“Almost there,” Solanko grunted.
Rikkilä’s arms strained. The tent loomed up ahead, the material flapping in the breeze.
“Place him out of the sun,” Solanko said as they approached, and Rikkilä directed them into the tent proper. With a sigh, all three set the gurney down in the grass. Rikkilä stumbled away, her arms shaking.
Data’s eyes flew open.
“Lieutenant?” Solanko’s eyes were wide beneath his sweat-soaked forehead.
Data lifted his gaze. “Lieutenant Solanko. Lieutenant Talma.” He turned his head. “Ensign Rikkilä. Where am I?”
Rikkilä pulled out her tricorder and knelt down beside him. The tricorder appeared to be reporting that everything was normal with the android.
“We brought you outside to the camp,” Talma said.
“The camp?” Data sat up abruptly.
“A lot has happened since you’ve been out,” Solanko said. “But the most pressing thing is that the station is going to collapse.”
Rikkilä kept scrolling through her tricorder readings. Why had he woken up? Taking him out of the station seemed to be the differentiating factor. Isolating him from the rest of the tech in the station—
A loud, distant thump rang out across the field. Rikkilä scrambled to her feet, her gaze turning toward the station.
A dark plume rose up against the violet sky.
“The station,” Rikkilä gasped.
Commander Solanko’s combadge chirped, and Malisson’s voice chimed out.
“Commander—it’s starting.”
29
At first, neither of them moved from the top of the dune. Crusher took it upon herself to make the first step, sand avalanching down around her as she slid sideways toward the shore.
Immediately, she heard the rustling of Riker following her. A few paces away the water broke against an outcropping of stone in little firecracker bursts, sending sea spray soaring across her face. She pulled out her tricorder. The expected readings: oxygen levels, moisture levels, trace gases in the air. Everything was normal.
“So?” Riker stood beside her, and they stepped into wet sand at the dune’s base.
“Still working,” she said, “so far.”
“Mine’s working too.” Riker looked up from the screen. “I’m reading a number of those fossils the team told us about.”
The fossils. She looked down at her tricorder. She scrolled through the readouts. Fossilized matter: 398 individual pieces.
Something flashed on the edge of Crusher’s vision.
She looked out over the waves rolling gently in. The storm seemed like it was closer, the clouds thick and black.
“How dangerous are the storms here?” she asked.
“One did kill Commander N’yss. But this one is a ways off. We have time. It helps that the tech seems to be working.”
Crusher was studying her tricorder, the readings shifting slightly as the wind lifted or a wave crested and sent sprays of water pluming over the beach.
Another flash of movement. Will? She was farther out than she expected—the water was nearly to her ankles. How had she not noticed?
Another flash of movement. This time Crusher turned, following it. She saw a dark blur skimming across the top of the water. The doctor tapped her combadge. Dead.
“Will!” she shouted.
The dark blur stopped. What was it? She lifted her tricorder.
No change. Nothing.
Then, as Crusher watched, it blinked out, like a flare of sunlight.
Crusher moved forward. She was vaguely aware of a tricorder alert; she glanced down at it. No change.
A particularly big wave slammed into her knees. She hit the water and sank, her eyes wide open. All she saw was the dark, murky water. Where was the bottom? It wasn’t that deep here. Why was she drifting downward, a sense of vast enormity stretching out around her?
She brought the tricorder up. Except it wasn’t a tricorder. It was a ball of light. No—several balls of light, linked by sharp lines at odd angles.
Crusher gasped and stood straight up.
She was on the beach. On the sand. The waves rolled in around her; the ocean stretched out to those looming black clouds.
But she was soaked, drenched in salt water, and exhausted. She fell back in the wet sand and stared up at the violet sky. The clouds moved fast, dark spots on the sky’s endless canvas.
They’re communicating, she thought, and hit her chest. No combadge.
“Will?” she cried out hoarsely. She pushed herself up. The tide was going out, the water pulling back, revealing the tide pools among the rocks. “Will?” she called out again, more loudly.
Her head was so heavy. “Will!”
The waves answered, a constant, steady roar.
And then another voice answered, a low, steady howl. The wind.
Data.
She forced her head up. A dark-gray rain line moved across the water. She could smell the metal in the air.
Someone was walking on the water.
Who?
With a burst of strength, Crusher crashed down onto the beach. Her head spun. The first drops of rain fell on her face. “Will!”
The figure watched her. She turned; it was amorphous and ill-defined, billowing like the clouds.
“We aren’t here to hurt you!” Crusher shouted at it, the howling wind swallowing her voice. She imagined it opening its mouth and letting the sound of the wind roar out, as Data had done.
A chill raced down her spine. From the cold air? From something else?
The dark mass on the water dispersed into wisps, and then the rain hit, a torrential curtain that made Crusher feel as if she were drowning. She raced back to the shore, ducking her head, sputtering at the rainwater.
Crusher splashed through the tide pools, their surfaces churning with rainfall, and flung herself at the base of the dunes. She whipped her head up and down the beach—where was Will? He wouldn’t have left her here.
The team had passed out on the shore. Data had found them.
