by Dayton Ward
Emerging from where he had sought cover inside the tree line, Lieutenant Lerax held up his tricorder. “I did, Commander. My scans were able to penetrate the object’s outer hull, but the readings I collected are somewhat scrambled. It is possible we may be able to extract something useful from the data I recorded once we have returned to the Endeavour.”
Stano stepped farther into the clearing, noting that the churned soil and grass were fossilized as a consequence of the drone’s actions. Everything in her range of vision had, literally, been turned to ruddy brown stone. Coming abreast of what once had been a squat patch of vegetation, Stano reached out and tentatively brushed her fingers across one of its branches. It, like the leaves it supported, was stiff and unmoving. When she attempted to break off a piece, the bush resisted her effort.
“This is creepy as hell,” said Theriault, walking up behind her.
Stano nodded in agreement. “Tell me about it.” She stepped away from the petrified vegetation toward one of the numerous large craters littering the clearing. Like everything else around it, the ground that had been pushed aside by the force of what likely had been one of the Endeavour’s photon torpedoes also had been converted to a blanket of inert rock.
At the bottom of the depression, posed like a menacing statue, was one of the Changed.
“Holy shit,” Stano said, her hand automatically raising her phaser to take aim at the unmoving figure. She halted the motion, holding her position for several seconds as she gazed upon the immobilized monster.
Phaser held in front of her, Theriault maneuvered down into the crater and approached the rigid Tomol. “It’s not going anywhere,” she concluded after a moment. She rapped on the creature’s chest. “Talk about your bad luck.”
“Commander,” said Lerax. The Edoan was standing before the bush, examining it with his tricorder. Glancing up from the unit’s miniature display screen, he gestured toward the object of his scans. “This flora is still alive. It was not actually converted to stone but merely encased in a shell. If I am interpreting these readings correctly, the vegetation is in a state of suspension.”
“What about him?” Theriault hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the motionless Changed.
In response to her question, Lerax moved into the crater and scanned the creature with his tricorder. After a moment, the security chief nodded. “I am detecting life readings, though blood circulation and respiration have both been reduced to extremely low levels. As with the plant, this creature has been placed in a state of hibernation.”
“Well, that kind of raises more questions than it answers,” Stano said, eyeing the entombed Tomol. “If that thing was targeting the Changed, then who sent it?” Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned to see Tormog along with Kerlo and his surviving companions approaching them, escorted by four of Lerax’s security team. “Kerlo, do you know anything about this? Do your Wardens have weapons with such power?”
The Tomol’s features darkened as he beheld the Changed. “No. Only the Shepherds are capable of such feats, though I have never seen it happen with my own eyes.”
“It has to be some kind of . . . technology,” Theriault said, catching herself before she referred to the Preservers in front of Kerlo and the other Tomol. “Right?”
Stano frowned. “I don’t know what else it could be.” She had no doubts that the caverns beneath the Tomol village held all manner of interesting artifacts and information left behind by the Preservers. Some of it had been left for the Tomol themselves to use, but the drone represented something else entirely. Was it here to defend the Tomol from outside threats, to protect them from themselves, or to act as a safeguard should the Tomol become a threat to others?
What about all of the above?
“We’ll leave that to Lieutenant Klisiewicz to figure out,” Stano said.
Theriault smiled. “Maybe we can just seal him in there with Lieutenant Hesh and let them sort through it all. You know how science officers can get.”
“This is amazing,” Tormog said, as the Klingon ran his hand along the torso of the statuelike Changed. “The creature is truly in stasis?”
Lerax shook his head. “As I said, the life-forms that have been enveloped by this effect are in a state of hibernation. Their physiological functions do not appear to have been arrested to the degree one might experience when placed into a stasis chamber, but my knowledge of such topics is rudimentary, at best.” Looking to Stano, the Edoan added, “Perhaps Commander Yataro or Doctor Leone or Lieutenant Klisiewicz would be better suited to study this phenomenon.”
“You’re doing fine, Lieutenant.” Before Stano could offer further words of encouragement, the communicator Lerax had given her beeped in her hand. “Stano here.”
“Khatami here. Is everybody all right down there?”
Stano replied, “I have to report one casualty, Captain, but I haven’t yet had a chance to identify him.” She paused, recalling the ghastly sight of the unfortunate crewman who had been the first victim of the Changed during their attack. “We’re still getting a head count now that things have settled down. Did you see what happened?”
“We caught most of it,” Khatami said, “but don’t ask me to tell you what that thing was.”
