* * *
DeSilva had left the Operations station in the hands of her deputy and now sat next to Ensign Garrett at the upper bridge level’s Science console. Glal stood between them, thick arms folded across his barrel-like chest as he studied their displays.
“Here’s Awantear’s warp signature,” Garrett pointed out, jabbing an index finger at her monitor. “You can see the pattern degradation starting here, sir, which is indicative that she was traveling at high warp towards the Bryma system.”
“And here,” DeSilva broke in, “are four other warp signatures from four distinct craft, on roughly parallel courses to that of Awantear, leading from the trade corridor towards the same system. Based on the decay pattern of these warp trails, it appears that they likely arrived at the Bryma system at roughly the same time.”
Glal frowned, scratching absently at his thick, thatch-like beard. “And we’re certain this system wasn’t listed on Awantear’s itinerary?”
“Yes, sir. Their layover prior to this was at Suilkail VI, where they dropped supplies at a Min’raur agricultural station. Their next listed stop was supposed to have been the Federation colony on Salva II, then they were to return to Krythos Station. This little side trip has thrown them completely off schedule.”
He glanced between the two women. “Are we thinking piracy? Perhaps someone’s seized the freighter and is rendezvousing with others to clean them out?”
DeSilva and Garrett exchanged a look before the lieutenant answered. “It’s possible, Commander. However, the area is pretty thick with Cardassian military ships flexing their authority. Not exactly the kind of environment that’s conducive to piracy.”
Glal grunted in agreement, adding, “Especially with the Cardassians opening all those labor camps in their territory over the past few years. Pirates would fit right in with all the political prisoners they’ve rounded up recently.”
“What about smuggling?” Lieutenant Jarrod interjected from his post at the nearby standing Tactical station. “That wouldn’t be out of character for a Xepolite trade ship, would it?”
Glal turned to favor the younger man with an appreciative look. “Yes, I think that’s more likely. They’re probably going off course to pick up or drop off something illicit before their return to Krythos.”
“Trying to get something past the Cardassians, sir?” Garrett asked.
“Them, or the customs officers back at Krythos,” Glal elaborated. “If all your smuggling occurs between your scheduled stops and away from your home port, you don’t risk fines or penalties from the customs officials.”
DeSilva nodded in agreement. “The personnel in Krythos Station ops didn’t seem that worried about Awantear running late. Perhaps it’s a common occurrence?”
Glal gestured to the display. “What about these other four ships we’ve detected? Can you determine ID’s on any of them?”
“Give me just a moment, sir…” Garrett called up a pattern recognition subroutine and began filtering the data through it, her hands dancing across the console interface with admirable speed.
“There’s an eighty-four percent probability this ship here is Orion, and a seventy-one percent probability that this one is Alshain. The other two trails have overlapped to such a degree that the computer can’t separate and isolate the individual signatures.”
“Alshain?” Glal said in surprise. “We’re a long way from the Exarchate. I can’t remember the last time I ran across one of their ships this far coreward.”
DeSilva’s eyes narrowed at this oddity. “Didn’t the Tellarites have some dealings with the Exarchate back when they were a major player in the quadrant, sir?”
“A few,” he conceded, “none of them good. As my people were expanding their influence, the Alshain were already a waning power. There was some opportunistic piracy on their part, and given that the Alshain were involved, some… well, I don’t suppose you can call it cannibalism, strictly speaking…”
DeSilva gave a dour grunt, intuiting the ghastly implications of his anecdote. “Understood, sir.”
Glal cast a glance towards the hatch leading to the ready room. “I’d better go update the captain,” he said as he moved towards the door. “DeSilva, you have the conn.”
“Aye, sir,” DeSilva replied, “I have the conn.”
Garrett stared with unabashed shock at the Operations officer seated next to her, murmuring, “The Alshain ate Tellarites?”
Glal stepped through into the ready room and the instant the doors hissed closed, DeSilva whispered, just loudly enough for Garrett to hear, “They’re lupanoids, basically giant bipedal space wolves. They eat whatever they like, sentient or not. The Gorn aren’t the only hyper-predatory species in the quadrant, Ensign.”
Garrett just looked at her, dumbfounded. Despite being only a few months out of the academy, she had already seen her share of horrors, but it seemed the galaxy kept finding new and ever more disturbing ways to shock her.
DeSilva stood and patted the younger officer’s shoulder before heading for the captain’s chair. “Good work, Mister Garrett.”
* * *
“Approaching Bryma II orbital insertion point, Captain,” Naifeh announced from the Helm station.
“Acknowledged,” Trujillo replied. She had her swing-arm console interface pulled up into her lap and was scrolling through a number of sensor readouts. “Ops, any sign of those other four vessels whose trails we detected?”
“Negative, sir, just the Xepolite transport in geosynchronous orbit around the planet,” DeSilva answered.
Trujillo turned her chair to face the Science station on the bridge’s upper ring. “Ensign, any signs of impulse trails that might suggest where they went?”
Garrett shook her head, saying, “No, sir. Impulse trails decay much more quickly than warp transit traces, and there’s nothing detectable in system.”
“Yet nothing that suggests they departed, sir,” Jarrod offered from the Tactical station. “Which means if they’re still here, they’re hiding and doing a damned fine job of it.”
“But why?” Glal interjected from an auxiliary station on the upper level. “It’s not as if we have any jurisdiction out this far. Even if they are smuggling, it isn't any of our business.”
“Old habits, probably,” Trujillo theorized. “There’s enough smuggling and piracy out here that they see us in our shiny starship with our uniforms and move to keep their heads down. Awantear’s almost certainly carrying contraband cargo in addition to its passengers, and this is a remote enough system to make it a good low-visibility transfer point.”
“Entering orbit now, Captain,” Naifeh advised.
“Helm, set a matching orbital pattern that’ll bring us right alongside Awantear at twenty kilometers separation. Slow approach, bring us in at five-hundred kph.” Trujillo looked to Jarrod. “Weaps, launch a flight of five Class-I probes. Have them initiate a search pattern of Bryma II and its moons, then fan out to encompass the nearest planets in the system. I want to know where those other ships have holed up.”
“Aye, sir.”
Trujillo then shot a mischievous look at Glal. “Now, let’s see how cooperative the Xepolites want to be.”
He smiled back, his tusks quivering with amusement. “If they’re up to no good, they’ll want us gone as quickly as possible. We’d be bad for business, especially if they have buyers hiding nearby.”
“Ops, open a channel to Awantear.”
“Aye, sir. Channel open. You’ll be on with Ship’sMaster Yahvid.”
Trujillo stood, tugging her uniform tunic from the bottom to tease out any wrinkles. “Starship Reykjavík to trade vessel Awantear, please respond.”
Ship’sMaster Kimar Yahvid appeared on the screen. He was a vaguely reptilian looking humanoid with a greenish, armored-looking shell-mask formed over his facial features, exposing only eyes and mouth. Reddish hair flowed from behind the organic mask-like growth, hair which had been intricately stylized and woven into a dreadlock-style pattern, the individual braids bejeweled with precious stones.
The freighter captain’s posture suggested annoyance and more than a bit of suspicion.
“Federation vessel, we are in neutral territory, and our cargo certifications and licenses are in order. By what authority do you seek to stop us?”
Trujillo held up her hands with fingers spread and thumbs interlocked, a Xepolite gesture of peaceful intent that she remembered from a long-ago intra-species cultural course at the academy.
“Ship’sMaster, I am Captain Trujillo of the Federation starship Reykjavík. I apologize if our presence has alarmed you. We are not here to interfere with your business in any way. We’ve been looking for your ship for the better part of two days. Krythos Station reported you as being overdue and not responding to their hails, and we decided to initiate a search for you.”
Yahvid appeared skeptical. “You are searching for us simply out of the goodness of your spirits?”
Trujillo favored him with an ‘oh-come-on’ expression of incredulity. “Ship’sMaster, I’ve researched your credentials; you’ve been hauling people and cargo around the quadrant long enough to know that Starfleet regularly engages in such gestures of goodwill.”
Yahvid shrugged his shoulders, his species’ version of a nod. “That is so, indisputably. However, no search or rescue is needed here and now. On my authority, we are depositing the Bajoran migrants onboard to the surface where they wish to establish a colony.”
“Here?” Trujillo inquired, clearly dubious. “On a barely Class-M planet so close to Cardassian claimed territory? I would think they would wish to be well away from here before trying to set down roots. We’d heard you were transporting them to refugee centers in the Raois Cluster.”
The Xepolite captain tilted his head back in what almost seemed a gesture of defiance. “I raised the same point with them, but their leaders were insistent. There are remnants of an abandoned city on the surface, and the Bajora seem to believe that these ruins can furnish them with building materials for establishing a settlement here. Also, we and they share concerns about what might happen to them upon disembarking in the cluster. There has been a growing Orion presence in the region, and the chances of refugees without the means to defend themselves falling prey to slaver gangs is unfortunately high.”
Trujillo cocked her head in turn, conceding the point. “So be it. Do they require any relief supplies?”
“I am sure any assistance you might offer would be gratefully accepted, Captain,” Yahvid answered somberly. “They have very little, save their dignity. I will arrange to transport whatever supplies you can spare to my ship, and we will shuttle them down to the settlement along with their people once their advance party has completed their survey of the city’s remains.”
“I’ll send a party down to the surface. We’ll be able to make a far better assessment of their needs if we can meet with them in person.”
“That really isn’t necessary, Captain,” Yahvid replied, irritation creeping back into his voice.
“I insist,” Trujillo said with a saccharine smile.
“Very well,” Yavhid said, yielding reluctantly. “I will transmit coordinates.”
“Thank you, Ship’sMaster. You’ve been very helpful. Reykjavík, out.”
Trujillo reached back to her chair’s armrest and toggled the channel closed. She looked around the bridge at her senior officers. “Was that just me or did that feel… wrong?”
“They are definitely up to something, sir,” Glal answered.
“I agree,” Trujillo affirmed. “XO, form a landing party with extra security. Take rifles, but keep them hidden, I don’t want to spook the Bajora or give the Xepolites any reason to think we suspect them of anything.”
“Other than the fact that we’re here sticking our noses into their business and sending a team to the surface against their wishes, sir?” Glal offered glibly.
Trujillo managed not to roll her eyes, but only just. “Other than that, yes.”
* * *
Bryma II was listed in Starfleet star-charts as a marginally Class-M planet, a world that’s best life-bearing epochs were far behind it.
The air was breathable, though the oxygen content was low, and Dr. Bennett had prepared the away team with injections of Tri-Ox. Without it, their breathing would have become labored with even marginal physical exertion.
It was cold, approximately five degrees Celsius, and their collective breath rose as steam until blustery gusts of wind snatched it away. The group had rematerialized some hundreds of meters from what had been the outer perimeter of an ancient city.
They were clad in bulky away mission excursion jackets, with phaser pistols tucked into easily accessible front pockets to avoid alarming the Bajoran refugees. Jarrod and his two security specialists were also armed with compact phasers rifles secured on slings beneath their jackets, their collapsable buttstocks folded.
The crumbling ruins of a long-dead city spread out before them, the sagging monotanium skeletons of towers that had once reached more than a kilometer into the sky. Federation archeologists had scoured the site decades earlier as Starfleet assessed the planet’s suitability as a prospective colony location. The city’s age had been estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of five-hundred thousand years, and it had been abandoned suddenly because of the planet’s abrupt climatic and atmospheric changes.
Those same changes had left the world nearly lifeless, with only a small percentage of the flora and fauna managing to adapt to the new, much less friendly environment. The only vegetation visible in this region were stunted trees with sickly yellow leaves and thorny, dusty looking pale green plants dotting the greyish clay-like soil.
Starfleet had ultimately decided that the planet was sufficiently hostile to life that it would have required decades of terraforming intervention to make it habitable to most Federation member species and the colonization plans were abandoned.
Glal, Dr. Bennett, Jarrod, Garrett and two of Jarrod’s security division turned slowly to assess their surroundings, squinting as wind-blown dust and grit pelted their unprotected faces.
Bennett spat to clear his mouth as he cupped a hand over his eyes to shield them. “This look like a good place for a refugee camp to you, Commander?” he called to Glal.
Glal waited to respond until he had fished a pair of goggles out of a pocket of his jacket and fitted them over his eyes. “Point taken, Doctor,” he graveled.
Three boxy, aging Xepolite shuttles were parked nearby, each guarded by a rifle-toting crewman. One of these men was asleep on the rear entry ramp of his shuttle, while the other two circled their charges slowly, eyeing the Starfleet contingent suspiciously.
The rest of the away team donned goggles of their own, then advanced through the occluding wall of blowing dust and sand which had suddenly kicked up from the desolate flatlands to their relative east.
They approached the shuttles, and one of the Xepolite guards stepped forward to meet them.
“Where are the Bajora?” Glal called over the intermittent roar of wind gusts.
The guard merely pointed toward the city, his eyes invisible behind mirrored goggles.
“How far?” Glal asked.
The guard gestured again towards the city but said nothing.
“You’ve been tremendously helpful,” Glal noted acidly, turning back to the others. “Onward,” he said loudly, setting off in the indicated direction with the rest of his team in tow.
* * *
They plod along through what had once been broad avenues between towering structures, the visibility rising and falling with each gust of dust-laden wind.
Garrett squinted at her tricorder’s display screen, barely visible through the increasingly dense dust storm.
The team had called the ship and requested filtration masks be beamed down to them, so they were no longer forced to contend with the choking dust and sand. Communications with the ship had been scratchy, and the transport had taken almost twice as long as normal for the items to fully materialize. The electromagnetic interference from the storm would likely get worse, Garrett informed them, as a storm front was quickly approaching that would make the current unpleasantness pale in comparison.
They continued on into the city, led by the faint life signs detected on Garrett’s tricorder.
“Lifeforms ahead,” Garrett advised after a few moments, her voice slightly distorted by the comms-pickup in her facemask.
Shadowy figures appeared out of the gloom as they approached, humanoids in environment suits that were only recognizable as Xepolites when the Starfleeters came within a few meters of them.
One among them, the leader, presumably, gave the Starfleet contingent a cursory inspection. “Welcome. I’m surprised to see representatives from the Federation here, but if the captain permitted you surface access you must have the latinum for it. The others are already here, and we’ll explain the ground rules in a few moments.”
The Xepolite turned and gestured towards a structure looming above them that had failed to register on Garrett’s tricorder. “You’re welcome to wait inside the hospitality pod. We have food and refreshments.”
Glal hesitated for a moment, then gestured for the others to follow him up the ramp into the landing pod’s interior.
The group passed through a static barrier at the top of the ramp which tingled mildly as it swept the particulates from their hair and clothing.
They emerged into luxuriant opulence, a large lounge-like waiting area with couches lining the bulkheads. The compartment was tastefully decorated with exotic tapestries, statuary, and impressive holographic art. A low table in the center was burdened with all manner of food and drink, exotic delicacies and liquors from across the quadrant.
Glal pulled down his mask, sniffing the air and finding the smell and oxygen content to his liking. He pulled off his goggles as well, turning a full circle to examine their surroundings as he stuffed his protective gear into his field jacket’s ample pockets.
A man sat opposite them; a glass of amber fluid held in one hand. He was clearly Romulan, dressed in military fatigues, the kind of sturdy garb a foot soldier might wear into battle on a planetary surface. He wore no rank insignia, but the two Romulan centurions armed with rifles flanking him suggested he was someone of importance.
