Ghost Tour With An Earth Core Twist

Posted on Fri Jun 26th, 2026 @ 10:29am by Nollel Livaam (*) & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein

Mission: Shackles
2475 words - 5 OF Standard Post Measure

Nollel had been reluctant to leave the tavern, where they had ended up with Michael’s friends, but she had nearly forgotten that they had reservations on a ghost tour through the swamp. It had been something whimsical that she had thought he might have liked, as he had mentioned Earth ghost tours and how when his planets had gone out into the stars, they had taken the ghosts with them.

“They all seem nice, but you could have stayed, Cassie, or someone would have come with me?” She offered as they got outside and could talk without shouting at each other. She still had her bags to take back to the ship, so there was still a little time.

"It was good to catch up, but given a choice, I'd rather be with you," he replied with a smile. "Besides, they said they were here for the festival, so I'm sure we'll see them again. T'Ango loves fireworks too and Gunnar... well, he'll want to be on hand if anyone gets hurt there. Honestly, I should invite them to tour the ship - he's a bit of a history buff, and T'Ango would probably get a laugh out of him running into Orion medic here," he chuckled.

Nollel looked at him, surprised, before she looked a little teary at his words as she took in what he said. “No one has rather been with me ever,” She admitted with a small blush as she tried to recover.

Burnie blinked. Even as long as they'd been together, statements like that still threw him - it was just incomprehensible to him that this amazing, beautiful woman hadn't been dripping in suitors as well as surrounded by others who just wanted to be in her orbit. "Well then you've spent way too much of your life around complete idiots." He realized as that came out that he'd just insulted her family and maybe her whole planet, and ducked his head. Looking back up, he offered a small smile. "Though I guess I shouldn't be too harsh. It worked out really well for me."

"Cami says that too." The woman said, smiling. "It worked out really well for me. I would be back on that mining colony, most likely dead now." She had not thought of things from Equinox Industries or New Laurium in a long time, but seeing Meghan pr thinking she had seen her, had made her reflective.

"Hey, if you hadn't been on the mining colony, and willing to help us, we might all be dead. So Cami's absolutely right." He nodded firmly. Then grinned and gave a quick wink. "But it worked out especially well for me."

“Still that whole week was strange. I knew things were happening, but I had no idea what to do.” Nollel sighed a little. What she had seen in Equinox Industries still bothered her sometimes.

"You did great," he assured, putting an arm around her and giving a small sideways hug. The engineer wasn't the best at reading people, but he knew Nollel and sensed her unease. "It does worry me sometimes. We destroyed that lab, and reported it to the right people, but we can't know for sure that no one will set something up like that again."

“Or that the person in charge got caught.” She pointed out thinking of the Gregnol clone. They had not worked out why of all people that the company had created one of him when the man had never been there before. “It still does not make sense properly and Gregnol seems unworried.” She did not know if that was normal for him or not but no one had spoken about it properly.

"Gregnol tends to play things close to the chest," Burnie observed. "And if he was a clone, I'm sure Keas would have noticed." He was maybe reassuring himself as much as her, but back when it had happened, he'd chalked it up to Gregnol still having Starfleet contacts who could fill him on the investigation. As running into T'Ango and Gunnar illustrated, separation from service didn't mean separation from the friends you'd served with. "Plus, he was Starfleet security, so he probably has some contacts still who could give him more details on the investigation than he can necessarily share with us." At least he hoped that was the case, and not that the captain was just hiding concerns to keep the crew from worrying.

"Oh, I do not worry, he is not a clone. Jeassaho would know just by the way he looks at her. I just... It's bringing up a lot of things from my scare earlier." She admitted knowing it sounded silly, she had thought she was over all the stuff that had happened then but obviously not.

He nodded slowly; that scare still had him a bit spooked. "We've been through a lot of things. The point of the Trials thing here is to confront things from our past... yeah, that brings up a lot of stuff." Not even just from his past with Nollel or on Mary Rose - something emphasized by running into people from what almost felt like a past life. What kind of coincidence was it that Gunnar had been one of the people there when he'd been told about Erica...

