The Returned, Part II

by Peter David

  “Down the hall to the end and then to the right.”

  They continued moving. Calhoun did not have to look behind him to know that the two Brethren were following him. No doubt they were waiting for him to lower his guard so that they could attack. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Calhoun had one huge plus on his side. The Brethren’s armor-bound weaponry always made a distinct powering-up noise before it discharged. If one of them tried to ambush him, he would know that the attack was about to come and he would have more than enough time to blow the Visionary’s head off before the assault was launched.

  “Who are you?” asked Calhoun between drawn lips. “A leader? A strategist?”

  “I am simply one of the D’myurj.”

  “Don’t give me that. The power that you wield. The way you wiped out my people. You have a hell of a lot of armament at your disposal to be ‘simply one.’ This place”—he nodded with his head around the castle—“is yours, isn’t it.”

  “It is my family’s estate,” said the Visionary. “It is centuries old. I loan it out to my government as a secure place if they have people they wish to keep imprisoned. The shield is a device of my family’s creation. Another one like it does not exist anywhere in the world.”

  “Who the hell is your family?”

  “We are weapons makers,” said the Visionary. “We are the foremost weapons makers in the history of the D’myurj. Whatever ‘power’ that you believe I have stems from that. Because of it, our people put me in charge of overseeing our race’s departure.”

  “Your departure. From this world.”

  “That’s right. Although”—his voice fell—“it’s obviously too late. The Dayan are above us right now, working to destroy us. I don’t understand. I created a perfect defensive system. I have no idea why it has failed us.”

  Calhoun saw no reason to answer the question. It did, however, pose one for him.

  He had been told, and seen for his own eyes, the relative imperviousness of the Dayan vessel. If the ship had endeavored to launch an attack on the D’myurj homeworld on its own, the assault from the satellites and the ground guns should have been unable to stop it. It would simply have re-formed itself and continued the assault.

  Why in the world did the Dayan require the Excalibur to take out the satellite arrays and the big guns? It didn’t make any sense.

  They reached the end of the corridor and turned to the right. “How much farther?” said Calhoun.

  “The far end. That large door. It’s the command security room.”

  They headed down the corridor, Calhoun making sure to keep the phaser against the side of the Visionary’s head. “You don’t have to press it so hard,” grunted the Visionary.

  “You’re lucky I’m not shoving it through your skull.”

  They reached the far end, and the Visionary pushed the door open. There was a Brethren seated inside in front of an array of instrumentation. The moment the Brethren saw them, he lunged to his feet and swung his fist up.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Calhoun warningly.

  “Stand down,” the Visionary told the guard, who immediately lowered his fist.

  “You’re quite good at that. Telling them what to do.”

  “We all have aspects that we excel at.” The Visionary sounded sarcastic.

  “How do you shut it off?”

  The Visionary strode over to the console. Calhoun kept the phaser aimed at him. As opposed to the aged look of the rest of the castle, the equipment laid out before them was state-of-the-art. There were glowing pads on it, and the Visionary’s fingers flew over them. He worked at it for ten seconds and then stepped back. “The field has been shut down,” he said. “Your Dayan allies can blast us to hell and gone at their leisure.”

  “That’s not why I needed it shut down. Calhoun to Excalibur.”

  “Excalibur. Burgoyne here. The shield is down, Captain.”

  “Lock onto the humans that are being held here and beam them up.”

  “We can’t, sir.”

  That was not the response that Calhoun was expecting. “Why not?”

  “Something is scrambling our transporter beams.”

  “I thought that was the force field!”

  “No, sir. There’s something else there.”

  “Hold on.” He turned to the Visionary, his anger threatening to overwhelm him. “What’s causing it? What’s scrambling our transporter beam?”

  The Visionary was actually smiling. It was everything Calhoun could do not to hit him. “Your transporters are being thwarted by a tower, at the far end of the castle.”

  “Shut it down.”

  “That is impossible. It is a failsafe. The only way you could shut it down is to destroy the tower itself. Which is not something that you could do from here.”