The Romulan had a narrow, pinched face and intense eyes, and Glal’s decades of experience told him that whoever this man was, he was both capable and dangerous. Given that the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire had not had dealings for the better part of a decade, it was surprising to see Romulans in the flesh outside their own borders.
Nearby sat a large, green Orion male, clad in similarly durable clothing, whose fingers were decorated with ornate rings. He balanced a small plate of hors d’oeuvres on his lap, and Glal noted the menacing Lurian plasma rifle resting against the couch next to the man.
Glal reached for his hand-held communicator, only to see Jarrod flipping his own open to the trilling sound of the null-function alert. The security officer fiddled with the device’s settings, only to receive the same alarm. He shook his head at Glal and gestured to his emergency transponder, a small metallic box affixed to the left side of his field jacket at chest level.
Glal nodded, and Jarrod activated the transponder as casually as he could.
A towering Alshain suddenly appeared from an adjoining compartment, and Glal heard Garrett’s sharp intake of breath at the sight of the imposing creature. The large, bipedal canid wore only padded bands around its elbows and knees, having eschewed the typically ornate clothing worn by its species in nearly all social settings. Whatever this individual was about to engage in, it appeared ready to do so au natural.
Garrett stepped over to Glal, her attention now fixed on her tricorder display. “Commander, this craft is shielded against subspace communications, and even if it wasn’t, I doubt we could punch a signal through that atmospheric soup out there.”
Jarrod directed his two subordinates to take up position between the away team and the other occupants of the pod and then joined Glal and Garrett.
“Whatever’s going on here doesn’t seem to have anything to do with helping the Bajora establish a settlement, sir,” Jarrod assessed.
Glal pursed his lips beneath his thatch-like beard as his tusks twitched with anxious anticipation. “None of this makes any sense. If these beings are here to bid on contraband cargo, why do it right next to where you're settling impoverished refugees?"
Dr. Bennett had appeared content to merely observe the pod and its occupants up to this point, but now he turned to face Glal with an expression that could have frozen plasma. In an urgent whisper he demanded, “I need access to the Bajorans immediately, Commander. If they’ve been exposed to the elements out there without protective clothing and equipment for any length of time, they’re almost certainly in medical distress.”
Bennett made an all-encompassing gesture to include the other occupants of the hospitality pod. “This is either some form of sadistic entertainment at the expense of desperate refugees, or something even more terrible is going on here.”
Garrett looked up from her tricorder and glanced between the men. “I don’t understand, sir. Are these more of the freighter’s passengers?” She looked around, her expression puzzled.
“No, Ensign,” Glal responded in a low voice. “My guess is that these people were aboard the other four ships we suspect arrived in the system along with the Xepolites.”
“Greetings all!” a raised voice exclaimed, cutting short their conversation as everyone in the compartment turned in unison to see a striking female Orion dressed in a gorgeous kimono-like garment woven from what must have been Tholian silk.
Her long, curly black hair was threaded through with gold strands that complimented her shimmering shift and her dark green skin.
“Welcome to Bryma II. We greatly appreciate your patience and your tolerating the less-than-ideal environment for this occasion.”
She was stunningly beautiful and radiated a powerful charisma that was reinforced by the eroginizing pheromones that had such a mesmerizing effect on the male gender of so many humanoid species.
“However, this inclement weather also enhances the challenge of our contest, ensuring this evening’s hunt will be one for the ages!”
“Hunt?” Garrett whispered the question hoarsely, her eyes wild with dawning horror.
“The Bajorans,” Dr. Bennett confirmed in an equally low tone, his voice tight with derision. “These people have paid a fortune to hunt refugees.”
* * *
DeSilva had left the Operations station in the hands of her deputy and now sat next to Ensign Garrett at the upper bridge level’s Science console. Glal stood between them, thick arms folded across his barrel-like chest as he studied their displays.
“Here’s Awantear’s warp signature,” Garrett pointed out, jabbing an index finger at her monitor. “You can see the pattern degradation starting here, sir, which is indicative that she was traveling at high warp towards the Bryma system.”
“And here,” DeSilva broke in, “are four other warp signatures from four distinct craft, on roughly parallel courses to that of Awantear, leading from the trade corridor towards the same system. Based on the decay pattern of these warp trails, it appears that they likely arrived at the Bryma system at roughly the same time.”
Glal frowned, scratching absently at his thick, thatch-like beard. “And we’re certain this system wasn’t listed on Awantear’s itinerary?”
“Yes, sir. Their layover prior to this was at Suilkail VI, where they dropped supplies at a Min’raur agricultural station. Their next listed stop was supposed to have been the Federation colony on Salva II, then they were to return to Krythos Station. This little side trip has thrown them completely off schedule.”
He glanced between the two women. “Are we thinking piracy? Perhaps someone’s seized the freighter and is rendezvousing with others to clean them out?”
DeSilva and Garrett exchanged a look before the lieutenant answered. “It’s possible, Commander. However, the area is pretty thick with Cardassian military ships flexing their authority. Not exactly the kind of environment that’s conducive to piracy.”
Glal grunted in agreement, adding, “Especially with the Cardassians opening all those labor camps in their territory over the past few years. Pirates would fit right in with all the political prisoners they’ve rounded up recently.”
“What about smuggling?” Lieutenant Jarrod interjected from his post at the nearby standing Tactical station. “That wouldn’t be out of character for a Xepolite trade ship, would it?”
Glal turned to favor the younger man with an appreciative look. “Yes, I think that’s more likely. They’re probably going off course to pick up or drop off something illicit before their return to Krythos.”
“Trying to get something past the Cardassians, sir?” Garrett asked.
“Them, or the customs officers back at Krythos,” Glal elaborated. “If all your smuggling occurs between your scheduled stops and away from your home port, you don’t risk fines or penalties from the customs officials.”
DeSilva nodded in agreement. “The personnel in Krythos Station ops didn’t seem that worried about Awantear running late. Perhaps it’s a common occurrence?”
Glal gestured to the display. “What about these other four ships we’ve detected? Can you determine ID’s on any of them?”
“Give me just a moment, sir…” Garrett called up a pattern recognition subroutine and began filtering the data through it, her hands dancing across the console interface with admirable speed.
“There’s an eighty-four percent probability this ship here is Orion, and a seventy-one percent probability that this one is Alshain. The other two trails have overlapped to such a degree that the computer can’t separate and isolate the individual signatures.”
“Alshain?” Glal said in surprise. “We’re a long way from the Exarchate. I can’t remember the last time I ran across one of their ships this far coreward.”
DeSilva’s eyes narrowed at this oddity. “Didn’t the Tellarites have some dealings with the Exarchate back when they were a major player in the quadrant, sir?”
“A few,” he conceded, “none of them good. As my people were expanding their influence, the Alshain were already a waning power. There was some opportunistic piracy on their part, and given that the Alshain were involved, some… well, I don’t suppose you can call it cannibalism, strictly speaking…”
DeSilva gave a dour grunt, intuiting the ghastly implications of his anecdote. “Understood, sir.”
Glal cast a glance towards the hatch leading to the ready room. “I’d better go update the captain,” he said as he moved towards the door. “DeSilva, you have the conn.”
“Aye, sir,” DeSilva replied, “I have the conn.”
Garrett stared with unabashed shock at the Operations officer seated next to her, murmuring, “The Alshain ate Tellarites?”
Glal stepped through into the ready room and the instant the doors hissed closed, DeSilva whispered, just loudly enough for Garrett to hear, “They’re lupanoids, basically giant bipedal space wolves. They eat whatever they like, sentient or not. The Gorn aren’t the only hyper-predatory species in the quadrant, Ensign.”
Garrett just looked at her, dumbfounded. Despite being only a few months out of the academy, she had already seen her share of horrors, but it seemed the galaxy kept finding new and ever more disturbing ways to shock her.
DeSilva stood and patted the younger officer’s shoulder before heading for the captain’s chair. “Good work, Mister Garrett.”
* * *
“Approaching Bryma II orbital insertion point, Captain,” Naifeh announced from the Helm station.
“Acknowledged,” Trujillo replied. She had her swing-arm console interface pulled up into her lap and was scrolling through a number of sensor readouts. “Ops, any sign of those other four vessels whose trails we detected?”
“Negative, sir, just the Xepolite transport in geosynchronous orbit around the planet,” DeSilva answered.
Trujillo turned her chair to face the Science station on the bridge’s upper ring. “Ensign, any signs of impulse trails that might suggest where they went?”
Garrett shook her head, saying, “No, sir. Impulse trails decay much more quickly than warp transit traces, and there’s nothing detectable in system.”
“Yet nothing that suggests they departed, sir,” Jarrod offered from the Tactical station. “Which means if they’re still here, they’re hiding and doing a damned fine job of it.”
“But why?” Glal interjected from an auxiliary station on the upper level. “It’s not as if we have any jurisdiction out this far. Even if they are smuggling, it isn't any of our business.”
“Old habits, probably,” Trujillo theorized. “There’s enough smuggling and piracy out here that they see us in our shiny starship with our uniforms and move to keep their heads down. Awantear’s almost certainly carrying contraband cargo in addition to its passengers, and this is a remote enough system to make it a good low-visibility transfer point.”
“Entering orbit now, Captain,” Naifeh advised.
“Helm, set a matching orbital pattern that’ll bring us right alongside Awantear at twenty kilometers separation. Slow approach, bring us in at five-hundred kph.” Trujillo looked to Jarrod. “Weaps, launch a flight of five Class-I probes. Have them initiate a search pattern of Bryma II and its moons, then fan out to encompass the nearest planets in the system. I want to know where those other ships have holed up.”
“Aye, sir.”
Trujillo then shot a mischievous look at Glal. “Now, let’s see how cooperative the Xepolites want to be.”
He smiled back, his tusks quivering with amusement. “If they’re up to no good, they’ll want us gone as quickly as possible. We’d be bad for business, especially if they have buyers hiding nearby.”
“Ops, open a channel to Awantear.”
“Aye, sir. Channel open. You’ll be on with Ship’sMaster Yahvid.”
Trujillo stood, tugging her uniform tunic from the bottom to tease out any wrinkles. “Starship Reykjavík to trade vessel Awantear, please respond.”
Ship’sMaster Kimar Yahvid appeared on the screen. He was a vaguely reptilian looking humanoid with a greenish, armored-looking shell-mask formed over his facial features, exposing only eyes and mouth. Reddish hair flowed from behind the organic mask-like growth, hair which had been intricately stylized and woven into a dreadlock-style pattern, the individual braids bejeweled with precious stones.
The freighter captain’s posture suggested annoyance and more than a bit of suspicion.
“Federation vessel, we are in neutral territory, and our cargo certifications and licenses are in order. By what authority do you seek to stop us?”
Trujillo held up her hands with fingers spread and thumbs interlocked, a Xepolite gesture of peaceful intent that she remembered from a long-ago intra-species cultural course at the academy.
“Ship’sMaster, I am Captain Trujillo of the Federation starship Reykjavík. I apologize if our presence has alarmed you. We are not here to interfere with your business in any way. We’ve been looking for your ship for the better part of two days. Krythos Station reported you as being overdue and not responding to their hails, and we decided to initiate a search for you.”
Yahvid appeared skeptical. “You are searching for us simply out of the goodness of your spirits?”
Trujillo favored him with an ‘oh-come-on’ expression of incredulity. “Ship’sMaster, I’ve researched your credentials; you’ve been hauling people and cargo around the quadrant long enough to know that Starfleet regularly engages in such gestures of goodwill.”
Yahvid shrugged his shoulders, his species’ version of a nod. “That is so, indisputably. However, no search or rescue is needed here and now. On my authority, we are depositing the Bajoran migrants onboard to the surface where they wish to establish a colony.”
“Here?” Trujillo inquired, clearly dubious. “On a barely Class-M planet so close to Cardassian claimed territory? I would think they would wish to be well away from here before trying to set down roots. We’d heard you were transporting them to refugee centers in the Raois Cluster.”
The Xepolite captain tilted his head back in what almost seemed a gesture of defiance. “I raised the same point with them, but their leaders were insistent. There are remnants of an abandoned city on the surface, and the Bajora seem to believe that these ruins can furnish them with building materials for establishing a settlement here. Also, we and they share concerns about what might happen to them upon disembarking in the cluster. There has been a growing Orion presence in the region, and the chances of refugees without the means to defend themselves falling prey to slaver gangs is unfortunately high.”
Trujillo cocked her head in turn, conceding the point. “So be it. Do they require any relief supplies?”
“I am sure any assistance you might offer would be gratefully accepted, Captain,” Yahvid answered somberly. “They have very little, save their dignity. I will arrange to transport whatever supplies you can spare to my ship, and we will shuttle them down to the settlement along with their people once their advance party has completed their survey of the city’s remains.”
“I’ll send a party down to the surface. We’ll be able to make a far better assessment of their needs if we can meet with them in person.”
“That really isn’t necessary, Captain,” Yahvid replied, irritation creeping back into his voice.
“I insist,” Trujillo said with a saccharine smile.
“Very well,” Yavhid said, yielding reluctantly. “I will transmit coordinates.”
“Thank you, Ship’sMaster. You’ve been very helpful. Reykjavík, out.”
Trujillo reached back to her chair’s armrest and toggled the channel closed. She looked around the bridge at her senior officers. “Was that just me or did that feel… wrong?”
“They are definitely up to something, sir,” Glal answered.
“I agree,” Trujillo affirmed. “XO, form a landing party with extra security. Take rifles, but keep them hidden, I don’t want to spook the Bajora or give the Xepolites any reason to think we suspect them of anything.”
“Other than the fact that we’re here sticking our noses into their business and sending a team to the surface against their wishes, sir?” Glal offered glibly.
Trujillo managed not to roll her eyes, but only just. “Other than that, yes.”
* * *
Bryma II was listed in Starfleet star-charts as a marginally Class-M planet, a world that’s best life-bearing epochs were far behind it.
The air was breathable, though the oxygen content was low, and Dr. Bennett had prepared the away team with injections of Tri-Ox. Without it, their breathing would have become labored with even marginal physical exertion.
It was cold, approximately five degrees Celsius, and their collective breath rose as steam until blustery gusts of wind snatched it away. The group had rematerialized some hundreds of meters from what had been the outer perimeter of an ancient city.
They were clad in bulky away mission excursion jackets, with phaser pistols tucked into easily accessible front pockets to avoid alarming the Bajoran refugees. Jarrod and his two security specialists were also armed with compact phasers rifles secured on slings beneath their jackets, their collapsable buttstocks folded.
The crumbling ruins of a long-dead city spread out before them, the sagging monotanium skeletons of towers that had once reached more than a kilometer into the sky. Federation archeologists had scoured the site decades earlier as Starfleet assessed the planet’s suitability as a prospective colony location. The city’s age had been estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of five-hundred thousand years, and it had been abandoned suddenly because of the planet’s abrupt climatic and atmospheric changes.
Those same changes had left the world nearly lifeless, with only a small percentage of the flora and fauna managing to adapt to the new, much less friendly environment. The only vegetation visible in this region were stunted trees with sickly yellow leaves and thorny, dusty looking pale green plants dotting the greyish clay-like soil.
Starfleet had ultimately decided that the planet was sufficiently hostile to life that it would have required decades of terraforming intervention to make it habitable to most Federation member species and the colonization plans were abandoned.