“Doctor?”
Crusher craned her head around. Data was there standing on the dune, smiling placidly.
“Data?” It didn’t make sense. Even if he had gotten better, why would he come out here? “Why are you here? I need help. I can’t find—”
Data’s smile widened and widened until his mouth was open wide. Then, he was howling.
Crusher stumbled backward, over her own feet. She landed hard on her backside and her hands sank into the wet sand. Her fingers brushed against something solid. The edge of her tricorder stuck out of the sand.
She scraped the sand away, grains clumping on her fingers. The rain made her grip slick as she pulled the tricorder out of the sand.
She looked back over her shoulder. Data was gone.
“Data?” she called out uncertainly. She looked back at the tricorder. It didn’t look right. The case was cracked and decaying, the screen murky. It looked as if it had been buried for—
Years.
Crusher’s heart thumped. She whirled around on the empty, rain-swept beach.
Dreams. The others had complained of dreams. It was their primary symptom after the initial attack.
She looked back down at the tricorder. It didn’t feel like a dream. It didn’t have the hazy, distant quality that her dreams had. She felt soaked through and was shivering. The tricorder felt solid.
Not real. Not exactly.
A burst of thunder erupted from the clouds, so loud Crusher felt it in her chest. A few seconds later, lightning cracked down through the sky, striking the point on the dune where “Data” had stood. A smell like ozone drifted on the air.
That didn’t make sense—thunder before lightning?
The lightning struck again, with no thunderous explosion, hitting the side of the dune. Crusher jumped.
Again. Now it was on the beach.
It was moving toward her.
Crusher clutched the tricorder to
her chest and ran, her feet sinking into the sand as she heard the explosion of thunder behind a crackle and sizzle of lightning each time it hit the sand. She veered toward the tide pools, the jagged outcropping of rocks where the waves slammed with a shuddering, violent force.
Then she heard something, distantly—a steady, mechanical beeping.
Another lightning bolt struck behind her, close enough that she felt the searing heat of it. She flung herself up against the rocks, whirling around in time to see another lightning strike—this one moving away from her, back up the sandy strip of the beach.
Crusher took a few deep breaths. The tricorder was still beeping. How was it working? It had been destroyed.
Light moved across the tricorder screen, the words blurred by sand and water. Crusher wiped it clean with her hand, scraping the sand away. She thought she’d see binary code or streams of random words, but instead there was an actual reading. The elements in the air, the barometric pressure.
She scrolled through it, watching the lightning as it continued to strike the beach. Then the rainstorm came, and she could see the dark holes where the lightning hit the ground. Oddly, dark fractal lines splayed out across the sand in sharp angles.
Circles and lines, she thought.
The thunder crashed again, loud and violent. This time, the lightning stayed in the sky, frozen in place, illuminating the clouds.
The doctor looked down at the tricorder readings. Everything was normal. Except—
Fossilized matter: 98,309 individual pieces.
She gasped, pushed herself up to standing. Could inert, microscopic fossils suddenly exist in such high concentration? It made no sense. She braced herself against the rocks as droplets of water from the rain scattered across the tricorder screen, distorting the words.
Those fossils had always been there, lurking in the background. They were the key.
The storm was calming, the rain falling steadily but less harshly. The thunder rumbled off in the distance. Crusher peeled herself off the rock and moved forward, toward the site of a lightning strike. She held out the tricorder, scanning the dark hole that had been left behind.
Nothing. The tricorder didn’t pick up even the charged ions, nor the subtle changes in the sand’s composition.
Which meant it wasn’t working, she told herself. Even though it seemed to be.
She moved on to the next hole, only a few steps from the first. The dark lines tangled together in the sand. They were all like that, she realized as she followed the path of the lightning down the beach. Circles arranged in a loop, connected by angled lines. Crusher scrambled over to the dunes, her feet sinking deep into the wet sand. She grabbed fistfuls of sand and grass as she pushed herself upward. Finally, she was standing on the top of the dune, the soft patter of rain falling around her. From here she had a view of the entire beach, of the pattern etched across it.
The same lines as had burned into the station grass.
Dozens of dark circles connected by a complicated tangle of lines. Even the rain, falling gray and steady, couldn’t wash it away.
She drew up the tricorder, but it had turned into the same pattern, made out of light.
Rain dripped into her eyes. She was underwater, everything murky and dark. But then a line of light shot out of her hand—out of the tricorder, fractaling and branching until it hit another point of light.
Will?
Crusher pushed herself forward through the water. The beach was underneath her, the sand covered in the lines. Riker floated, his hair drifting loose around his face.
And then a line of light shot out of him, carving its way through the water until another point of light bloomed.
You need to go outside, Data’s voice whispered in her head.
The tricorder offered up streams of words. Communication.
Water filled her lungs.
Then she was sputtering on the beach, coughing up ocean water as she lay on her back in the dry sand. She rolled onto her side, spitting out the water until her lungs felt clear.
“Communication,” she murmured. Images drifted through her thoughts. Lines and circles. Light. Riker floating in the water.
