Deck 8 had descended into absolute war.
Neon-magenta spines flashed through the emergency red lighting as packs of hyper-accelerated raptors leaped from ceiling conduits, skittered across wall plating, and turned the corridors into a high-speed obstacle course.
Leading the central counter-offensive down Main Corridor B was Security Chief Gaimmack. The hulking Orion security leader stepped over a severed Jefferies tube hatch, a heavy phaser rifle cradled in his massive green hands. Flanking him was a hardened unit of the Nexus's finest security personnel—a battle-tested mix of Klingons, Jem'Hadar, and Nausicaans who looked far more eager for a good hunt than a routine shipboard patrol.
"Keep your lines tight!" Gaimmack bellowed over the piercing screeches echoing through the deck. "Tactical displays are tracking target signatures! We need eighty intact specimens stunned for stasis transport! Every other unit gets vaporized into bio-matter!"
A Klingon sergeant let out a booming laugh, charging forward as three raptors vaulted off a bulkhead toward him. He batted the first out of the air with the heavy stock of his rifle, sending it skidding across the deck plating, before unleashing a point-blank stun beam that dropped the second cold. "Today is a glorious day for a hunt!"
"VICTORY IS LIFE!" a Jem'Hadar warrior roared, firing a continuous beam that dissolved two approaching raptors into shimmering transporter sparkles, routing their atomic structure straight back into the ship's industrial replicator tanks.
—
Further down the primary access corridor, Lieutenant Commander Veirik Akiel was putting on a masterclass in modern warfare. The Chief Tactical Officer and former Illyrian military super-soldier stepped into the smoke-filled hallway completely unbothered by the chaos. Enhanced by his genetic modifications, his reaction time operated on a terrifyingly lethal frequency.
Veirik held a modified type-3 heavy phaser rifle at his hip, firing full-auto pulse bursts in a seamless sweep without ever missing a beat.
PIEW-PIEW-PIEW-PIEW!
A pack of twelve raptors rounded the corner, leaping off the walls in an engineered flank. Veirik didn't even flinch. He tracked their trajectories effortlessly, dropping four with rapid pulse blasts mid-air, spinning on his heel to kick a fifth violently back into the bulkhead, and vaporizing the remaining seven into raw bio-matter before their claws could hit the floor.
"I hate filthy things on my ship… always gross vermin on my ship…." Veirik grunted, ejection-cycling his rifle's power cell and slapping in a fresh one with a crisp clack. "Move up! Don't let them breach the turbolift shafts!" He shouted to security officers fighting alongside him.
—
Meanwhile, on Deck 7, the containment effort had turned critical. A pack of nearly forty raptors had bypassed the secondary blast doors through maintenance conduits and was charging down the corridor toward the main turbolift hub—the primary artery to the upper decks.
Suddenly, four sleek, silvery constructs drifted out from around the corner, hovering silently in the air.
Captain Anzyl Praxas rounded the bend, his mind fully synced with his floating Nouliths.
"Not on my ship," Anzyl declared, extending his hands.
With a flick of his wrist, he mentally commanded the advanced Nouliths.
The floating constructs zipped through the air at blinding speeds, flashing and vaporizing raptors in grid directly across the corridor.
Three raptors slammed headfirst into the shimmering grid, vaporizing into bio matter with a high-pitched yelp.
As the rest of the pack snarled and tried to flank around the edges, Anzyl shifted his focus. Two of the Nouliths detached from the grid spinning rapidly as they emitted dense, beam pulses. Blasting and vaporizing snarling fangs and claws into bio matter.
"Security team, move in!" Anzyl ordered into his combadge, maintaining the neon lasted grid with a focused glare. "I've got the lift hub locked down! Clean up these stragglers!"
—
Down in the Melting Pot, Gaimmack was finishing the primary push. Tables had been flipped into makeshift barricades as security teams traded phaser fire with screeching reptiles vaulting over bar counters and climbing decorative banners.
Gaimmack moved like an unstoppable force through the wreckage. With one hand, he pointed his phaser, dropping an alpha raptor mid-air with a precise stun bolt. With his communicator in the other, he barked orders to the Ops grid.
"Ops, lock onto target specimen seventy-nine! Beam it straight to Stasis Unit B!" Gaimmack yelled as a bright blue transporter beam enveloped a stunned reptile at his feet.
He whirled around just as the final, largest alpha raptor lunged from the top of a replicator housing, talons bared for his throat. Gaimmack sidestepped with surprising speed, caught the creature by its scruff, and slammed his phaser emitter directly against its sternum.
BZZZZT!
The raptor went limp in his grip.
"Ops! That's number eighty!" Gaimmack growled into his combadge, dragging the stunned beast toward the cargo hatch. "Seal Cargo Bay 4 and lock down the primary force fields!"
"Copy that, Chief!" Jax's voice rang over the comms. "Specimen eighty secured! I'm tracking the bio signs of the remaining two hundred and eighty-six targets… I'm beaming them into bio-matter… now!"
A blinding wave of transporter beams swept through every deck of the Nexus, digitizing the chaotic swarm of extra raptors and dematerializing them out of existence. In an instant, the screeching stopped. The corridors fell dead silent, saved for the heavy breathing of victorious security officers and the faint hum of power conduits returning to normal.
—
An hour later, a disheveled Captain Anzyl Praxas walked down to the main Security Barracks to assess the damage and check on his crew.
As the heavy doors slid open, he was hit by a thick, unexpected cloud of savory smoke and the loud, boisterous sounds of a raucous celebration. Klingon hunting songs echoed off the walls. Orion warriors were clinking heavy mugs of ale with Nausicaans, while Gaimmack stood at the center of the bay near an improvised thermal-convection spit powered by a modified engineering torch.
Sizzling over the open flame was a large, skinned, tail-heavy carcass, glistening with spices and herbs.
Anzyl stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the scene in absolute bewilderment. He walked up to his Orion Security Chief, holding his hands behind his back.
"Well done, Gaimmack," Anzyl cheered, slapping the giant on his broad green back. "A victorious battle indeed..." He suddenly paused, squinted at the rotating roast, then turned his gaze back to the Chief. "Gaimmack... is that a raptor on the barbecue spit?"
Gaimmack froze, holding a giant basting brush mid-air. He looked at the roast, looked back at his Captain, and let out a slow, deadpan exhale.
"...maybe."