Glal, Dr. Bennett, Jarrod, Garrett and two of Jarrod’s security division turned slowly to assess their surroundings, squinting as wind-blown dust and grit pelted their unprotected faces.
Bennett spat to clear his mouth as he cupped a hand over his eyes to shield them. “This look like a good place for a refugee camp to you, Commander?” he called to Glal.
Glal waited to respond until he had fished a pair of goggles out of a pocket of his jacket and fitted them over his eyes. “Point taken, Doctor,” he graveled.
Three boxy, aging Xepolite shuttles were parked nearby, each guarded by a rifle-toting crewman. One of these men was asleep on the rear entry ramp of his shuttle, while the other two circled their charges slowly, eyeing the Starfleet contingent suspiciously.
The rest of the away team donned goggles of their own, then advanced through the occluding wall of blowing dust and sand which had suddenly kicked up from the desolate flatlands to their relative east.
They approached the shuttles, and one of the Xepolite guards stepped forward to meet them.
“Where are the Bajora?” Glal called over the intermittent roar of wind gusts.
The guard merely pointed toward the city, his eyes invisible behind mirrored goggles.
“How far?” Glal asked.
The guard gestured again towards the city but said nothing.
“You’ve been tremendously helpful,” Glal noted acidly, turning back to the others. “Onward,” he said loudly, setting off in the indicated direction with the rest of his team in tow.
* * *
They plod along through what had once been broad avenues between towering structures, the visibility rising and falling with each gust of dust-laden wind.
Garrett squinted at her tricorder’s display screen, barely visible through the increasingly dense dust storm.
The team had called the ship and requested filtration masks be beamed down to them, so they were no longer forced to contend with the choking dust and sand. Communications with the ship had been scratchy, and the transport had taken almost twice as long as normal for the items to fully materialize. The electromagnetic interference from the storm would likely get worse, Garrett informed them, as a storm front was quickly approaching that would make the current unpleasantness pale in comparison.
They continued on into the city, led by the faint life signs detected on Garrett’s tricorder.
“Lifeforms ahead,” Garrett advised after a few moments, her voice slightly distorted by the comms-pickup in her facemask.
Shadowy figures appeared out of the gloom as they approached, humanoids in environment suits that were only recognizable as Xepolites when the Starfleeters came within a few meters of them.
One among them, the leader, presumably, gave the Starfleet contingent a cursory inspection. “Welcome. I’m surprised to see representatives from the Federation here, but if the captain permitted you surface access you must have the latinum for it. The others are already here, and we’ll explain the ground rules in a few moments.”
The Xepolite turned and gestured towards a structure looming above them that had failed to register on Garrett’s tricorder. “You’re welcome to wait inside the hospitality pod. We have food and refreshments.”
Glal hesitated for a moment, then gestured for the others to follow him up the ramp into the landing pod’s interior.
The group passed through a static barrier at the top of the ramp which tingled mildly as it swept the particulates from their hair and clothing.
They emerged into luxuriant opulence, a large lounge-like waiting area with couches lining the bulkheads. The compartment was tastefully decorated with exotic tapestries, statuary, and impressive holographic art. A low table in the center was burdened with all manner of food and drink, exotic delicacies and liquors from across the quadrant.
Glal pulled down his mask, sniffing the air and finding the smell and oxygen content to his liking. He pulled off his goggles as well, turning a full circle to examine their surroundings as he stuffed his protective gear into his field jacket’s ample pockets.
A man sat opposite them; a glass of amber fluid held in one hand. He was clearly Romulan, dressed in military fatigues, the kind of sturdy garb a foot soldier might wear into battle on a planetary surface. He wore no rank insignia, but the two Romulan centurions armed with rifles flanking him suggested he was someone of importance.
The Romulan had a narrow, pinched face and intense eyes, and Glal’s decades of experience told him that whoever this man was, he was both capable and dangerous. Given that the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire had not had dealings for the better part of a decade, it was surprising to see Romulans in the flesh outside their own borders.
Nearby sat a large, green Orion male, clad in similarly durable clothing, whose fingers were decorated with ornate rings. He balanced a small plate of hors d’oeuvres on his lap, and Glal noted the menacing Lurian plasma rifle resting against the couch next to the man.
Glal reached for his hand-held communicator, only to see Jarrod flipping his own open to the trilling sound of the null-function alert. The security officer fiddled with the device’s settings, only to receive the same alarm. He shook his head at Glal and gestured to his emergency transponder, a small metallic box affixed to the left side of his field jacket at chest level.
Glal nodded, and Jarrod activated the transponder as casually as he could.
A towering Alshain suddenly appeared from an adjoining compartment, and Glal heard Garrett’s sharp intake of breath at the sight of the imposing creature. The large, bipedal canid wore only padded bands around its elbows and knees, having eschewed the typically ornate clothing worn by its species in nearly all social settings. Whatever this individual was about to engage in, it appeared ready to do so au natural.
Garrett stepped over to Glal, her attention now fixed on her tricorder display. “Commander, this craft is shielded against subspace communications, and even if it wasn’t, I doubt we could punch a signal through that atmospheric soup out there.”
Jarrod directed his two subordinates to take up position between the away team and the other occupants of the pod and then joined Glal and Garrett.
“Whatever’s going on here doesn’t seem to have anything to do with helping the Bajora establish a settlement, sir,” Jarrod assessed.
Glal pursed his lips beneath his thatch-like beard as his tusks twitched with anxious anticipation. “None of this makes any sense. If these beings are here to bid on contraband cargo, why do it right next to where you're settling impoverished refugees?"
Dr. Bennett had appeared content to merely observe the pod and its occupants up to this point, but now he turned to face Glal with an expression that could have frozen plasma. In an urgent whisper he demanded, “I need access to the Bajorans immediately, Commander. If they’ve been exposed to the elements out there without protective clothing and equipment for any length of time, they’re almost certainly in medical distress.”
Bennett made an all-encompassing gesture to include the other occupants of the hospitality pod. “This is either some form of sadistic entertainment at the expense of desperate refugees, or something even more terrible is going on here.”
Garrett looked up from her tricorder and glanced between the men. “I don’t understand, sir. Are these more of the freighter’s passengers?” She looked around, her expression puzzled.
“No, Ensign,” Glal responded in a low voice. “My guess is that these people were aboard the other four ships we suspect arrived in the system along with the Xepolites.”
“Greetings all!” a raised voice exclaimed, cutting short their conversation as everyone in the compartment turned in unison to see a striking female Orion dressed in a gorgeous kimono-like garment woven from what must have been Tholian silk.
Her long, curly black hair was threaded through with gold strands that complimented her shimmering shift and her dark green skin.
“Welcome to Bryma II. We greatly appreciate your patience and your tolerating the less-than-ideal environment for this occasion.”
She was stunningly beautiful and radiated a powerful charisma that was reinforced by the eroginizing pheromones that had such a mesmerizing effect on the male gender of so many humanoid species.
“However, this inclement weather also enhances the challenge of our contest, ensuring this evening’s hunt will be one for the ages!”
“Hunt?” Garrett whispered the question hoarsely, her eyes wild with dawning horror.
“The Bajorans,” Dr. Bennett confirmed in an equally low tone, his voice tight with derision. “These people have paid a fortune to hunt refugees.”
* * *
Ooohh - really filthy, vile, disgusting villainy... Going to be some delicious comeuppance in the offing. And I'm sure there will be quite a bit of offing...
Thanks!! rbs
Thanks!! rbs
* * *
The alluring Orion woman smiled beatifically at the Starfleet contingent, not even bothering to break eye contact with Glal as four heavily armed Orion enforcers entered the compartment with their disruptor rifles leveled.
The Alshain hunter stood nearby, claws extended and gleaming, while the burly Orion man remained seated, seemingly oblivious to the unfolding drama. The Romulan official watched silently with something like disdain tinging his expression, his two bodyguards as unmoving as statues.
“Your beaming down here has proven to be most fortuitous,” she said in a seductive purr. Her eyes flicked to Jarrod as the security lieutenant’s hands began to inch towards the pocket containing his phaser pistol. “By all means, draw your weapon.”
Jarrod raised his left hand in a gesture of abeyance as he reached slowly into the pocket with his right hand to withdraw his phaser pistol, keenly aware of the multiple weapons directed at him. He kept the weapon’s emitter pointing at the deck and studied the darkened status-ready light with suspicion.
“The electrostatic barrier you passed through while entering the ship can also function as a power dampening field. All your phaser weapons have been neutralized,” she revealed with no small amount of satisfaction.
At Glal’s coaxing, the members of the landing party removed their now defunct phaser pistols and rifles, dropping them to the sumptuously carpeted deck. Other Orions appeared, and collected the team’s landing party jackets and tricorders, then quickly and expertly searched their durable away-mission utility uniforms for communication devices or hidden weapons.
The woman gestured to the seating area and the table heaped with expensive food and drink. “Please, make yourselves at home while we attend to our business. Just because you’re hostages doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourselves.”
Glal emitted a disconsolate sigh and moved to the table, perusing the selections. “You heard her, everyone. Might as well make ourselves at home for the time being. I’m parched after that scorching sandstorm out there.”
He poured himself a glass of red liquid from a jeweled decanter, sniffing at it and then sipping it experimentally. Bennett joined him at the table; the doctor’s face contorted in a mask of anger and disgust. “We’re just going to sit here?”
Glal nibbled on an hors d’oeuvre, seemingly oblivious to the physician’s outrage. In a low voice, the Tellarite replied, “Getting ourselves killed isn’t going to help us or the Bajora, Doctor. At this moment, our hosts have the advantage. That may change, and we should all be on the look out for any opportunities that present themselves.”
He turned and nodded towards where Jarrod was walking a slow circuit of the compartment, memorizing doorways, data-panels, power-taps, and anything else that might prove useful later.
Garrett, meanwhile, had struck up a conversation with a high-ranking Xepolite dignitary and was doing a passable job of pretending to enjoy herself despite the circumstances.
“Let’s hope the captain realizes what’s happening down here and arranges a rescue,” Glal continued in a conspiratorial whisper. “If not, we’ll be forced to improvise, and that could prove especially dangerous given the capabilities and weaponry of our hosts and fellow guests.”
Bennett nodded slowly, forcing himself back under control. “I… understand. My apologies, Commander.”
Glal raised his glass. “Think nothing of it, Doctor. In the meantime, let us eat, drink, and be merry. Isn’t that one of your delightful Human expressions?”
* * *
DeSilva pursed her lips in frustration as her modifications to the ship’s transceiver array proved insufficient.
“I’m still unable to punch a signal through to the away team, Captain,” she reported.
Trujillo stood from her chair, moving around to the Science station on the bridge’s upper level. In Garrett’s absence, that post was now occupied by Senior Chief Xin Zan, a non-commissioned science specialist with nearly twenty years of experience.
“Mister Xin, anything at all from sensors?” Trujillo asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“Negative, Captain,” he replied, cycling through a host of sensor sweep results on his displays. “The storm front in that area is creating significant electromagnetic interference, but we should still be able to send and receive subspace comms from the surface, especially with Lieutenant DeSilva’s modifications to the transceiver. The only viable explanation is that someone or something is intentionally jamming the immediate area in the landing party’s vicinity.”
Trujillo glanced towards Lieutenant (j.g) Pershing at the Tactical station, Jarrod’s deputy chief. “What are your thoughts on sending down a rescue party, Lieutenant?”
The younger man drew his hands away from his console, coming to something approximating parade-rest behind the workstation. “We certainly can, sir. However, given the storm activity in the area, we’d have to beam them down several kilometers away and proceed on foot under less-than-ideal conditions. Either that or send a team down via shuttle, which could be problematic due to the storm activity, but would afford us greater mobility and firepower once they’re on the surface.”
A slight frown creased Trujillo’s features as she considered both options. She was convinced that something had gone wrong down on the planet, and she would have to balance the unknown dangers facing the landing party with the more tangible dangers facing any rescue team she might dispatch from the ship.
“Ops, open a channel to Awantear, I want to speak with their captain.”
“Aye, sir. Stand by…”
A few moments later an irritated looking Ship’sMaster Yahvid appeared on screen.
“What is it you need, Captain?” he asked impatiently.
“We’ve lost contact with our team on the surface, Ship’sMaster. Any ideas as to why that may be?”
Trujillo had to give credit where it was due; if Yahvid was only half as exasperated as he appeared with her query, his performance was masterful.
“There is a substantial storm on the surface at their location, Captain, surely your sensors have detected it. We’ve lost comms with our own personnel. The storm will pass in a few hours, and communications will be restored. In the meantime, your people will be able to shelter with ours and the Bajorans aboard our shuttles.”
Trujillo didn’t believe a word of it, and her expression radiated that. “We have military grade equipment, Ship’sMaster, and nothing as routine as a storm should be able to scramble our comms.” Her face hardened, eyes narrowing. “If I find you or your people have intentionally endangered my crew, there will be consequences.”
Yahvid was incapable of flushing due to his species’ facial plate, but his body tensed visibly. “Is that a threat, Captain?”
“It’s a promise, Ship’sMaster.”
“You think we are incapable of defending ourselves?” Yahvid asked coldly.
“Perhaps you should examine the silhouettes of the Klingon ships painted on my hull,” Trujillo retorted. “I doubt I’d even bother adding a freighter to the display, should that prove necessary.”
Yahvid severed the channel.
Trujillo was left staring at the image of the freighter and the planet beyond displayed on the viewer.
DeSilva glanced up at the captain who was standing just behind and to the left of her chair. “He acts as though he’s just been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, sir.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” Trujillo agreed.
An alert trilled at the Operations and Science stations simultaneously, and Xin beat a distracted DeSilva to the punch. “Sir, we’re receiving active telemetry from one of our recon-probes conducting a search of the larger of the planet’s two moons,” he announced, tapped a string of commands into his console.
“What do we have?” Trujillo asked as she resumed her seat in the captain’s chair to keep herself from pacing the bridge in front of her crew.
Xin turned and nodded to DeSilva in the bridge’s lower well, deferring to her as the ranking officer.
DeSilva answered Trujillo’s query as she studied her board, “An Alshain Scourge-class cruiser, sir. It’s rising out of a deep crater on the moon’s far side. Its shields are raised and its weapons systems are charging.”
From Tactical, Pershing offered, “Craft is armed with disruptors, exciser cannons, photon torpedoes and gravitic warhead missile batteries, Captain.”
Trujillo drew her swing-arm console interface up and into her lap from its storage position on the side of her chair. She studied the readouts on the Alshain warship, quirking an appreciative eyebrow. “That old beast must be two centuries old, yet it’s updated with their most advanced offensive and defensive technology.”
“They knew how to build them, sir, I’ll grant them that,” DeSilva agreed, genuine admiration in her voice for a vessel two centuries old that could still hold its own. “They’ve reinforced their hull plating and structural integrity fields as well. Their shield output is on par with that of an Excelsior-class.”
“No argument here on their Starforce’s craftsmanship,” Trujillo replied with grudging agreement. “Stand to red alert. All hands to action stations.”
The klaxon sounded as alert lights flashed throughout the bridge.
“Another contact,” Xin called out. “Orion corsair, coming up from a chasm one-hundred fifty clicks from the crater where the Alshain were holed up.”
“Both vessels have set courses that will bring them around to our side of the planet, sir,” DeSilva observed.