She pushed herself up, the left side of her head throbbing. The rain had stopped. No, it hadn’t rained at all—the storm clouds were still gathering on the horizon.
Crusher stood up, her legs shaking. There was an ache in her joints usually associated with high fevers. The sunlight, dim and filtered through the clouds, still seemed too bright.
She stumbled sideways, turning in a circle, and nearly tripped over Will, who was sprawled out on the sand.
“Will!” Crusher cried, and she knelt down to check his pulse. It was sure and steady, his breath warm on her hand.
A flash of lightning. Thunder rumbled off in the distance. She froze.
Lightning.
It had chased after her, in her dream.
Communication.
The lightning hadn’t chased her.
It had carved a message into the sand, just as the biomass had used a phaser to carve a message in the grass.
Crusher hit her combadge. “Crusher to Kota Station,” she shouted. “I need immediate assistance.”
The only answer was the crackly, staticky wind sound.
The doctor realized she didn’t have her tricorder. Did she drop it in the water as she stumbled ashore? She’d had it in her dream.
Crusher leaned back on her heels, brushing the sand off Will’s face.
“Not a dream,” she said.
The wind howled through the rocks jutting out into the water.
The realization came with the storm clouds darkening, the waves rolling in.
Something had used the biomass. Something was using her and the others.
“Damn.” She’d been right. Something on this planet really was trying to communicate.
30
“Come in, come in,” the Ferengi guard said, bustling into the center of the lounge. “Don’t mind her. She bullied”—he shot Thuvetha an angry glance—“her way in here.”
“I did not,” the Romulan said coolly. She studied the others. “Do come in,” she said. “It will be a while.”
The Ferengi ordered her, “Quiet, fe-male.”
Troi waited for Thuvetha to announce their true identities.
Nothing. When the commander eased down on a nearby chair, Worf glowered and took his mek’leth from his back. When Virox walked in, Thuvetha’s expression darkened, but she still kept silent. Virox, for her part, kept her face blank, as if she’d never in her life seen Thuvetha before. Inwardly, though, Virox was seething; Troi could feel it.
“I’ll tell Bryt you’re here,” the Ferengi guard said. “Then we can open negotiations.” He glared at Thuvetha. “And get rid of you.”
“These are the buyers?” The Romulan raised an eyebrow.
The Ferengi sniffed. “Potential buyers, yes.”
“I should be paid first.” Thuvetha grinned coyly at Virox. “As stated in the contract…”
“I told you.” The Ferengi bristled. “Bryt will see you shortly.”
The Ferengi offered Troi and Virox an apologetic smile, then crept nervously past Worf, shutting the door behind him.
The room fell into silence. Troi could feel the Romulan’s hostility.
Worf stepped forward, the mek’leth balanced in his hand.
“Klingon, what are you doing here?” She tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Madam Virox, I’m glad to see you are fine.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Virox snapped.
Thuvetha rolled her eyes. “Whatever you’re trying to do isn’t going to work. It was Madam Virox who stole the treasures.”
“And the real Madam Virox who returns them,” Virox shot back.
“You think I won’t try again? Framing you was an afterthought.”
“Where are the artifacts?” Worf growled.
Reaching into her jacket, Thuvetha extracted a small disruptor. �
�I handed them over to Bryt the Baron.”
“Please lower your weapon,” Troi said, feeling Worf’s rage.
“This thing?” Thuvetha laughed. “It barely stuns. But I can get it past Bryt’s weapon scanners. I’m surprised they let you bring that in here.” She nodded at the mek’leth. “What’s with the clothes?”
Worf bristled.
“I’m not interested in shooting you.” Thuvetha slipped the disruptor back into her coat. “What are you doing here?”
“We are trying to retrieve the items you stole,” Troi said calmly.
“They’re with the baron.”
“Why are you still here?” Worf demanded.
Thuvetha sighed dramatically and flung herself back onto the sofa, kicking her legs up on the nearby table. “I wasn’t just trying to frame Virox. That was a bonus. But Bryt’s trying to rip me off.” She smiled. “He doesn’t know how patient I can be.”
“Rip you off?” Troi frowned.
Thuvetha laughed. “This isn’t the Federation. I expect to be compensated for my work.”
Troi resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “So you stole the items for the Ferengi? And not just to—” She gestured at Virox.
“For a Ferengi. Bryt.”
“What did Bryt want with the artifacts?” Virox demanded.
“Profit?” Thuvetha shrugged. “I suppose. I really don’t know.” She shot an angry look at the three-quarter round Ferengi door in the wall. The commander supposed it led to wherever Bryt the Baron was secreting himself away. “Are you recording me?”
She looked at Worf when she asked the question. Worf drew himself up, straightening his back, and didn’t answer.
“You can’t be. The scanners would have picked up on any devices. Unless”—her eyes glittered—“new Starfleet technology?”
Worf looked at Troi. “I don’t get a sense that she’s keeping something from us. At least nothing important.”
Thuvetha laughed. “Well, I was going to tell you what I know about Bryt.”
She’s angry at Bryt, Virox said to Troi. Furious, in fact. She hides it well, but I know how she thinks.
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