  Calhoun, for the first time, swung his phaser away from the Visionary. He fired quickly and accurately, blowing the control console to bits. Smoke and flame blew from it, and Calhoun grabbed the Visionary and clamped an arm around his throat.

  “Take me to it. Now!”

  “As you wish,” said the Visionary.

  ii.

  KEBRON REACTED WITH surprise when he saw the field fade away in front of them. “He did it. Let’s move.”

  The team immediately charged down the trail that Calhoun had covered. They were not attempting a stealthy approach. Time was of the essence, and they didn’t have the option to do anything slowly.

  “That entrance up there!” called Kebron. “That door was set aside! The Captain must have gone that way—!”

  That was very quickly not an option. Several Brethren emerged from the doorway as Kebron and the team approached. They swung their armored fists up and opened fire.

  “Behind me!” shouted Kebron as the blasts slammed into him. They were more powerful than anything that Zak had ever encountered before. High-impact phaser blasts simply ricocheted off his rock-hard skin, but this was much worse. Kebron was actually blown backward, knocked flat. He landed so heavily that for a moment the ground shook under the impact.

  “Phasers on full!” shouted Kebron. He remembered Calhoun’s caution about the air vents being their only vulnerability, but reasoned that that was in close combat situations. With some distance between them and fully charged phasers in their hands, a straightforward assault seemed the way to go.

  The security team fired their phasers with full disintegrative force. It should have reduced the Brethren to free-floating atoms. Instead, to the collective shock of the team, the beams coruscated helplessly against the Brethren’s armor.

  “What the hell?” muttered Boyajian.

  “Some sort of refractive surface,” said Kebron as he scrambled to his feet.

  “How can it refract total particle dissolution?”

  “We’ll ask them later.” Obviously the captain had been right. The vents remained the sole source of weakness for the Brethren, assuming that the crew could reach them.

  The team scrambled across the vast lawn that ran the perimeter of the castle. The Brethren were in pursuit, firing their pulser blasts. The two things that the crew had going for it were that their armor provided some protection, and that the Brethren were not the best shots when they were running.

  They rounded a corner and suddenly Kebron stopped and pressed himself against the outer wall, gesturing for the rest of the team to keep running. They did so, and the moment that the Brethren came around the corner, Kebron launched himself at them.

  He didn’t bother with his phaser. Instead he slammed his massive fists into the nearest Brethren, one into each of them. One of them managed to hold his footing; the other was knocked backward, hitting the ground hard.

  The Brethren who remained standing studied Kebron for a heartbeat and then threw himself directly at the Brikar. Apparently he decided that Zak was worth trying to slug it out with hand-to-hand.

  Kebron braced himself and withstood the initial impact. For a long moment the Brethren and the Brika
r struggled against each other, neither of them giving ground. Zak thought he might have been imagining it, but he could have sworn he heard the Brethren actually grunting inside of his armor.

  Then Kebron shoved forward and up and hoisted the Brethren off his feet. He paused for a moment, and then slammed the Brethren to the ground.

  That was apparently all the Brethren wanted when it came to hand-to-hand. He brought his gauntlet up and fired point-blank at Kebron. The impact of the pulser blast sent Kebron flying. He slammed backward into the side of the castle, cracking off a sizable amount of stone.

  He slid to the ground, momentarily stunned. He saw the Brethren advancing on him, his fist glowing with energy. It seemed as if it was even more energy than the Brethren had generated earlier. Could this kill me? I suppose it’s possible that it could. Sorry, Captain.

  That was when the sound of a phaser beam lashed out, and the stream of light drove straight into the Brethren’s helmet on the side. The Brethren shook violently and then collapsed. The other Brethren had gotten to his feet, and the phaser beam switched direction, cutting into the side of the other creature’s helmet. The Brethren trembled, throwing his arms to either side. There was definitely the sound of a loud moan, the first noise that one of the creatures had definitely made, and then he keeled over.

