starving experiments. Anzyl gazed across the warehouse, watching as the shadows themselves seemed to stand up and snarl, closing in on his small quartet.