“ETA?” Trujillo queried.
“Twenty-three minutes for the Alshain, twenty-seven for the Orions, sir.”
Trujillo settled back into her chair. “And now it’s a party,” she remarked dryly.
Out of mordant curiosity, she accessed her laptop workstation, calling up the positions and transit time to the two nearest Starfleet vessels. Gautier was three days away at maximum speed, and T'rassu was another sixteen-hours farther still. No help there. But seeing as she remained under the watchful gaze of Command after the fiasco at the Picon Ring, calling for help was still the expected action to be taken by a starship captain, regardless of whether that help would arrive in time.
She accessed the communications functions herself via her console interface and sent a brief missive to the starship Gautier, including their ship’s logs for the past week. Should something unfortunate befall Reykjavík, Gautier’s captain would be up-to-speed on the situation Trujillo had stumbled blindly into.
She glanced back towards Pershing at the Tactical station. “Lieutenant, prepare a heavily armed rescue team on the double. Take anything you might need for the environment you’re likely to encounter on the surface. Shuttle down, locate our people, and extract them, taking whatever action you deem necessary if communications with Reykjavík aren’t possible.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied, toggling commands into his station to call his replacement to the bridge.
“I want you and your team gone before the Alshain and Orions get here. Whatever their goals are I suspect they’re not compatible with ours.”
A chief petty officer assumed the Tactical station as Pershing acknowledged the order and headed for the turbolift.
Trujillo changed the image on the main viewscreen to a visual of the Xepolite transport Reykjavík held position alongside in orbit.
She addressed Ensign Naifeh at Helm. “Mister Naifeh, before our new friends show up, move us a safe distance away from the Xepolite vessel.”
Naifeh cast a glance back over his shoulder. “Aye, sir. Should we expect trouble from them?”
Trujillo cocked her head, her expression contemplative. “I’m uncertain if Yahvid wants any part of this if the torpedoes start flying, but I’d rather not have to watch my back if Awantear’s right alongside us.”
“Understood, sir. Pulling away from the Xepolite ship to a distance of five-hundred thousand kilometers.”
The third string Security/Tactical officer had arrived to replace Pershing, a diminutive ensign who looked likely to have graduated alongside Garrett mere months earlier.
Trujillo addressed her, “Ensign Prusakova, begin deploying stealth mines, have them set for proximity detonation, keyed to the Alshain and Orion ship’s energy signatures. We can add Awantear to the list later, if needs be.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Tactical plot on viewer, 3D,” Trujillo instructed.
The map overlay took shape, tracking the approach of the potential threat vessels. Trujillo studied the image intensely, with variations of possible maneuvers spinning out from her imagination.
Now they would wait and allow their opponents to make the first move. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do from a tactical standpoint, but it was what Starfleet service often demanded. She had been proactive, though, and in addition to the mines being secretly deployed, Trujillo stood ready to launch various countermeasures, jammers, and sensor spoofing decoys, along with shield sapping attack drones.
“They’re still on approach,” DeSilva updated. “Potential threat vessels now designated on our tactical plot as Tango-One and Tango-Two.”
Trujillo forced herself to relax, settling back into her chair and steepling her fingers in front of her, elbows braced on the chair’s armrests.
“Let them come,” she said.
* * *
The alluring Orion woman smiled beatifically at the Starfleet contingent, not even bothering to break eye contact with Glal as four heavily armed Orion enforcers entered the compartment with their disruptor rifles leveled.
The Alshain hunter stood nearby, claws extended and gleaming, while the burly Orion man remained seated, seemingly oblivious to the unfolding drama. The Romulan official watched silently with something like disdain tinging his expression, his two bodyguards as unmoving as statues.
“Your beaming down here has proven to be most fortuitous,” she said in a seductive purr. Her eyes flicked to Jarrod as the security lieutenant’s hands began to inch towards the pocket containing his phaser pistol. “By all means, draw your weapon.”
Jarrod raised his left hand in a gesture of abeyance as he reached slowly into the pocket with his right hand to withdraw his phaser pistol, keenly aware of the multiple weapons directed at him. He kept the weapon’s emitter pointing at the deck and studied the darkened status-ready light with suspicion.
“The electrostatic barrier you passed through while entering the ship can also function as a power dampening field. All your phaser weapons have been neutralized,” she revealed with no small amount of satisfaction.
At Glal’s coaxing, the members of the landing party removed their now defunct phaser pistols and rifles, dropping them to the sumptuously carpeted deck. Other Orions appeared, and collected the team’s landing party jackets and tricorders, then quickly and expertly searched their durable away-mission utility uniforms for communication devices or hidden weapons.
The woman gestured to the seating area and the table heaped with expensive food and drink. “Please, make yourselves at home while we attend to our business. Just because you’re hostages doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourselves.”
Glal emitted a disconsolate sigh and moved to the table, perusing the selections. “You heard her, everyone. Might as well make ourselves at home for the time being. I’m parched after that scorching sandstorm out there.”
He poured himself a glass of red liquid from a jeweled decanter, sniffing at it and then sipping it experimentally. Bennett joined him at the table; the doctor’s face contorted in a mask of anger and disgust. “We’re just going to sit here?”
Glal nibbled on an hors d’oeuvre, seemingly oblivious to the physician’s outrage. In a low voice, the Tellarite replied, “Getting ourselves killed isn’t going to help us or the Bajora, Doctor. At this moment, our hosts have the advantage. That may change, and we should all be on the look out for any opportunities that present themselves.”
He turned and nodded towards where Jarrod was walking a slow circuit of the compartment, memorizing doorways, data-panels, power-taps, and anything else that might prove useful later.
Garrett, meanwhile, had struck up a conversation with a high-ranking Xepolite dignitary and was doing a passable job of pretending to enjoy herself despite the circumstances.
“Let’s hope the captain realizes what’s happening down here and arranges a rescue,” Glal continued in a conspiratorial whisper. “If not, we’ll be forced to improvise, and that could prove especially dangerous given the capabilities and weaponry of our hosts and fellow guests.”
Bennett nodded slowly, forcing himself back under control. “I… understand. My apologies, Commander.”
Glal raised his glass. “Think nothing of it, Doctor. In the meantime, let us eat, drink, and be merry. Isn’t that one of your delightful Human expressions?”
* * *
DeSilva pursed her lips in frustration as her modifications to the ship’s transceiver array proved insufficient.
“I’m still unable to punch a signal through to the away team, Captain,” she reported.
Trujillo stood from her chair, moving around to the Science station on the bridge’s upper level. In Garrett’s absence, that post was now occupied by Senior Chief Xin Zan, a non-commissioned science specialist with nearly twenty years of experience.
“Mister Xin, anything at all from sensors?” Trujillo asked, her voice carefully neutral.
“Negative, Captain,” he replied, cycling through a host of sensor sweep results on his displays. “The storm front in that area is creating significant electromagnetic interference, but we should still be able to send and receive subspace comms from the surface, especially with Lieutenant DeSilva’s modifications to the transceiver. The only viable explanation is that someone or something is intentionally jamming the immediate area in the landing party’s vicinity.”
Trujillo glanced towards Lieutenant (j.g) Pershing at the Tactical station, Jarrod’s deputy chief. “What are your thoughts on sending down a rescue party, Lieutenant?”
The younger man drew his hands away from his console, coming to something approximating parade-rest behind the workstation. “We certainly can, sir. However, given the storm activity in the area, we’d have to beam them down several kilometers away and proceed on foot under less-than-ideal conditions. Either that or send a team down via shuttle, which could be problematic due to the storm activity, but would afford us greater mobility and firepower once they’re on the surface.”
A slight frown creased Trujillo’s features as she considered both options. She was convinced that something had gone wrong down on the planet, and she would have to balance the unknown dangers facing the landing party with the more tangible dangers facing any rescue team she might dispatch from the ship.
“Ops, open a channel to Awantear, I want to speak with their captain.”
“Aye, sir. Stand by…”
A few moments later an irritated looking Ship’sMaster Yahvid appeared on screen.
“What is it you need, Captain?” he asked impatiently.
“We’ve lost contact with our team on the surface, Ship’sMaster. Any ideas as to why that may be?”
Trujillo had to give credit where it was due; if Yahvid was only half as exasperated as he appeared with her query, his performance was masterful.
“There is a substantial storm on the surface at their location, Captain, surely your sensors have detected it. We’ve lost comms with our own personnel. The storm will pass in a few hours, and communications will be restored. In the meantime, your people will be able to shelter with ours and the Bajorans aboard our shuttles.”
Trujillo didn’t believe a word of it, and her expression radiated that. “We have military grade equipment, Ship’sMaster, and nothing as routine as a storm should be able to scramble our comms.” Her face hardened, eyes narrowing. “If I find you or your people have intentionally endangered my crew, there will be consequences.”
Yahvid was incapable of flushing due to his species’ facial plate, but his body tensed visibly. “Is that a threat, Captain?”
“It’s a promise, Ship’sMaster.”
“You think we are incapable of defending ourselves?” Yahvid asked coldly.
“Perhaps you should examine the silhouettes of the Klingon ships painted on my hull,” Trujillo retorted. “I doubt I’d even bother adding a freighter to the display, should that prove necessary.”
Yahvid severed the channel.
Trujillo was left staring at the image of the freighter and the planet beyond displayed on the viewer.
DeSilva glanced up at the captain who was standing just behind and to the left of her chair. “He acts as though he’s just been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, sir.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” Trujillo agreed.
An alert trilled at the Operations and Science stations simultaneously, and Xin beat a distracted DeSilva to the punch. “Sir, we’re receiving active telemetry from one of our recon-probes conducting a search of the larger of the planet’s two moons,” he announced, tapped a string of commands into his console.
“What do we have?” Trujillo asked as she resumed her seat in the captain’s chair to keep herself from pacing the bridge in front of her crew.
Xin turned and nodded to DeSilva in the bridge’s lower well, deferring to her as the ranking officer.
DeSilva answered Trujillo’s query as she studied her board, “An Alshain Scourge-class cruiser, sir. It’s rising out of a deep crater on the moon’s far side. Its shields are raised and its weapons systems are charging.”
From Tactical, Pershing offered, “Craft is armed with disruptors, exciser cannons, photon torpedoes and gravitic warhead missile batteries, Captain.”
Trujillo drew her swing-arm console interface up and into her lap from its storage position on the side of her chair. She studied the readouts on the Alshain warship, quirking an appreciative eyebrow. “That old beast must be two centuries old, yet it’s updated with their most advanced offensive and defensive technology.”
“They knew how to build them, sir, I’ll grant them that,” DeSilva agreed, genuine admiration in her voice for a vessel two centuries old that could still hold its own. “They’ve reinforced their hull plating and structural integrity fields as well. Their shield output is on par with that of an Excelsior-class.”
“No argument here on their Starforce’s craftsmanship,” Trujillo replied with grudging agreement. “Stand to red alert. All hands to action stations.”
The klaxon sounded as alert lights flashed throughout the bridge.
“Another contact,” Xin called out. “Orion corsair, coming up from a chasm one-hundred fifty clicks from the crater where the Alshain were holed up.”
“Both vessels have set courses that will bring them around to our side of the planet, sir,” DeSilva observed.
“ETA?” Trujillo queried.
“Twenty-three minutes for the Alshain, twenty-seven for the Orions, sir.”
Trujillo settled back into her chair. “And now it’s a party,” she remarked dryly.
Out of mordant curiosity, she accessed her laptop workstation, calling up the positions and transit time to the two nearest Starfleet vessels. Gautier was three days away at maximum speed, and T'rassu was another sixteen-hours farther still. No help there. But seeing as she remained under the watchful gaze of Command after the fiasco at the Picon Ring, calling for help was still the expected action to be taken by a starship captain, regardless of whether that help would arrive in time.
She accessed the communications functions herself via her console interface and sent a brief missive to the starship Gautier, including their ship’s logs for the past week. Should something unfortunate befall Reykjavík, Gautier’s captain would be up-to-speed on the situation Trujillo had stumbled blindly into.
She glanced back towards Pershing at the Tactical station. “Lieutenant, prepare a heavily armed rescue team on the double. Take anything you might need for the environment you’re likely to encounter on the surface. Shuttle down, locate our people, and extract them, taking whatever action you deem necessary if communications with Reykjavík aren’t possible.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied, toggling commands into his station to call his replacement to the bridge.
“I want you and your team gone before the Alshain and Orions get here. Whatever their goals are I suspect they’re not compatible with ours.”
A chief petty officer assumed the Tactical station as Pershing acknowledged the order and headed for the turbolift.
Trujillo changed the image on the main viewscreen to a visual of the Xepolite transport Reykjavík held position alongside in orbit.
She addressed Ensign Naifeh at Helm. “Mister Naifeh, before our new friends show up, move us a safe distance away from the Xepolite vessel.”
Naifeh cast a glance back over his shoulder. “Aye, sir. Should we expect trouble from them?”
Trujillo cocked her head, her expression contemplative. “I’m uncertain if Yahvid wants any part of this if the torpedoes start flying, but I’d rather not have to watch my back if Awantear’s right alongside us.”
“Understood, sir. Pulling away from the Xepolite ship to a distance of five-hundred thousand kilometers.”
The third string Security/Tactical officer had arrived to replace Pershing, a diminutive ensign who looked likely to have graduated alongside Garrett mere months earlier.
Trujillo addressed her, “Ensign Prusakova, begin deploying stealth mines, have them set for proximity detonation, keyed to the Alshain and Orion ship’s energy signatures. We can add Awantear to the list later, if needs be.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Tactical plot on viewer, 3D,” Trujillo instructed.
The map overlay took shape, tracking the approach of the potential threat vessels. Trujillo studied the image intensely, with variations of possible maneuvers spinning out from her imagination.
Now they would wait and allow their opponents to make the first move. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do from a tactical standpoint, but it was what Starfleet service often demanded. She had been proactive, though, and in addition to the mines being secretly deployed, Trujillo stood ready to launch various countermeasures, jammers, and sensor spoofing decoys, along with shield sapping attack drones.
“They’re still on approach,” DeSilva updated. “Potential threat vessels now designated on our tactical plot as Tango-One and Tango-Two.”
Trujillo forced herself to relax, settling back into her chair and steepling her fingers in front of her, elbows braced on the chair’s armrests.
“Let them come,” she said.
* * *
Three-on-one against Trujillo. That's hardly a fair fight.
The bad guys better get themselves a few more ships...
Thanks!! rbs
The bad guys better get themselves a few more ships...
Thanks!! rbs
Buckle up, s@#$'s about to get real. My money is on Trujillo and Reyky as well but I’m a bit worried about the hostage situation planetside influencing things in orbit.
Sending an armed team down there might have been a good call. Or it could have been a huge mistake. As always, exciting!
Sending an armed team down there might have been a good call. Or it could have been a huge mistake. As always, exciting!
* * *
“The Orion vessel is hailing us, Captain,” DeSilva reported.
“Ignore them,” Trujillo said. “Open a channel with the Alshain warship.”
The two vessels had arrived in geosynchronous orbit with Reykjavík and had taken up position with the Alshain cruiser nose-to-nose with the starship, while the smaller Orion ship had taken up position along their starboard side.
After a few moments, the visual feed flickered and steadied, presenting the image of a towering Alshain naval officer, resplendently clad in an ornate military uniform of black with silver highlights, bedecked with medals and service pins.