  Kebron turned and saw Meyer standing several feet away.

  “Nice aim,” said Kebron.

  “Move,” Meyer told him.

  Kebron did so, hurrying behind Meyer as fast as he could.

  There was firing up ahead. Kebron and Meyer caught up with the rest of the team to discover that they were under fire. One man, Yarden, was already down, his face collapsed from one of the pulser bolts. Kebron stepped over him and, having brought his phaser out, fired upon the Brethren who were blocking their path.

  A furious firefight ensued as the two groups continued to blast at each other. The Brethren proved more than capable of withstanding even a point-blank phaser shot, but the security team maneuvered around, shooting from the side whenever possible. Many of the shots missed, but enough managed to find their mark that the Brethren fell before the onslaught . . . but not before killing a second of the Excalibur team, a man named Sommers. Sommers was an experienced security officer, always talking about various battles that he had handily survived and entertaining the crew with his myriad war stories.

  They reached a large set of double doors, undoubtedly the main entrance to the place. Kebron shouted, “Stay back!” and charged the doors. He slammed into them at full speed, and the doors shattered from the impact.

  The crew stepped through into an elaborate foyer. Statues lined both sides, stone representations of the D’myurj.

  Brethren were coming down the stairs, opening fire.

  The team dodged to either side, getting out of the path of the Brethren’s onslaught. They took refuge behind the statues and concentrated their fire on the advancing Brethren.

  “Keep steady!” shouted Kebron.

  Blasts were hurtling everywhere. The pulser shots were blowing apart the statues, and the security team was moving as fast as they could, keeping up a constant stream of fire on the advancing Brethren. One by one the armored figures went down, writhing as the blasts through their vents annihilated them.

  Kebron had put away his tricorder to concentrate on the battle, but Boyajian had his out and was checking the readings. “Kebron!” he shouted over the howling of the blasts around them. “I’ve got the human readings! I know where they are!”

  The last of the Brethren fell, and Kebron called, “Lead the way!”

  Boyajian started running, and the rest of the crew fell in behind him. Kebron was directly behind Boyajian, and as they rounded a corner, Kebron suddenly yanked him backward just in time. A pulser blast ripped past and blew a hole in the wall.

  A Brethren was approaching.

  It was the biggest Brethren that Kebron had seen. He was at least two heads taller than any of the others, and much wider. His pulser blast was far more intense than anything that had been fired at them up until that moment. And his armor looked different. There were additional mounts on the front and back, which were blinking for some reason.

  Boyajian saw it too. “Who the hell is that?” he muttered.

  “Maybe a commander,” said Kebron. “Whatever it is, it seems exceptionally nasty.”

  The huge Brethren was approaching them rapidly. Kebron braced himself, prepared for him, waiting, waiting . . .

  Nothing.

  Kebron thought that maybe the Brethren had stopped moving. That he was waiting for them to make themselves visible. Then he saw that he was casting no shadow on the wall. This was enough to prompt Kebron to stick his head around the corner and, sure enough, the Brethren was gone.

  “Where did he—?” Kebron began to say.

  It was the noise that saved them. The sound of a transporter from right behind them caused the security team to lunge to either side as the massive Brethren materialized right in their midst. It happened far more quickly than an Excalibur transporter. One moment he wasn’t there, the next minute, with the shriek of a transporter, he was.

  Kebron tried to shoot through the Brethren’s helmet slit, but the creature was simply too damned fast. He fired his pulser beam, slamming Evanston in the chest. There was a loud crack of bone as Evanston’s entire rib cage and his upper spine were crushed. The Brethren swung around and aimed at Kebron, but the Brikar grabbed his fist and pushed it to the side so that the detonation blew apart a section of the wall, sending stone and mortar flying everywhere.

  Once again there was the shriek of a transporter, and the Brethren was gone. It was at that point that Kebron understood. “His armor; it has a built-in transmat beam. It can move anywhere it—”

  The Brethren materialized as Kebron was speaking, standing a meter away. Kebron threw himself between the Brethren and the others just as he unleashed another pulser beam. Kebron had never felt an impact like it. He was blown off his feet, slamming into the opposite wall. A huge chunk of debris fell off and into his hand.