"I am not sure I like all these roads leading us here. I do not believe in fate, but it feels a little like that." Nollel breathed as she pointed towards the queue for the ghost tour of a haunted house. She had no idea what a haunted house would be like there, but Cassie mentioned that she thought it would be like old Earth.

"It does." Burnie's head tipped side-to-side a moment. He didn't precisely believe in fate - his experiences with time loops and the Guardian of Forever showed that things could be altered. On the other hand, the Guardian, which technically existed in all times simultaneously, had seemed to ...want? ... insist? Some specific events had to happen for the integrity of timeline. And when it had fractured... well, things had gotten weird. He didn't think fate played a role in most things for most people, but he didn't disbelieve in it entirely either. "I don't know. I saw some weird stuff back when I worked in temporal mechanics, but to quote T'Ango: 'Too many coincidences may be fate, but enemy action is usually the safer bet'." He shook his head. If not for the fact that she and Gunnar were together, T'Ango being here would be another coincidence. "But I don't think we've hit that stack up of coincidences. It's more that the whole festival has these spooky elements to bring up stuff that haunts us, which is fine. I've always enjoyed a good scary story - especially when it's about ghosts haunting somebody else," he said with a joking smile and a gesture toward the haunted house.

Nollel nodded, she could tell that he was trying to settle her a little bit even if she wanted to bask in the knowledge that it was all just coincidences, she could not quite allow herself just yet. "I would prefer others to be haunted, too. What is your favourite ghost story? We have several stories where artists haunt their artwork after they die."

"Interesting. My mom would love those," Burnie said, making a note that she probably knew several so he should ask sometime. "I always liked the old Earth stories about how when we got to space, our ghosts would come with us. Like Carman Miranda haunting Space Station 3," he flashed a quickly grin but quickly realized she wouldn't get the reference since even most Earthers wouldn't. "She was an old earth singer and actress, known for wearing this hat stacked with fruit, so the story was about people hearing her music and seeing pieces of fruit roll out of the shadows."

“I have heard of that from humans. Gregnol told me about a cosmonaut who haunted a Starbase because part of the old Earth base was made from the International Space Station.” She realised remembering a story Gregnol had told her when they had been on watch together. “That would be terrifying to see fruit rolling when there had been none.”
She shivered a little as she stepped a little further into the queue.

"Eerie for sure," Burnie agreed. "On the other hand ...fresh fruit!" He flashed a smile, giving a small shrug. "Much better than your average poltergeist."

Nollel laughed a little allowing his voice and paratactically wash over her. “Yes. I am glad that Rosie does not have anything like that.” She admitted. “I do not like the unseen.” She admitted quietly as she turned in the queue to look up at him.

He nodded. "It can be a bit creepy, at least when it's not something you're controlling," he added, since he'd manipulated force screens plenty of times to create containment areas, or a couple of times, 'nudge' things it was easier and safer to move that way.

The woman just nodded and glanced around taking in more things around them. “I heard people compare this part of the planet to Scotland. Have you ever been there?” She wondered. It was nothing like the part of Earth she had seen on there visit to his planet.

"I've been a couple of times, but mostly to the cities." He looked around. "It doesn't look much like Edinburgh or Glasgow, but maybe out further... my mom has some landscapes that do kind of look like this."

“Maybe it looks like ancient Scotland.” She mused as they got to the front of the queue, and Nollel held up her wrist with the tickets on. The Allhallowian smiled and indicated they could go inside, which made Nollel grip the man’s hand.

Burnie squeezed the hand reassuringly, though it was partially himself he was reassuring. The building had a real 'old haunted manor' vibe. He almost wished they'd brought K-9 just in case something like the Hound of the Baskervilles showed up. "Definitely ancient, or at least several centuries old with respect to looking like anything from earth."