The Alshain himself was close to two meters in height, his fur a white-flecked greyish-brown dun coloration, beginning to grey at the muzzle. He had startlingly intense green eyes, a predator’s eyes.
The being spoke, a litany of growls, hisses, yelps and verbalizations that the Universal Translator rendered to, “I am Nuatar Cnele S’Caneicls of the Alshain warship K’vlanik. To whom am I speaking?”
“I am Captain Trujillo of the Federation starship Reykjavík. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Nuatar?”
“We and the Orions have business on the surface, Captain, matters that will brook no interference from Starfleet. I would caution you with withdraw from this system until our dealings here are concluded.”
Trujillo folded her arms across her chest, frowning. “Seeing as we already have personnel on the surface that we’re suddenly unable to communicate with, your warning strikes me as potentially being too little, too late.”
The Alshain officer made no reply, and Trujillo appeared momentarily thoughtful.
“I would speak with your sutahr. Forgive me, but if there is a threat to the safety of my personnel, I’d prefer to hear it from the senior Alshain officer aboard.”
S’Caneicls’ ears twitched with agitation and a low growl rumbled in his throat. “The sutahr is unavailable at this time, Captain. So long as your people on the surface do not seek to interfere in our dealings, they should remain safe. If they, or you, challenge us or the Orions, we will take immediate and lethal action against your vessel.”
Trujillo opened her mouth to reply, but the Alshain terminated the conversation by severing the comm-link.
“He seems nice,” DeSilva observed from her position at Ops.
“Actually, that was a far more civil conversation than I’d anticipated,” Trujillo confessed. “I’d wager their captain is on the surface, and thus unavailable to speak with me. That’s valuable information.”
“The Orions continue to hail, sir.”
“Continue to ignore them. We’ve just spoken to the real powerbrokers in this equation.”
“And if the Orions have information about our people, sir?” DeSilva asked pointedly.
Trujillo exhaled loudly as she resumed her seat in the captain’s chair. “You sound like Mister Glal, Lieutenant.”
“I would remind the captain that I am presently acting in the capacity of executive officer, sir.”
“So you are,” Trujillo conceded. “Put the Orions through.”
Someone who appeared to be an Orion dignitary fairly dripping with finery appeared on the viewer and began to speak, only to be cut off in mid-sentence by Trujillo.
“Do you have any information on the whereabouts or status of my people on the surface?”
“I… I do not,” the man stammered, seemingly shocked by her affront to diplomatic protocol. “You shou—”
“Call me back when you have some,” Trujillo said simply, severing the channel. To DeSilva, she deadpanned, “There, I spoke to the Orions.”
DeSilva was barely able to suppress a smirk as she answered, “So noted, Captain.”
* * *
Lieutenant (jg) Pershing and two others of his ten-person assault squad lay prone on the top of a rocky hill, observing the Orion landing craft from half-a-kilometer’s distance.
The weather and visibility were still terrible, but the environment pod was the only artificial structure within sight, occasionally glimpsed between blustering gusts of sand-laden wind. Somewhere out there beyond the pod lay the remains of the ancient abandoned city, but those towering skeletons remained hidden by the weather.
“One guard, foot-patrol,” Pershing announced just loudly enough to be heard over the whistle of the gusting wind. He was observing through tricorder-assisted field glasses, while Petty Officer 2nd class Drexil made detailed notes about the frequency of Orion patrols around the perimeter of the landing pod on a durable tactical data tablet with which he was creating a two-dimensional real-time map of the area.
“Moving west-to-east, foot speed minus due to the conditions. No sign of scanning equipment, and visibility is down to about twenty meters at that position.”
“We could take them,” Chief Petty Officer Mokoena assessed. “We have the numbers and the element of surprise.”
Pershing mulled that for a moment as his eyes searched the outlines of the barely visible pod through the binoculars.
“With their jamming field still active, they can’t sense us, but we can’t detect any weapons emplacements or additional personnel hiding out there in this storm.”
“All true, Lieutenant,” Mokoena answered. “But we can’t sit here forever. What if our people are being tortured or killed right at this moment?”
Pershing lowered the binoculars but continued staring in the direction of the now obscured pod. He chewed unconsciously at his lower lip.
Mokoena crawled forward to where his voice would carry only to the young lieutenant. “Sir, I know this is your first real mission as a team leader, and it involves the rescue of several members of the senior staff, including our division head. I get it. This is what all that training at the academy was for, all that talk about decision points, critical action nexuses, and dynamic leadership.” He gestured towards their target, now invisible behind a curtain of wind-whipped debris. “We’re here. It’s never going to be perfect, and no matter how much we hate it, the threat gets a vote in this equation.”
Pershing nodded almost imperceptibly, his jaw clenched in silent resolve. “Thank you, Chief. Rally the team, let’s do this.”
* * *
Ovin Thangol, First Demikus of the Syndicate’s security wing paused to adjust his facemask, silently cursing the swirling sandstorm as he did so.
He and his men were here to protect the Ahmet-sur and her delegation until the hunt had been concluded. Typically, this was both an easy and enjoyable assignment, given that the hunting grounds were usually pleasant tropical or rain-forest environments on various exotic planets.
Not here, though. This was an ecologically compromised, stormy, sand-pelted excrement pile of a world that Thangol could not wait to escape.
Even the Xepolite personnel responsible for bringing the Bajorans down from their freighter had been allowed to wear environment suits in deference to the atmospheric conditions. Not he and his fellow Orion enforcers, though. He had to make do with an inadequate uniform jacket, outer cloak, and facemask.
Thangol heard the soft chirp in his ear of his body sensor’s proximity detector and looked up just in time to see a small black drone approaching from out of the storm. He was reaching to touch his comms activation button on his wrist when there was a flash from the nose of the drone.
He dropped like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
* * *
Jarrod approached Glal, who was still perusing the selections of food and drink at the refreshment table.
The security officer looked down at his shorter superior. “You find a favorite, sir?”
Glal picked through a bowl of alien fruits with one hand while holding up his chalice with the other. “The first one I tried, actually. It must be distilled for Orion or Klingon body chemistry, lots of kick. It’d drop one of you puny Humans after half a glass.”
Jarrod chuckled ruefully, despite the grim circumstances. “I’m glad to know it’s got your seal of approval, Commander.”
Garrett returned to the table, nodding to her superior officers.
“Anything of note?” Glal asked.
“Yes, sir. The small tabletop lighting spheres are powered by sarium krellide batteries.”
Glal made an appreciative sounding grunt, glancing around at the heavily laden table. “Anything here made from tungsten?”
Jarrod looked down at his belt buckle, an encircled Starfleet delta. “I think there’s tungsten in our buckles, but I’m not sure what the percentage is.” He looked at Garrett. “You think it might be enough?”
She shook her head fractionally, her expression uncertain. “Couldn’t say without a tricorder, Lieutenant.”
Glal sighed heavily, murmuring, “And the Kingdom of Var fell for want of an open flame…”
“Book two of the Varelian Syllegies,” Garrett said, noting the source of the Tellarite religious scripture.
She blushed suddenly, having blurted out the response without thinking.
The commander appeared reasonably impressed, but Jarrod shook his head sadly. “That’s disappointing, Ensign. You can cite ancient Tellarite mysticism chapter and verse, but you can’t remember how much tungsten is in your Starfleet issued belt buckle.”
Garrett opened her mouth to defend herself but then caught the mischievous glance between Glal and Jarrod. “You’re having me on, sir.’
“Very good, Mister Garrett. So I was,” Jarrod affirmed. He looked to Glal. “We have the beginnings of a plan for when the captain stages a rescue, but I don’t like our chances with all the heavily armed people here.”
“There will be a lot of crossfire,” Glal assessed. “If we stay low, we might get lucky and they could take out some of their own.”
Jarrod cast a glance in the direction of the Romulan trio. “I doubt they’ll be terribly discriminating in target selection, so long as their protected party is behind them.”
Specialist Küchler came over from where he had been interposing himself between the rest of the team and the hulking Alshain hunter.
“Anything I can assist with, sir?” he directed to Jarrod.
“Not unless you can breathe fire, Mister Küchler,” Jarrod replied in a low voice designed not to carry. “We have an accelerant, but no ignition source.”
Küchler looked around to make sure nobody was paying too close of attention to them before reaching up his right sleeve with his left hand as surreptitiously as possible. He then withdrew his hand and pressed something small into Jarrod’s palm.
It was a flat, greyish metallic disk about the size of a shirt button.
“Mirovi dazzlers, sir. Six-hundred and fifty degrees Celsius and ten million candelas. I have five of them.”
Jarrod appeared perplexed. “These aren’t standard issue. When did you start carrying these?”
“Right after you started taking us into dark caves filled with skull-crushing alien monsters, sir,” Küchler replied dryly.
Glal shot Jarrod an appraising look. “That’s fair.”
Jarrod offered a wry grin. “Mister Küchler, you have just secured the coveted team-member-of-the-week status, and a bottle of Breshtanti ale from my private stores.”
* * *
Pershing’s breath rasped heavily through his respirator mask as he charged across the rocky, uneven ground, the transport pod looming large ahead of him.
He thanked a host of deities as he realized Specialist Ari’s tactical drones had done their job, and that at least one Orion sentry lay crumpled at the food of the entry ramp.
As he approached, he witnessed a pair of legs appear as another figure descended the ramp, one of the Xepolite security detail.
Pershing hoped that the localized communications scrambler Specialist Rialt had set up some hundred meters distant would prevent this guard from calling for help before Pershing reached him.
Pershing slowed to a halt on the rough surface, his feet scrabbling for purchase against a layer of loose sand. He brought his rifle up to his shoulder and painted the figure through his targeting reticule. A pull of the trigger, the snap of a stun bolt, and the silhouette, just beginning to turn towards his fallen comrade, stiffened like a board and pitched forward onto the unforgiving surface.
He turned to his right, catching a glimpse of two more of his teammates approaching quickly, one of them holding a spherical electromagnetic pulse grenade in her hand.
Specialist Hlavic slid to a stop at the foot of the ramp and lobbed the grenade underhand up and into the pod. There was a thudding sound followed by a sizzling noise as streamers of electrical current began arcing across the hull of the pod, and between the pod and the boarding ramp’s support struts.
The smell of fried multitronics was a pungent aftereffect of the brief electrical storm.
Pershing activated the light on his phaser rifle and charged up the ramp into the darkness beyond, four others from his team right behind him.
* * *
The lights in the hospitality pod flickered and died just as a muffled explosion shook the craft. Feeble emergency lights came on as people scrambled to their feet and those already standing began turning to assess the situation.
Glal splashed his full goblet of potent alcohol across the front of the towering Alshain hunter just as Jarrod tapped the top of the tiny Mirovi dazzler and threw it at the being. The Starfleet personnel covered their eyes as the compartment was filled with blinding light for a brief moment and the heavily furred Alshain erupted into a tower of flame, screeching piteously as it flailed wildly, crashing into furniture and guests alike.
Another goblet of fire was used on two of the Orion guards, the men screaming and collapsing, rolling on the now singed carpet in an attempt to extinguish the flames.
Disruptor beams whined and plasma pulses roared back and forth across the cabin as the Starfleet contingent dropped to the deck, trying to avoid the swaths of devastation crisscrossing the compartment courtesy of blinded and panicked antagonists.
A dozen voices cried out in terror, anger, or confusion as people were wounded, bisected or vaporized by the indiscriminate weapons fire, and suddenly the sound of Starfleet stun pulses joined the cacophony.
Glal, prone on the floor, crawled to grab a discarded pulse rifle dropped by a Xepolite guardsman, and drove the buttstock into his shoulder, sighting in on one of the Romulan dignitaries’ bodyguards. Glal noted that his target was in the process of vaporizing the frenzied fire-engulfed Alshain that was cutting anything or anyone within reach to ribbons with its claws.
As soon as the Romulan had dispatched the shrieking beast, Glal stitched a line of four smoking holes up the Romulan’s torso from navel to sternum, blasting the man off his feet.
Jarrod, meanwhile, had pulled a disruptor pistol from the holster of a slain Orion mercenary and was shooting those few remaining guards still trying to repel the Starfleet tactical team in the back.
Garrett followed the orders she had been given and remained face down on the carpeted deck, arms arranged protectively over the back of her head.
The rate of fire began to slacken, and before long only the sounds of Starfleet weapons continued.
“Clear right!” Pershing called.
“Clear left!” Mokoena answered.
Armed Starfleet personnel swept through the body strewn compartment at a crouch, covering all the entrances to the large room and then fanning out in pairs to secure the rest of the landing pod. More weapons fire echoed down some of these adjoining corridors as Orion or Xepolite personnel attempted to defend against the Starfleet incursion, but it too ceased after a few minutes.
The assault squad medic began to check the away team members for injuries and was joined by Dr. Bennett. They found one of the away team’s security detachment with a disruptor wound to his lower leg, and an assault team member with a plasma bolt scorch across his upper arm, but no other injuries.
Glal stood shakily, still cradling his confiscated plasma rifle. He found Jarrod in conference with Pershing and pointed to the other weapons that were strewn across the wrecked compartment.
“Gather up as many of these as we can and assemble outside in a defensive perimeter. After the survivors are restrained, leave four of our personnel here to guard them.”
Jarrod nodded, but his expression bore a hint of surprise. “Aye, sir. We’re not returning to the ship?”
“Not while those Bajorans are still out there somewhere. We rescue them first, then we’ll all get out of here.”
Glal was not surprised to see Dr. Bennett, who had just finished bandaging a wounded Xepolite prisoner, kneel to pick up a Romulan disruptor rifle and move to join the security team.
“Nobody torments helpless refugees on Reykjavík’s watch,” Glal growled between gritted teeth.
"Amen, Commander," Bennett echoed, his voice cold as an arctic wind.
* * *
“The Orion vessel is hailing us, Captain,” DeSilva reported.
“Ignore them,” Trujillo said. “Open a channel with the Alshain warship.”
The two vessels had arrived in geosynchronous orbit with Reykjavík and had taken up position with the Alshain cruiser nose-to-nose with the starship, while the smaller Orion ship had taken up position along their starboard side.
After a few moments, the visual feed flickered and steadied, presenting the image of a towering Alshain naval officer, resplendently clad in an ornate military uniform of black with silver highlights, bedecked with medals and service pins.
The Alshain himself was close to two meters in height, his fur a white-flecked greyish-brown dun coloration, beginning to grey at the muzzle. He had startlingly intense green eyes, a predator’s eyes.
The being spoke, a litany of growls, hisses, yelps and verbalizations that the Universal Translator rendered to, “I am Nuatar Cnele S’Caneicls of the Alshain warship K’vlanik. To whom am I speaking?”
“I am Captain Trujillo of the Federation starship Reykjavík. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Nuatar?”
“We and the Orions have business on the surface, Captain, matters that will brook no interference from Starfleet. I would caution you with withdraw from this system until our dealings here are concluded.”
Trujillo folded her arms across her chest, frowning. “Seeing as we already have personnel on the surface that we’re suddenly unable to communicate with, your warning strikes me as potentially being too little, too late.”
The Alshain officer made no reply, and Trujillo appeared momentarily thoughtful.
“I would speak with your sutahr. Forgive me, but if there is a threat to the safety of my personnel, I’d prefer to hear it from the senior Alshain officer aboard.”