  Perfect, Kebron suddenly thought.

  The security team brought their phasers up and opened fire, and once again the Brethren disappeared. Kebron was expecting it, and he pivoted, facing behind them, doing his best to ignore the searing ache that was ripping through his chest.

  The sound of the transporter gave him just enough notice, and Kebron lobbed the huge chunk of debris forward.

  The Brethren materialized right around the piece of airborne rubble.

  Kebron smiled grimly, which for him was represented by an ever-so-slight upraising of the edges of his mouth. The Brethren shuddered violently, grabbing at his chest, not fully understanding what had just happened. The transporter beams howled once more, and the Brethren vanished, but the piece of rubble disappeared along with him, now a permanent part of his inner workings. An instant later the Brethren rematerialized, but that was through the workings of the mechanism rather than anything the Brethren was telling it to do. He pitched forward and hit the ground heavily.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Meyer.

  “May be experimental,” said Kebron. “Judging by what happened, I’d have to say it wasn’t the most successful of devices.”

  “Come on,” said Boyajian. “I’ve still got our people on the tricorder.”

  Kebron cast a frustrated glance at Evanston. He was clearly dead, lying there and staring up at nothing. The man deserved a decent burial, but Kebron wasn’t in a position to carry a corpse with him. We can still beam him up, though. Him and the others. Their combadges will enable us to lock onto them. Presuming, of course, that we ever get out of here.

  “Get us there,” Kebron ordered Boyajian.

  They continued to sprint down the corridors. Fortunately enough, they did not encounter any more of the Brethren, although Kebron suspected that there were still some of them within the castle.

  They were descending steadily
, going down flights of stairs, the air around them becoming danker and moister. The entire time, Kebron was keeping mental track of how time was ticking down.

  They reached what Kebron suspected was the bottom floor. A long, narrow corridor loomed in front of them. Boyajian was keeping careful watch on the tricorder and gestured for the others to follow him. He led the way down the hallway, finally coming to a halt in front of another large pair of double doors. “In here,” said Boyajian. “They’re in here.”

  There was a lock pad on the door. Kebron didn’t even bother with it. He brought up his phaser and fired. The door immediately disintegrated. Nice to know that the refractive component to the Brethren’s armor wasn’t included on the castle’s doorways.

  They entered and Boyajian gasped at what he saw. Kebron simply grunted, which was a major emotional display for him.

  There were ten human beings imprisoned in what seemed to be upright glass tubes, tinted with frost. It was clear that they were in some manner of suspended animation. Kebron didn’t know who most of them were, but one of them was immediately identifiable. It was Admiral Nechayev.

  They were all Starfleet personnel. He could tell that because they were clad in their uniforms.

  Kebron tapped his combadge. “Kebron to Excalibur. Can you beam us out?”

  “No. The field is down but there’s still something scrambling the transporter beam. The captain is working on getting it down,” said Burgoyne.

  “Fine. Stay alert. Kebron out.” He turned to Meyer and Boyajian. “Get them out. Quickly. We’re going be beamed out of here soon.”

  “How? The captain is still working on it,” said Meyer.

  “Don’t worry. If anyone can do it, it’s Mackenzie Calhoun.”

  Thallon

  TE CWAN HAS never been more satisfied with his life.

  As he moves through the forest, armed with only a bow and a quiver of arrows over his shoulder, he is dwelling most cheerfully on the way matters are proceeding. He always manages to do that whenever he goes hunting. Hunting clears his mind, calms him. Especially at times like this, when he is engaged in hunting the dreaded flarg. The flarg is one of the nastier beasts to wander the forests of Thallon, and to kill one is a major accomplishment for a hunter. A typical flarg-hunting squad requires six to eight people. No one has ever captured one alone. Te will be the first.