Project Mystery Train

'Project Mystery Train' is one of the dark projects once investigated by then-Captain Zachary Falthgood. It is best described as either a Gateway to Hell, or a Portable Event Horizon. It's generally used as a method of travel (Think Stargate Here), and has been made functional again by Admiral Doenitz. In responce, Falthgood has resurrected three of his own devices, see: The Falthgood Devices

All posts are credited to their writers. They were primarily written by J Trout & Melinda Martin

(More Coming)

Project Mystery Train, Current

Talking with Falthgood

Stardate: 2406.10.28

(USS Mystique- Bridge- CO- Captain Vanyssa Winters, Lt(jg) Zach Falthgood - 1120)

After a nice, relaxing couple of hours with Sash, and some indulgence of his alfredo, which he still wouldn't give her the recipe to, Vanyssa headed down to Falthgood's research lab. She poked her head in, and smiled to see him working. Shades and all. "Zach?" She said, smiling as he turned around. "I need some...advice." And the smile dropped away and the worry replaced it. "And I need something that you might have." She finished. "Can we talk...privately?"

Zach raised his head, and mused at the voice for a few moments. He Looked back down again and almost mourned at the loss of his cover, the crazy-scientist had given him pleasure for so many years. But it was so hard to do anything of the sort when people came to him with such a serious tone, well... He tapped a button on his console which shut and locked the doors, very useful to a scientist in the middle of delicate experiments.

He touched a small device on his desk and picked it up. And the, slowly, he pulled the shades off his face and placed them on the deck. As he turned in his chair, he flicked the trigger on the sphere-oid device and gently placed it back on the desk. "I expected you," he finally said.

"I can't say I'm surprised." She said, taking the offered seat. "First I need one of those thingy's. You wouldn't happen to have one laying around that was in need of a good home? The Myste has... unwanted ears it seems. The other I'm sure you've heard about. He's going to come after me again and if I don't know why I can't fight him. I've lost too many people last time to continue blindly. Has Lee passed along the probe?"

"Yes," Zach said as he sat back in the chair, "He has. And from the look I've had at it..." He broke off. Finally, after long seconds, he crossed his arms and shook his head, "I closed Mystery Train, not long after I coined the phrase. The b*stard reopened it."

"He is certainly that." Vanyssa said, thinking about Lee and not Doenitz. The words she would use to describe Doenitz were much harsher, meaner. "I take it you have not gleaned any information from it?"

Zach smiled lopsidedly, "You're going to wish you hadn't asked that question. Lee certainly disliked me once I was done explaining." He picked up a PADD and tapped a couple buttons on it, followed by a couple more. "It was old, refurbished, pressed into service. It was a targeting device. A gateway..." He looked up and handed the PADD over, "Straight from hell."

"The probe was a gateway?" Vanyssa asked, eyes wide.

"Nope, just a point in space." He leaned back again, "A target point for a gateway, something like a subspace relay station used for long-range transports. At least, that's what I'm thinking... I have quite got it worked out yet. They took the project well beyond what I ever took it." He sighed, "It could end up having a lot of uses, Ill find out soon enough."

He quirked his head to the side, "If... if, this is what I think it is. Then we have problems. Even my most limited equations held awesome potential."

"Somehow I don't like the sound of that. What exactly is a Mystery Train?"

Falthgood sat forward, haunted. "A Dream. A piece of Inchon technology, functional after forty-thousand years. What we supposed was a stable wormhole, something that could move massive amounts of men and material from one place to another nearly instantaneously." He cracked his neck. "No, it was a nightmare."

He sat back again and narrowed his eyes, knowing Vanyssa was a telepath. "Tell you what," he said lightly. "I have something better then words." He leaned forward again, eyes closed, actively thinking of the final moments of Project Mystery Train, letting the telepath soak up the horror in a way that words would never be able to express.

Her eyes widened as she let herself become an observer in Falthgood's memories. After several minutes, she sat there shocked. "And he wants to use this. He killed my family over this, this, horrible thing." She shook herself out of the fugue she was in. "Do you think he has it working? Do you think he's done a test of it yet?"

Falthgood shook his head and didn't answer for long moments, letting his mind clear. "I don't know yet, it's become my top priority. Pray they don't, or we're in the deepest s*it you've ever seen. And not just because our fleet will be decimated. If even half my calculations come true, then he will hold ultimate power, and the only way to even the odds will be to pull out some of the darkest secrets I had locked away, too terrible for me to turn over to anyone according to my conscience."

He crossed his fingers together, "I put away that life, Captain, for the sake of my soul when it became obvious that the Good of the Federation was not the reason I was digging. It looks like I might loose it anyway."

Vanyssa didn't know what to say. The careful formality that Falthgood had put up prevented her from giving him a hug. "What did your calculations show it doing? What would be the side effects of using this? Ultimate power doesn't come without a horrible price, in my experience. And why did the Inchon leave the Mystery Train portal there? What happened to them?"

He shook his head, "This PADD has some select information on my equations and the information I've acquired on the probe." He picked it up from his lap and handed it over. "As for the Inchon, that's one of the questions we've never been able to answer. Much like the Iconians, and a half dozen other races, they simply up and disappeared. Unlike the Iconians, these guys had no known enemies that could destroy them."

Zach leaned forward and quirked one of his fingers, to bring Vanyssa in closer. Once she was close, he spoke quietly. "Power, Captain, is not all that it seems. Power is very real, tangible in many cases. It has been said that power corrupts, and from a philosophical standpoint that might be correct. But if history has shown anything, it's that a mad-man can push the price off on others long enough to destroy all we hold dear. And in the end, Captain, in the end... when the leader is finally called to account..." he sat back again. "Then the price has already been paid with the blood of the innocent."

She wanted very much to just grab Zach by the arm and take him with her to the Mystique. She needed him much more than Devan did. Much more.

"Zach, come to the Mystique with me, please." She said quietly, his words in her head.

Falthgood steepled his fingers, "If I go anywhere, it will be alone. And if this is true," he waved in the direction of the labs, "Then it won't matter were we are, where we run. There will be no-where left to hide."

She sighed softly. "I don't want to hide, Zach. My intuition says I'm going to be facing the results of this. And it scares, me, Zach. He scares me badly." She stood up to leave. "I hope I see you again." Her eyes were sad as she said it. She hoped that she would still be alive in a couple of months to even have the opportunity to see him. "Thanks for the toy...and your advice." She tucked the small PADD into the top of her uniform jacket, into the small pouch she had modified it to have. There were some things that had to be kept close.

Zach unlocked the door and watched her leave, sitting silent for many long minutes after she had finally disappeared. "Not as scared as I am, dear lady, not with as much as I've seen." He finally said to thin air.

The research and locations of some counter-pieces of technology he had hidden for various reasons came to mind, the results of their use would be catastrophic, and the implications of their very existence filled him with dread. Falthgood had been content to let his life end in the quiet manner he had lived it for the last several years, a quiet and crazy Lieutenant who would be forgotten once retirement came. If he was right though, his name would not only be remembered after this little rebellion, but whispered to children for generations to come as the boogey-man who would come to take them away in the darkest of night.

"This is only one toy, there are so many others; an entire career filled with mistakes... my legacy will only be that of darkness."

(reply: none) (posted by Melinda Martin & Trout)