S’Caneicls’ ears twitched with agitation and a low growl rumbled in his throat. “The sutahr is unavailable at this time, Captain. So long as your people on the surface do not seek to interfere in our dealings, they should remain safe. If they, or you, challenge us or the Orions, we will take immediate and lethal action against your vessel.”
Trujillo opened her mouth to reply, but the Alshain terminated the conversation by severing the comm-link.
“He seems nice,” DeSilva observed from her position at Ops.
“Actually, that was a far more civil conversation than I’d anticipated,” Trujillo confessed. “I’d wager their captain is on the surface, and thus unavailable to speak with me. That’s valuable information.”
“The Orions continue to hail, sir.”
“Continue to ignore them. We’ve just spoken to the real powerbrokers in this equation.”
“And if the Orions have information about our people, sir?” DeSilva asked pointedly.
Trujillo exhaled loudly as she resumed her seat in the captain’s chair. “You sound like Mister Glal, Lieutenant.”
“I would remind the captain that I am presently acting in the capacity of executive officer, sir.”
“So you are,” Trujillo conceded. “Put the Orions through.”
Someone who appeared to be an Orion dignitary fairly dripping with finery appeared on the viewer and began to speak, only to be cut off in mid-sentence by Trujillo.
“Do you have any information on the whereabouts or status of my people on the surface?”
“I… I do not,” the man stammered, seemingly shocked by her affront to diplomatic protocol. “You shou—”
“Call me back when you have some,” Trujillo said simply, severing the channel. To DeSilva, she deadpanned, “There, I spoke to the Orions.”
DeSilva was barely able to suppress a smirk as she answered, “So noted, Captain.”
* * *
Lieutenant (jg) Pershing and two others of his ten-person assault squad lay prone on the top of a rocky hill, observing the Orion landing craft from half-a-kilometer’s distance.
The weather and visibility were still terrible, but the environment pod was the only artificial structure within sight, occasionally glimpsed between blustering gusts of sand-laden wind. Somewhere out there beyond the pod lay the remains of the ancient abandoned city, but those towering skeletons remained hidden by the weather.
“One guard, foot-patrol,” Pershing announced just loudly enough to be heard over the whistle of the gusting wind. He was observing through tricorder-assisted field glasses, while Petty Officer 2nd class Drexil made detailed notes about the frequency of Orion patrols around the perimeter of the landing pod on a durable tactical data tablet with which he was creating a two-dimensional real-time map of the area.
“Moving west-to-east, foot speed minus due to the conditions. No sign of scanning equipment, and visibility is down to about twenty meters at that position.”
“We could take them,” Chief Petty Officer Mokoena assessed. “We have the numbers and the element of surprise.”
Pershing mulled that for a moment as his eyes searched the outlines of the barely visible pod through the binoculars.
“With their jamming field still active, they can’t sense us, but we can’t detect any weapons emplacements or additional personnel hiding out there in this storm.”
“All true, Lieutenant,” Mokoena answered. “But we can’t sit here forever. What if our people are being tortured or killed right at this moment?”
Pershing lowered the binoculars but continued staring in the direction of the now obscured pod. He chewed unconsciously at his lower lip.
Mokoena crawled forward to where his voice would carry only to the young lieutenant. “Sir, I know this is your first real mission as a team leader, and it involves the rescue of several members of the senior staff, including our division head. I get it. This is what all that training at the academy was for, all that talk about decision points, critical action nexuses, and dynamic leadership.” He gestured towards their target, now invisible behind a curtain of wind-whipped debris. “We’re here. It’s never going to be perfect, and no matter how much we hate it, the threat gets a vote in this equation.”
Pershing nodded almost imperceptibly, his jaw clenched in silent resolve. “Thank you, Chief. Rally the team, let’s do this.”
* * *
Ovin Thangol, First Demikus of the Syndicate’s security wing paused to adjust his facemask, silently cursing the swirling sandstorm as he did so.
He and his men were here to protect the Ahmet-sur and her delegation until the hunt had been concluded. Typically, this was both an easy and enjoyable assignment, given that the hunting grounds were usually pleasant tropical or rain-forest environments on various exotic planets.
Not here, though. This was an ecologically compromised, stormy, sand-pelted excrement pile of a world that Thangol could not wait to escape.
Even the Xepolite personnel responsible for bringing the Bajorans down from their freighter had been allowed to wear environment suits in deference to the atmospheric conditions. Not he and his fellow Orion enforcers, though. He had to make do with an inadequate uniform jacket, outer cloak, and facemask.
Thangol heard the soft chirp in his ear of his body sensor’s proximity detector and looked up just in time to see a small black drone approaching from out of the storm. He was reaching to touch his comms activation button on his wrist when there was a flash from the nose of the drone.
He dropped like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
* * *
Jarrod approached Glal, who was still perusing the selections of food and drink at the refreshment table.
The security officer looked down at his shorter superior. “You find a favorite, sir?”
Glal picked through a bowl of alien fruits with one hand while holding up his chalice with the other. “The first one I tried, actually. It must be distilled for Orion or Klingon body chemistry, lots of kick. It’d drop one of you puny Humans after half a glass.”
Jarrod chuckled ruefully, despite the grim circumstances. “I’m glad to know it’s got your seal of approval, Commander.”
Garrett returned to the table, nodding to her superior officers.
“Anything of note?” Glal asked.
“Yes, sir. The small tabletop lighting spheres are powered by sarium krellide batteries.”
Glal made an appreciative sounding grunt, glancing around at the heavily laden table. “Anything here made from tungsten?”
Jarrod looked down at his belt buckle, an encircled Starfleet delta. “I think there’s tungsten in our buckles, but I’m not sure what the percentage is.” He looked at Garrett. “You think it might be enough?”
She shook her head fractionally, her expression uncertain. “Couldn’t say without a tricorder, Lieutenant.”
Glal sighed heavily, murmuring, “And the Kingdom of Var fell for want of an open flame…”
“Book two of the Varelian Syllegies,” Garrett said, noting the source of the Tellarite religious scripture.
She blushed suddenly, having blurted out the response without thinking.
The commander appeared reasonably impressed, but Jarrod shook his head sadly. “That’s disappointing, Ensign. You can cite ancient Tellarite mysticism chapter and verse, but you can’t remember how much tungsten is in your Starfleet issued belt buckle.”
Garrett opened her mouth to defend herself but then caught the mischievous glance between Glal and Jarrod. “You’re having me on, sir.’
“Very good, Mister Garrett. So I was,” Jarrod affirmed. He looked to Glal. “We have the beginnings of a plan for when the captain stages a rescue, but I don’t like our chances with all the heavily armed people here.”
“There will be a lot of crossfire,” Glal assessed. “If we stay low, we might get lucky and they could take out some of their own.”
Jarrod cast a glance in the direction of the Romulan trio. “I doubt they’ll be terribly discriminating in target selection, so long as their protected party is behind them.”
Specialist Küchler came over from where he had been interposing himself between the rest of the team and the hulking Alshain hunter.
“Anything I can assist with, sir?” he directed to Jarrod.
“Not unless you can breathe fire, Mister Küchler,” Jarrod replied in a low voice designed not to carry. “We have an accelerant, but no ignition source.”
Küchler looked around to make sure nobody was paying too close of attention to them before reaching up his right sleeve with his left hand as surreptitiously as possible. He then withdrew his hand and pressed something small into Jarrod’s palm.
It was a flat, greyish metallic disk about the size of a shirt button.
“Mirovi dazzlers, sir. Six-hundred and fifty degrees Celsius and ten million candelas. I have five of them.”
Jarrod appeared perplexed. “These aren’t standard issue. When did you start carrying these?”
“Right after you started taking us into dark caves filled with skull-crushing alien monsters, sir,” Küchler replied dryly.
Glal shot Jarrod an appraising look. “That’s fair.”
Jarrod offered a wry grin. “Mister Küchler, you have just secured the coveted team-member-of-the-week status, and a bottle of Breshtanti ale from my private stores.”
* * *
Pershing’s breath rasped heavily through his respirator mask as he charged across the rocky, uneven ground, the transport pod looming large ahead of him.
He thanked a host of deities as he realized Specialist Ari’s tactical drones had done their job, and that at least one Orion sentry lay crumpled at the food of the entry ramp.
As he approached, he witnessed a pair of legs appear as another figure descended the ramp, one of the Xepolite security detail.
Pershing hoped that the localized communications scrambler Specialist Rialt had set up some hundred meters distant would prevent this guard from calling for help before Pershing reached him.
Pershing slowed to a halt on the rough surface, his feet scrabbling for purchase against a layer of loose sand. He brought his rifle up to his shoulder and painted the figure through his targeting reticule. A pull of the trigger, the snap of a stun bolt, and the silhouette, just beginning to turn towards his fallen comrade, stiffened like a board and pitched forward onto the unforgiving surface.
He turned to his right, catching a glimpse of two more of his teammates approaching quickly, one of them holding a spherical electromagnetic pulse grenade in her hand.
Specialist Hlavic slid to a stop at the foot of the ramp and lobbed the grenade underhand up and into the pod. There was a thudding sound followed by a sizzling noise as streamers of electrical current began arcing across the hull of the pod, and between the pod and the boarding ramp’s support struts.
The smell of fried multitronics was a pungent aftereffect of the brief electrical storm.
Pershing activated the light on his phaser rifle and charged up the ramp into the darkness beyond, four others from his team right behind him.
* * *
The lights in the hospitality pod flickered and died just as a muffled explosion shook the craft. Feeble emergency lights came on as people scrambled to their feet and those already standing began turning to assess the situation.
Glal splashed his full goblet of potent alcohol across the front of the towering Alshain hunter just as Jarrod tapped the top of the tiny Mirovi dazzler and threw it at the being. The Starfleet personnel covered their eyes as the compartment was filled with blinding light for a brief moment and the heavily furred Alshain erupted into a tower of flame, screeching piteously as it flailed wildly, crashing into furniture and guests alike.
Another goblet of fire was used on two of the Orion guards, the men screaming and collapsing, rolling on the now singed carpet in an attempt to extinguish the flames.
Disruptor beams whined and plasma pulses roared back and forth across the cabin as the Starfleet contingent dropped to the deck, trying to avoid the swaths of devastation crisscrossing the compartment courtesy of blinded and panicked antagonists.
A dozen voices cried out in terror, anger, or confusion as people were wounded, bisected or vaporized by the indiscriminate weapons fire, and suddenly the sound of Starfleet stun pulses joined the cacophony.
Glal, prone on the floor, crawled to grab a discarded pulse rifle dropped by a Xepolite guardsman, and drove the buttstock into his shoulder, sighting in on one of the Romulan dignitaries’ bodyguards. Glal noted that his target was in the process of vaporizing the frenzied fire-engulfed Alshain that was cutting anything or anyone within reach to ribbons with its claws.
As soon as the Romulan had dispatched the shrieking beast, Glal stitched a line of four smoking holes up the Romulan’s torso from navel to sternum, blasting the man off his feet.
Jarrod, meanwhile, had pulled a disruptor pistol from the holster of a slain Orion mercenary and was shooting those few remaining guards still trying to repel the Starfleet tactical team in the back.
Garrett followed the orders she had been given and remained face down on the carpeted deck, arms arranged protectively over the back of her head.
The rate of fire began to slacken, and before long only the sounds of Starfleet weapons continued.
“Clear right!” Pershing called.
“Clear left!” Mokoena answered.
Armed Starfleet personnel swept through the body strewn compartment at a crouch, covering all the entrances to the large room and then fanning out in pairs to secure the rest of the landing pod. More weapons fire echoed down some of these adjoining corridors as Orion or Xepolite personnel attempted to defend against the Starfleet incursion, but it too ceased after a few minutes.
The assault squad medic began to check the away team members for injuries and was joined by Dr. Bennett. They found one of the away team’s security detachment with a disruptor wound to his lower leg, and an assault team member with a plasma bolt scorch across his upper arm, but no other injuries.
Glal stood shakily, still cradling his confiscated plasma rifle. He found Jarrod in conference with Pershing and pointed to the other weapons that were strewn across the wrecked compartment.
“Gather up as many of these as we can and assemble outside in a defensive perimeter. After the survivors are restrained, leave four of our personnel here to guard them.”
Jarrod nodded, but his expression bore a hint of surprise. “Aye, sir. We’re not returning to the ship?”
“Not while those Bajorans are still out there somewhere. We rescue them first, then we’ll all get out of here.”
Glal was not surprised to see Dr. Bennett, who had just finished bandaging a wounded Xepolite prisoner, kneel to pick up a Romulan disruptor rifle and move to join the security team.
“Nobody torments helpless refugees on Reykjavík’s watch,” Glal growled between gritted teeth.
"Amen, Commander," Bennett echoed, his voice cold as an arctic wind.
* * *
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So the first shots were fired on the ground rather than in orbit. Liking the detail about Lt. Pershing - that's a name to live up to... Thanks!! rbs
Great story i could really visualize it
* * *
“Transmission coming in from the surface on the assault team’s encrypted channel, sir,” DeSilva reported. “Audio only.”
“Patch them through,” Trujillo ordered.
After what seemed like an agonizingly long pause which in fact only lasted a second or two, Glal’s voice boomed from the overhead speakers.
“Captain, this is XO. The away team was taken hostage by the Orions and Xepolites, but the assault team you sent down just extracted us. Be advised, there are Alshain, Romulan, and Orion representatives here that were taking part in a hunt of the Bajoran refugees carried aboard Awantear.”
“Romulans? You’re certain?”
“Yes, sir. Shot one of them myself. Green blood and lots of it.”
Trujillo quirked an eyebrow at her XO’s graphic candor. “Understood, Commander. We’re currently in a standoff with an Alshain warship and an Orion corsair here in orbit. You said there was an Alshain down there with you? That’s probably their sutahr… their captain.”
“Ah… that’s… that’s unfortunate, sir.”
Trujillo closed her eyes briefly. “Mister Glal, did you also shoot the Alshain sutahr?”
“Oh, no sir. I most certainly did not. I shot the Romulan centurion who vaporized the sutahr, after I had… uh... set the sutahr on fire.”
Trujillo had the urge to cover her face in exasperation but held herself in check. “Because of course you did.” She referenced a sensor display on her laptop interface. “You have a plan for finding and rescuing the Bajora and our operative?”
“We’re working on that right now, sir. We’ve restored comms capability here at our location, an Orion hospitality pod they landed here as their staging area for their hunt. However, it appears that they still have other sensor scramblers and comms jammers set up in the vicinity, which will hamper our search and rescue efforts. We believe the ruins of the city is where the hunt was to take place, and there’s still any number of Orion and Xepolite personnel unaccounted for.”
“Acknowledged. We can’t lower shields to beam you back or send you any additional personnel at the moment, given our vulnerable tactical situation. Take your team and do what you need to, Mister Glal. I plan to have the situation in orbit sorted presently.”
“Aye, sir. Glal, out.”
Trujillo stood, looking at the Science station and then back to Ops. “Keep a close eye on sensors. If there’s a cloaked Romulan ship in orbit with us, they could appear at any moment.”
She gestured to DeSilva. “Lieutenant, signal the Alshain vessel. Inform their nuatar that I want to speak with him privately, and route it through to my ready room. Mister DeSilva, you have the conn,” Trujillo ordered as she moved for the hatch to the ready room.