Rain clouds drifted overhead, making the Victorian building look even more sinister. Strange music echoed through the small ticketing area. “This part of All Hallows is primary 18th century based.” The ticket monitor said as Nollel reluctantly stepped inside.

As they entered the house, the atmosphere changed immediately. The smell of old wood and dust filled the air. Portraits lined the walls, and dim lanterns cast flickering shadows across the floor.

Looking around, it occurred to Burnie that unless that old theory about planets with similar ecologies developing surprisingly parallel social histories applied here, this wasn't 18th-century Allhallowian. Had they intentionally adopted 18th-century Western earth culture as their model? Weird, but then Earth's aesthetics had influenced a lot of the Federation. He half-smiled recalling how someone had once noted that despite being slower, weaker, and more vulnerable than so many other species, they were the most prolific in the Federation, showing up nearly everywhere - 'cockroaches of the galaxy'.

As he moved further into the house, he found himself half-humming the theme song from one of his mom's old 20th century media collections They're crazy and they're kooky. They're altogether spooky... The show had been about a family of monsters, but hadn't been scary, which was maybe why his twisty brain had pulled it up to counter the haunted mansion vibes. "This can't be native to Allhallows, can it? It looks right out of an Earth holovid set from way before 1st Contact."

At first, Nollel relaxed. The scenes were impressive but not particularly frightening. She admired the detailed rooms filled with antique toys and dusty furniture. Then the lights suddenly flickered. A doll's head turned. She jumped.

"No," she whispered. "It looks very Earth core."

"Earth core," he chuckled, amused, though also covering nerves. Nollel wasn't the only one who had jumped. Burnie was fine with a lot of horror story elements, but haunted/demonic dolls... *shudder* He'd seen one of those vids as a kid and had avoided his sister's room for a year afterwards because her shelf of dolls had creeped him out. "This is definitely 'Earth horror core'."

A creaking sound echoed above them, making Nollel look up.

"What was that?" Nollel asked. Before Michael could answer, a gigantic figure burst from the darkness, accompanied by a blast of sound and flashing lights.

On reflex, Burnie jumped in front to shield her ...then laughed at himself, reacting to such a classic jump-scare. How many times had he been to haunted houses as a kid and just laughed at those? Granted, he'd usually spent the day before imagining how he'd rig up a place like that, so was both prepared and then frequently disappointed when the real attraction wasn't as good. Time to start thinking like an amusement engineer again. "Not bad," he said, looking up to where a giant holographic ghoul swooped away into the darkness. "So, creepy dolls, ghost... If they're going for earth haunted house tropes, up ahead should be werewolves, vampires, a mummy, a Frankenstein monster, maybe with mad scientist ...oh, and an axe murderer."

"I do not think I like this kind of Earth core anymore." The woman laughed as she allowed Burnie to jump in front of her. It made her smile that he wanted to be protective and wanted to look after her. It was one of the many reasons she stayed married to him despite the way they got married.

"I think being prepared for it helps." He paused as a bone-chilling howl echoed through the walls. "I'm guessing werewolf," he said, wishing the Kainans he'd known in Starfleet were along. He was pretty sure Durst would howl back and put that to shame. Well, no reason he couldn't try, and joking was his typical way of dealing with scary stuff. "A-whoo-ooo," he sang, "Werewolves of London! A-whoo-oo-ooo!"

Nollel could not help but laugh at the man and his silliness. It really was helping with her nerves; she was not normally like this at all but maybe she was finally finding something that scared her properly. "Come on, let's just face this all and then I can have something strong to drink." She breathed, thinking maybe seeing Meghan had unnerved her more than she thought.

"Sounds like a plan," he agreed heartily, moving ahead. The hallway lead to stairs that spiraled toward what he guessed would be a mad scientist's lab. There were jars of embalmed critters and organs, bubbling flasks and arcs of electricity flashing around a sparking platform. At a loud cackle, Burnie flashed a grin. "Dude, dial it back. Even I don't sound that excited about high power physics."