Trujillo seated herself behind her desk, moving the tabletop display in front of her and using the few moments of delay to review for the fifth time the dispersal pattern of Reykjavík’s low-visibility mines, drones, and jammers, none of which it appeared the Alshain or the Orions had as yet detected.
“Captain,” DeSilva said after a comms chime, “I have Nuatar S’Caneicls on comms for you.”
“Thank you.”
She activated her screen, coming face to face with the ferocious looking Alshain first officer.
“Nuatar, may I confirm you are alone?”
“I am,” he affirmed. “What necessitates this being a private conversation?” he added, his irritation evident from his twitching muzzle.
“As you may or may not know, my landing party was captured and was being held hostage by the Orions and Xepolites,” she answered. “I sent a second team down to extract the first. A firefight ensued as they breached the Orion landing pod, and it appears your sutahr was killed in the crossfire.”
The nuatar’s ears pinned back, and his lips tightened, exposing a mouth full of impressive predator’s teeth. “Starfleet murdered our sutahr?” he growled the query, his translated voice heavy with menace.
“No, it’s not as simple as that. From my understanding, it was a confused fight in close quarters, and your captain was vaporized by a Romulan in the heat of battle.” She leaned in closer to the visual pickup on her computer interface. “You have a decision to make, now that you are the defacto commander of your vessel. You can take your ship home and report that your sutahr was engaged in illegal activities that got him killed. Alternately, you can choose to interfere when I move to seize the Orion ship out there and take your chances in an engagement with Reykjavík.”
S’Caneicls’ whiskers twitched and his eyes narrowed, the call of the hunt heating his blood. Trujillo knew she had mere moments to get through to him before his prey drive overcame his higher cognitive functions and forced his hand.
“You believe you can defeat us, Starfleet?” it was more challenge than genuine query.
Trujillo’s command mask fell away and her face radiated an unaccustomed openness. “I honestly don’t know, Nuatar. I’ve never fought the Alshain, but I am a student of Klingon history, strategy and tactics. I know the Klingon Empire has seized over two-thirds of what used to be Alshain Exarchate territory over the past century. I have the silhouettes of a number of Klingon ships displayed on my ship’s hull, visual proof that I have bested the empire’s warriors on multiple occasions. Can you say the same?”
S’Caneicls drew back slightly from his viewer, his eyes widening, and Trujillo could almost see rational thought re-exerting control over the towering canid.
“You have the opportunity to preserve the dignity of your sept, and perhaps secure command of that exquisite ship of yours.”
Trujillo knew the Alshain were at least as honor conscious as the Klingons, with loyalty to one’s familial sept on par with the Klingons’ devotion to their great houses. The exarchate, however, had existed for thousands of years, and given the diminution of Alshain territory in recent centuries, accrued honors and warship commands were difficult to come by.
“If you fight us, you may well prevail, but even if you defeat my ship, yours will suffer greatly in the process. How would your superiors look upon the crippling of a Scourge-class cruiser, one of what… a dozen the Starforce still possesses? Especially when you could have simply walked away from something that was not your fight.”
S’Caneicls took a deep breath and appeared to shake himself. Trujillo found herself hoping that it was the Alshain version of a sigh.
“The Romulan who killed our sutahr?” he asked,
“Dead. Shot by my first officer.”
The creature cocked its large, vaguely wolf-like head. “It would have been a contest for the ages,” he assessed, the universal translator doing a passable job of conveying a tone of disappointment. “Do not think that because K’vlanik is old that she cannot distinguish herself on the field of battle.”
Trujillo found herself smiling grimly. “I would never be so reckless, Nuatar. Would it surprise you to know that I had a model of a Scourge-class cruiser as a child? Kept it on the shelf right next to my Promelian battlecruiser.”
He bared his teeth, emitting a string of grunts that Trujillo took to be laughter. “Farewell, Captain. May we both live long enough to cross paths again someday.”
“I look forward to that day… Sutahr,” she replied, severing the transmission.
She stood and made her way back onto the bridge, the alert tone chiming and prompting DeSilva to stand, announcing, “Captain on the bridge.”
“As you were,” she said by rote, slipping into the captain’s chair DeSilva had just vacated.
“Status?”
“Nominal, sir,” DeSilva started to reply, resuming her station at Ops as a chief petty offer surrendered the post. “One moment, sir… it appears the Alshain cruiser is moving away.”
“We’ll give them a moment to get out from underfoot,” Trujillo said. “Then we’ll order the Orion corsair to stand down and prepare to be boarded.”
“A bottle of Garrovick’s says they’ll run,” DeSilva answered with a smile in her voice.
“I’ll take that bet, Lieutenant,” Trujillo affirmed.
After a moment, the Alshain warship had powered out of orbit and Reykjavík had swung around nose-to-nose with the corsair.
Trujillo toggled open a channel via her abbreviated LCARS interface on her chair’s armrest display.
“Orion vessel, this is Captain Trujillo of the Federation warship Reykjavík. We are aware that both you and the Xepolites were involved with capturing and holding our landing party against their will. This is a violation of several interstellar treaties and the negotiated agreement of understanding signed between the Orion Syndicate and the Federation. As a result, you will surrender your vessel immediately. Power down all weapons and defensive systems, jettison your phaser coils, and prepare to be boarded.”
There was no reply for a long minute.
“They’re powering up their phaser arrays and torpedo batteries, sir,” DeSilva observed. “Damn,” she added, intuiting that she’d lost her bet.
“Auxiliary power to forward screens,” Trujillo ordered. “Engage pre-positioned jammers and trigger the weapon-sats.”
Orion phasers lashed Reykjavík’s forward shields and the smaller vessel’s single torpedo tube began to glow an ominous red.
“Weapons free on our drones, Mister DeSilva,” Trujillo directed calmly as the ship bucked with the impacts of the Orion’s phasers. “Ensign Prusakova, open fire,” she directed at the young woman standing watch at the Tactical station.
The Orion ship was pivoting in preparation to flee, hoping their opening salvo would disorient the starship long enough for them to break free from the planet’s gravity well. They were sadly mistaken.
Some of Reykjavík’s nearby weapons drones unleashed a barrage of low-power phaser pulses as others launched tritanium rods that impacted the corsair’s shields with surprising kinetic force, draining their shield strength and diverting their operating system’s ability to attenuate frequencies for Starfleet phasers and photon torpedoes only. It was the mosquitos’ death by a thousand tiny bites.
The starship’s primary weapons were far more potent, with streams of phaser pulses and photon torpedoes savaging the corsair’s screens as she tried desperately to egress the area. Her woefully inadequate aft-facing weapons array spat streams of phaser fire and disruptor bolts that Reykjavík’s shields shrugged off.
A nearby gravitic mine’s thrusters kicked on and the device dove towards the fleeing corsair, detonating against the ship’s port side and overwhelming the vessel’s already overtaxed shields.
“Hull breach or their port quarter, sir,” DeSilva reported.
“Hold torpedoes,” Trujillo instructed in response. “Phasers only and avoid that aspect of the ship if possible. We may take prisoners today after all.”
“I’d point out that the Orions are fleeing, Captain,” DeSilva offered with a subdued grin that Trujillo could hear in her voice.
“Focus, Lieutenant,” Trujillo chided. “I don’t want to get jumped by a decloaking Romulan just because you were looking for a way to weasel out of a bet.”
This elicited a barking laugh from Ensign Naifeh, seated to DeSilva’s immediate left. Mortified at his own reaction, he coughed into his fist. “Sorry, sir.”
Reykjavík’s phasers continued to fire, raking the corsair’s remaining deflectors which began to shimmer and oscillate as they, too, neared collapse.
“Reduce phaser power fifty percent. Helm, pursuit course, maintain a distance of five-hundred kilometers. Time to end this.”
A few moments later and it was over, with the corsair crippled and adrift in an expanding field of debris and shattered hull plating.
“Power systems aboard the Orion ship are fluctuating, Captain,” Senior Chief Xin at the Science station reported.
At Ops, DeSilva was transmitting a message demanding the Orions’ surrender.
Trujillo turned in her chair to face the standing Tactical station. “Weaps, status of our shields?”
It was Trujillo’s typical shorthand for the tactical officer, but Ensign Mikhailovna Prusakova had always worked Gamma shift, under the command of the XO or second officer, and had never served directly with the captain before. It was also, she knew, a sign of the captain’s respect in her abilities. Prusakova tried to hide the blush response, to no avail.
“Forward shields at seventy-eight percent, sir, with starboard shields at ninety-eight percent. All other grids show as nominal. No hull damage reported.”
Trujillo favored the young woman with a confident smile. “Nicely done, Ensign.”
She turned back toward the Operations station. “Lieutenant, ready teams for rescue and recovery ops, and have sickbay standing by for Orion casualties.”
An alarm trilled at the Science console, and Senior Chief Xin noted, “Captain, reading an energy surge aft, co-located with a minor gravitic disruption. However, active sensor sweeps indicate there’s nothing there.”
Trujillo’s expression hardened, and she ordered, “Belay recovery ops. Helm, bring us around to face the coordinates of that disturbance.”
The captain toggled a comms channel open to Engineering. “Commander Kura-Ka, we may be looking at a brawl with the Romulans at any moment. I need our forward shields firmed up as soon as possible.”
DeSilva cast a glance back at Trujillo from her station. “Why would they wait for us to neutralize the Orions before engaging, sir? That seemed like the perfect opportunity to jump us while we were distracted.”
“Probably to allow the Orions to sap our shield strength while they sit back and assess the capabilities of our weapons and defenses,” Trujillo offered.
“Smart,” DeSilva muttered grudgingly as she minded her console.
“Maintain red alert,” Trujillo instructed. Then, more quietly, she murmured mostly to herself, "And let's get ready for round two."
* * *
“Transmission coming in from the surface on the assault team’s encrypted channel, sir,” DeSilva reported. “Audio only.”
“Patch them through,” Trujillo ordered.
After what seemed like an agonizingly long pause which in fact only lasted a second or two, Glal’s voice boomed from the overhead speakers.
“Captain, this is XO. The away team was taken hostage by the Orions and Xepolites, but the assault team you sent down just extracted us. Be advised, there are Alshain, Romulan, and Orion representatives here that were taking part in a hunt of the Bajoran refugees carried aboard Awantear.”
“Romulans? You’re certain?”
“Yes, sir. Shot one of them myself. Green blood and lots of it.”
Trujillo quirked an eyebrow at her XO’s graphic candor. “Understood, Commander. We’re currently in a standoff with an Alshain warship and an Orion corsair here in orbit. You said there was an Alshain down there with you? That’s probably their sutahr… their captain.”
“Ah… that’s… that’s unfortunate, sir.”
Trujillo closed her eyes briefly. “Mister Glal, did you also shoot the Alshain sutahr?”
“Oh, no sir. I most certainly did not. I shot the Romulan centurion who vaporized the sutahr, after I had… uh... set the sutahr on fire.”
Trujillo had the urge to cover her face in exasperation but held herself in check. “Because of course you did.” She referenced a sensor display on her laptop interface. “You have a plan for finding and rescuing the Bajora and our operative?”
“We’re working on that right now, sir. We’ve restored comms capability here at our location, an Orion hospitality pod they landed here as their staging area for their hunt. However, it appears that they still have other sensor scramblers and comms jammers set up in the vicinity, which will hamper our search and rescue efforts. We believe the ruins of the city is where the hunt was to take place, and there’s still any number of Orion and Xepolite personnel unaccounted for.”
“Acknowledged. We can’t lower shields to beam you back or send you any additional personnel at the moment, given our vulnerable tactical situation. Take your team and do what you need to, Mister Glal. I plan to have the situation in orbit sorted presently.”
“Aye, sir. Glal, out.”
Trujillo stood, looking at the Science station and then back to Ops. “Keep a close eye on sensors. If there’s a cloaked Romulan ship in orbit with us, they could appear at any moment.”
She gestured to DeSilva. “Lieutenant, signal the Alshain vessel. Inform their nuatar that I want to speak with him privately, and route it through to my ready room. Mister DeSilva, you have the conn,” Trujillo ordered as she moved for the hatch to the ready room.
Trujillo seated herself behind her desk, moving the tabletop display in front of her and using the few moments of delay to review for the fifth time the dispersal pattern of Reykjavík’s low-visibility mines, drones, and jammers, none of which it appeared the Alshain or the Orions had as yet detected.
“Captain,” DeSilva said after a comms chime, “I have Nuatar S’Caneicls on comms for you.”
“Thank you.”
She activated her screen, coming face to face with the ferocious looking Alshain first officer.
“Nuatar, may I confirm you are alone?”
“I am,” he affirmed. “What necessitates this being a private conversation?” he added, his irritation evident from his twitching muzzle.
“As you may or may not know, my landing party was captured and was being held hostage by the Orions and Xepolites,” she answered. “I sent a second team down to extract the first. A firefight ensued as they breached the Orion landing pod, and it appears your sutahr was killed in the crossfire.”
The nuatar’s ears pinned back, and his lips tightened, exposing a mouth full of impressive predator’s teeth. “Starfleet murdered our sutahr?” he growled the query, his translated voice heavy with menace.
“No, it’s not as simple as that. From my understanding, it was a confused fight in close quarters, and your captain was vaporized by a Romulan in the heat of battle.” She leaned in closer to the visual pickup on her computer interface. “You have a decision to make, now that you are the defacto commander of your vessel. You can take your ship home and report that your sutahr was engaged in illegal activities that got him killed. Alternately, you can choose to interfere when I move to seize the Orion ship out there and take your chances in an engagement with Reykjavík.”
S’Caneicls’ whiskers twitched and his eyes narrowed, the call of the hunt heating his blood. Trujillo knew she had mere moments to get through to him before his prey drive overcame his higher cognitive functions and forced his hand.
“You believe you can defeat us, Starfleet?” it was more challenge than genuine query.
Trujillo’s command mask fell away and her face radiated an unaccustomed openness. “I honestly don’t know, Nuatar. I’ve never fought the Alshain, but I am a student of Klingon history, strategy and tactics. I know the Klingon Empire has seized over two-thirds of what used to be Alshain Exarchate territory over the past century. I have the silhouettes of a number of Klingon ships displayed on my ship’s hull, visual proof that I have bested the empire’s warriors on multiple occasions. Can you say the same?”
S’Caneicls drew back slightly from his viewer, his eyes widening, and Trujillo could almost see rational thought re-exerting control over the towering canid.
“You have the opportunity to preserve the dignity of your sept, and perhaps secure command of that exquisite ship of yours.”
Trujillo knew the Alshain were at least as honor conscious as the Klingons, with loyalty to one’s familial sept on par with the Klingons’ devotion to their great houses. The exarchate, however, had existed for thousands of years, and given the diminution of Alshain territory in recent centuries, accrued honors and warship commands were difficult to come by.
“If you fight us, you may well prevail, but even if you defeat my ship, yours will suffer greatly in the process. How would your superiors look upon the crippling of a Scourge-class cruiser, one of what… a dozen the Starforce still possesses? Especially when you could have simply walked away from something that was not your fight.”
S’Caneicls took a deep breath and appeared to shake himself. Trujillo found herself hoping that it was the Alshain version of a sigh.
“The Romulan who killed our sutahr?” he asked,
“Dead. Shot by my first officer.”
The creature cocked its large, vaguely wolf-like head. “It would have been a contest for the ages,” he assessed, the universal translator doing a passable job of conveying a tone of disappointment. “Do not think that because K’vlanik is old that she cannot distinguish herself on the field of battle.”
Trujillo found herself smiling grimly. “I would never be so reckless, Nuatar. Would it surprise you to know that I had a model of a Scourge-class cruiser as a child? Kept it on the shelf right next to my Promelian battlecruiser.”
He bared his teeth, emitting a string of grunts that Trujillo took to be laughter. “Farewell, Captain. May we both live long enough to cross paths again someday.”
“I look forward to that day… Sutahr,” she replied, severing the transmission.
She stood and made her way back onto the bridge, the alert tone chiming and prompting DeSilva to stand, announcing, “Captain on the bridge.”
“As you were,” she said by rote, slipping into the captain’s chair DeSilva had just vacated.
“Status?”
“Nominal, sir,” DeSilva started to reply, resuming her station at Ops as a chief petty offer surrendered the post. “One moment, sir… it appears the Alshain cruiser is moving away.”
“We’ll give them a moment to get out from underfoot,” Trujillo said. “Then we’ll order the Orion corsair to stand down and prepare to be boarded.”
“A bottle of Garrovick’s says they’ll run,” DeSilva answered with a smile in her voice.
“I’ll take that bet, Lieutenant,” Trujillo affirmed.
After a moment, the Alshain warship had powered out of orbit and Reykjavík had swung around nose-to-nose with the corsair.
Trujillo toggled open a channel via her abbreviated LCARS interface on her chair’s armrest display.
“Orion vessel, this is Captain Trujillo of the Federation warship Reykjavík. We are aware that both you and the Xepolites were involved with capturing and holding our landing party against their will. This is a violation of several interstellar treaties and the negotiated agreement of understanding signed between the Orion Syndicate and the Federation. As a result, you will surrender your vessel immediately. Power down all weapons and defensive systems, jettison your phaser coils, and prepare to be boarded.”
There was no reply for a long minute.
“They’re powering up their phaser arrays and torpedo batteries, sir,” DeSilva observed. “Damn,” she added, intuiting that she’d lost her bet.
“Auxiliary power to forward screens,” Trujillo ordered. “Engage pre-positioned jammers and trigger the weapon-sats.”
Orion phasers lashed Reykjavík’s forward shields and the smaller vessel’s single torpedo tube began to glow an ominous red.
“Weapons free on our drones, Mister DeSilva,” Trujillo directed calmly as the ship bucked with the impacts of the Orion’s phasers. “Ensign Prusakova, open fire,” she directed at the young woman standing watch at the Tactical station.
The Orion ship was pivoting in preparation to flee, hoping their opening salvo would disorient the starship long enough for them to break free from the planet’s gravity well. They were sadly mistaken.
Some of Reykjavík’s nearby weapons drones unleashed a barrage of low-power phaser pulses as others launched tritanium rods that impacted the corsair’s shields with surprising kinetic force, draining their shield strength and diverting their operating system’s ability to attenuate frequencies for Starfleet phasers and photon torpedoes only. It was the mosquitos’ death by a thousand tiny bites.
The starship’s primary weapons were far more potent, with streams of phaser pulses and photon torpedoes savaging the corsair’s screens as she tried desperately to egress the area. Her woefully inadequate aft-facing weapons array spat streams of phaser fire and disruptor bolts that Reykjavík’s shields shrugged off.
A nearby gravitic mine’s thrusters kicked on and the device dove towards the fleeing corsair, detonating against the ship’s port side and overwhelming the vessel’s already overtaxed shields.
“Hull breach or their port quarter, sir,” DeSilva reported.
“Hold torpedoes,” Trujillo instructed in response. “Phasers only and avoid that aspect of the ship if possible. We may take prisoners today after all.”
“I’d point out that the Orions are fleeing, Captain,” DeSilva offered with a subdued grin that Trujillo could hear in her voice.
“Focus, Lieutenant,” Trujillo chided. “I don’t want to get jumped by a decloaking Romulan just because you were looking for a way to weasel out of a bet.”
This elicited a barking laugh from Ensign Naifeh, seated to DeSilva’s immediate left. Mortified at his own reaction, he coughed into his fist. “Sorry, sir.”
Reykjavík’s phasers continued to fire, raking the corsair’s remaining deflectors which began to shimmer and oscillate as they, too, neared collapse.
“Reduce phaser power fifty percent. Helm, pursuit course, maintain a distance of five-hundred kilometers. Time to end this.”
A few moments later and it was over, with the corsair crippled and adrift in an expanding field of debris and shattered hull plating.
“Power systems aboard the Orion ship are fluctuating, Captain,” Senior Chief Xin at the Science station reported.
At Ops, DeSilva was transmitting a message demanding the Orions’ surrender.
Trujillo turned in her chair to face the standing Tactical station. “Weaps, status of our shields?”
It was Trujillo’s typical shorthand for the tactical officer, but Ensign Mikhailovna Prusakova had always worked Gamma shift, under the command of the XO or second officer, and had never served directly with the captain before. It was also, she knew, a sign of the captain’s respect in her abilities. Prusakova tried to hide the blush response, to no avail.
“Forward shields at seventy-eight percent, sir, with starboard shields at ninety-eight percent. All other grids show as nominal. No hull damage reported.”
Trujillo favored the young woman with a confident smile. “Nicely done, Ensign.”
She turned back toward the Operations station. “Lieutenant, ready teams for rescue and recovery ops, and have sickbay standing by for Orion casualties.”
An alarm trilled at the Science console, and Senior Chief Xin noted, “Captain, reading an energy surge aft, co-located with a minor gravitic disruption. However, active sensor sweeps indicate there’s nothing there.”
Trujillo’s expression hardened, and she ordered, “Belay recovery ops. Helm, bring us around to face the coordinates of that disturbance.”
The captain toggled a comms channel open to Engineering. “Commander Kura-Ka, we may be looking at a brawl with the Romulans at any moment. I need our forward shields firmed up as soon as possible.”
DeSilva cast a glance back at Trujillo from her station. “Why would they wait for us to neutralize the Orions before engaging, sir? That seemed like the perfect opportunity to jump us while we were distracted.”
“Probably to allow the Orions to sap our shield strength while they sit back and assess the capabilities of our weapons and defenses,” Trujillo offered.
“Smart,” DeSilva muttered grudgingly as she minded her console.
“Maintain red alert,” Trujillo instructed. Then, more quietly, she murmured mostly to herself, "And let's get ready for round two."
* * *
* * *
They crept forward through the gloom of approaching dusk, the windstorm finally beginning to abate, though grit and dust still pelted them.
Tactical drones fanned out ahead of the team, scanning with sensors and optics, trying to detect mass and movement through the obscuring haze, intermittent jamming and natural static electric discharge.
The assault team had brought additional power cells, giving new life to the original away team’s phaser pistols and rifles. Thus, Glal and his people didn’t have to make do with confiscated Orion or Xepolite weapons in any impending engagement.
Glal’s eyes tracked back and forth as he moved step by careful step towards the graveyard of mighty towers that formed the skeleton of the long-abandoned city. He could hear his own rasping breath through the comms pickup in his filtration facemask, the sound only broken by the occasional report or inquiry on the team’s comm-net.
Glal knew this push into the city was ill-advised and tactically suspect, but the lives of the Bajoran refugees hung in the balance. Reykjavík was occupied in orbit with the Alshain and Orions and could not assist with high-powered sensor sweeps that could have located the Bajora in moments. Equally, if and when the combined away team located the refugees, the ship would be unable to simply beam them aboard.
He firmly believed that it was in moments like this that Starfleet service was most clearly defined. They were going back into harm’s way not because it was the prudent thing to do, but rather because it was the right thing to do.
The cruelty of sentient intelligence had proved even more lethal than the galaxy’s cold indifference to their individual fates. Starfleet stood for hope in the face of that callous vastness, a bright beacon in the dark, the voice that answered the plaintive cry for help from across lightyears… “hang on, we’re coming.”
As the ship’s executive officer, it was Glal’s responsibility to model those core ideals for the junior officers, so that those values might be instilled in them. Pershing, the junior lieutenant who had led the assault team, appeared to have absorbed those lessons well, as he had obviously availed himself of the skills and knowledge of his senior enlisted subordinates.
Glal didn’t know yet how Ensign Garrett might turn out. Yes, she was intelligent, capable, and possessed an enviable work-ethic, but how might she hold up if faced with such a moral dilemma later in her career? Even promising officers occasionally found themselves bending rules and regulations to shield themselves from having to make difficult choices. They might shake their heads, cluck their tongues, and claim that they would gladly have intervened in a given situation ‘if only the rules would have allowed it.’
He cast a glance back towards the young woman, now clad in her heavy away mission jacket and filtration mask. She was analyzing the results of her tricorder in one hand while she grasped a phaser pistol in her other, keeping up with the team while contributing where she could.
His reveries were cut short by an urgent call of, “Contact front, two-oh-clock position. Humanoid behind cover,” from Specialist Hlavic over comms.
Glal raised his left arm, hand clenched in a fist as he called out. “Hold. Drone acquisition.”
A drone whispered forward, its senses reaching out to confirm the contact. Glal flipped open his tricorder and watched the video signal from the drone on the handheld device’s compact display screen.
Through a haze of blowing sand, he watched as an EVA-suited figure rose up from behind a boulder and shouldered a rifle.
The drone swiftly targeted the figure before the individual could fire, and a stun bolt engulfed it, sending the being toppling over backwards.
“Threat down,” Specialist Qirnax, the drone operator, called out.
“Hlavic and Robards, move up and confirm threat is neutralized,” Glal commanded.
“Aye, s—” Robards’ reply was drowned out by a howling sound accompanied by a flash of purple light from somewhere ahead. A massive explosion threw Glal off his feet and he landed hard on his back, loose stones and bits of soil pattering to the ground all around him.
Someone was screaming in agony, locking up the team’s comm-channel.
An automated cutoff blessedly severed that broadcast, but Glal could still hear the individual some twenty meters away, shrieking piteously.
Another voice groaned, "Isomagnetic disintegrator!" over the net.
Glal struggled to give commands but found he could not breath. The explosion had torn his filtration mask from his face, and the impact with the ground had driven the air from his lungs. He gasped spasmodically as his hands clawed desperately at his jacket to locate his flip-grid communicator.
The sounds of plasma rifles barking and of answering phaser fire filled the air as Glal finally managed to tear the pocket open and withdraw the communicator. The device chirped reassuringly as he flipped it open, but he found he could still not draw in enough breath to speak.
A sudden surge of pain lanced through Glal's left thigh and he gasped again, this time in torment rather than fighting for air. He reached a thick, three-fingered hand down to feel a jagged rent in the durable material of his trousers. He touched something solid where it should not have been, jerking his hand back as a super-heated object buried in the meat of this thigh burned the tip of one finger.
This is not my best day ever, he reflected sardonically as streams of collimated energy and bolts of superheated gas flashed above him.
* * *
They crept forward through the gloom of approaching dusk, the windstorm finally beginning to abate, though grit and dust still pelted them.
Tactical drones fanned out ahead of the team, scanning with sensors and optics, trying to detect mass and movement through the obscuring haze, intermittent jamming and natural static electric discharge.
The assault team had brought additional power cells, giving new life to the original away team’s phaser pistols and rifles. Thus, Glal and his people didn’t have to make do with confiscated Orion or Xepolite weapons in any impending engagement.
Glal’s eyes tracked back and forth as he moved step by careful step towards the graveyard of mighty towers that formed the skeleton of the long-abandoned city. He could hear his own rasping breath through the comms pickup in his filtration facemask, the sound only broken by the occasional report or inquiry on the team’s comm-net.
Glal knew this push into the city was ill-advised and tactically suspect, but the lives of the Bajoran refugees hung in the balance. Reykjavík was occupied in orbit with the Alshain and Orions and could not assist with high-powered sensor sweeps that could have located the Bajora in moments. Equally, if and when the combined away team located the refugees, the ship would be unable to simply beam them aboard.
He firmly believed that it was in moments like this that Starfleet service was most clearly defined. They were going back into harm’s way not because it was the prudent thing to do, but rather because it was the right thing to do.
The cruelty of sentient intelligence had proved even more lethal than the galaxy’s cold indifference to their individual fates. Starfleet stood for hope in the face of that callous vastness, a bright beacon in the dark, the voice that answered the plaintive cry for help from across lightyears… “hang on, we’re coming.”
As the ship’s executive officer, it was Glal’s responsibility to model those core ideals for the junior officers, so that those values might be instilled in them. Pershing, the junior lieutenant who had led the assault team, appeared to have absorbed those lessons well, as he had obviously availed himself of the skills and knowledge of his senior enlisted subordinates.
Glal didn’t know yet how Ensign Garrett might turn out. Yes, she was intelligent, capable, and possessed an enviable work-ethic, but how might she hold up if faced with such a moral dilemma later in her career? Even promising officers occasionally found themselves bending rules and regulations to shield themselves from having to make difficult choices. They might shake their heads, cluck their tongues, and claim that they would gladly have intervened in a given situation ‘if only the rules would have allowed it.’
He cast a glance back towards the young woman, now clad in her heavy away mission jacket and filtration mask. She was analyzing the results of her tricorder in one hand while she grasped a phaser pistol in her other, keeping up with the team while contributing where she could.
His reveries were cut short by an urgent call of, “Contact front, two-oh-clock position. Humanoid behind cover,” from Specialist Hlavic over comms.
Glal raised his left arm, hand clenched in a fist as he called out. “Hold. Drone acquisition.”
A drone whispered forward, its senses reaching out to confirm the contact. Glal flipped open his tricorder and watched the video signal from the drone on the handheld device’s compact display screen.
Through a haze of blowing sand, he watched as an EVA-suited figure rose up from behind a boulder and shouldered a rifle.
The drone swiftly targeted the figure before the individual could fire, and a stun bolt engulfed it, sending the being toppling over backwards.
“Threat down,” Specialist Qirnax, the drone operator, called out.
“Hlavic and Robards, move up and confirm threat is neutralized,” Glal commanded.
“Aye, s—” Robards’ reply was drowned out by a howling sound accompanied by a flash of purple light from somewhere ahead. A massive explosion threw Glal off his feet and he landed hard on his back, loose stones and bits of soil pattering to the ground all around him.
Someone was screaming in agony, locking up the team’s comm-channel.
An automated cutoff blessedly severed that broadcast, but Glal could still hear the individual some twenty meters away, shrieking piteously.
Another voice groaned, "Isomagnetic disintegrator!" over the net.
Glal struggled to give commands but found he could not breath. The explosion had torn his filtration mask from his face, and the impact with the ground had driven the air from his lungs. He gasped spasmodically as his hands clawed desperately at his jacket to locate his flip-grid communicator.
The sounds of plasma rifles barking and of answering phaser fire filled the air as Glal finally managed to tear the pocket open and withdraw the communicator. The device chirped reassuringly as he flipped it open, but he found he could still not draw in enough breath to speak.
A sudden surge of pain lanced through Glal's left thigh and he gasped again, this time in torment rather than fighting for air. He reached a thick, three-fingered hand down to feel a jagged rent in the durable material of his trousers. He touched something solid where it should not have been, jerking his hand back as a super-heated object buried in the meat of this thigh burned the tip of one finger.
This is not my best day ever, he reflected sardonically as streams of collimated energy and bolts of superheated gas flashed above him.
* * *
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