“As it happens, we’ve got an idea about that.” In rapid fashion, she summarized her observations of the object’s actions, including what had been done to the Changed.
“If that sort of technology is just lying around, then there’s no telling what else might be buried in those caverns. I don’t know that I want our people stumbling around down there until we get a better handle on this situation, Commander.”
“What about the Tomol? We can’t leave them here on their own.”
Khatami replied, “If what you say is true, there may be a better defense mechanism than anything we’ve got, save for blowing large holes in the planet, and that’s something I’d rather not do, if it can be avoided.”
“What about the Klingons?” Theriault asked. “They’re not going to leave this alone.”
“You are correct, human,” Tormog said. “I have my orders, and Captain Kang has his. We will complete our mission, and you would do well not to interfere.”
Stano gestured to the encased Tomol. “If you think you can go up against something that can do this, be my guest. Just give me a few minutes to get some snacks and a good seat.”
“Commander Stano!”
She was forced to squint to see one of her people standing out in the open several dozen meters from her, all but lost in the increasing darkness falling over the clearing, waving an arm over his head and gesturing for her to join him. He was standing next to something she could not make out from this distance. After ordering the security team to keep Tormog with them and waiting for Theriault to scramble up from the crater, she along with the Sagittarius’s first officer and Lerax jogged across the broken terrain, realizing as they closed the gap that the thing next to the security officer was another of the Changed, trapped like its companion within a stone tomb. Facing away from her, the figure had been halted in the act of raising muscled arms as though preparing to strike.
“Over here, Commander,” said Ensign Joseph Berenato, the young crewman who had called her over. He was cradling a phaser rifle in the crook of one arm, and with his free hand he was gesturing for her to follow him past the frozen Tomol. The expression on his face was one of dread, and as she proceeded after him toward the lip of another crater, a sudden knot of unease formed in her gut.
No.
Her worry turned to despair as she gazed upon the petrified form of one of her own people. He had been caught while running from what likely was the threat of the Changed readying to attack him. He had dropped to one knee and his phaser rifle was raised to his shoulder as he took aim to ward off an attack that would never come.
“Oh, damn,” Theriault whispered as she moved to
stand beside her, and when the two women exchanged looks, each saw the shock in the other’s eyes.
“There are others,” Berenato said. “Two more that I know of.” He pointed toward the edge of the clearing, where other members of the landing party were moving about the stilled figures of another Changed as well as two Endeavour crewmen. “We also count three Tomol caught up in the effect. Search parties are looking for the other two, but our tricorders aren’t picking up anything. They may have gotten away, Commander.”
Her attention fixed on the unfortunate crewman standing before her, Stano asked, “Who is this?” She moved closer to get a better look at him, noting that it was a Vulcan, the distinctive points of his ears still noticeable even through the stone cocoon in which he had been ensnared.
Lerax replied, “This was Ensign Sotol.”
“Is,” Theriault said. When both Stano and Lerax looked at her, she jabbed a finger at the fossilized ensign. “You just got through telling us that anything trapped in this stuff is still alive, in a state of hibernation. If it can be done to them, then it can be undone.”
“Damn it,” Stano said, realizing that—for the briefest of moments—she had allowed herself to forget that very salient point from Lerax’s report. “You’re right.” She placed a hand on the stone façade surrounding Ensign Sotol. “So how do we do it?” Holding up her phaser, she considered the weapon and its possible effect on the unyielding rock trapping her people. “Can we cut through it?”
“No!” a voice shouted, and Stano and she turned to see Ensign Zane sprinting toward them across the field. Holding his tricorder against his hip as he ran, he was waving his free hand to get their attention. His face was flushed from the exertion, and his eyes were wide with near panic. By the time he reached Stano and the others, he was all but out of breath.
“Don’t try to cut them free,” Zane managed to spit out between breaths.
“Why not?” Stano asked.
The security officer and medic gestured toward the imprisoned Ensign Sotol. “I can’t explain it, but the rock isn’t just a static shell.” He held up his tricorder. “I was adjusting my scans to try to penetrate deeper through the rock and get a better look at the Tomol’s life signs, and I started picking up new readings—from the rock itself.”
Theriault scowled. “The rock’s alive? How is that possible?”
“From what I can tell,” Zane replied, “the readings from the rock are connected to the life-forms inside it.” He nodded toward Sotol. “The plant life, the Changed, any animals caught up in it during the attack, and our people. If you try to cut through the rock, whatever you’re trying to free could die.”
15
Even with his face all but pressed against the hooded sensor viewer at his station on the Endeavour bridge, Stephen Klisiewicz could feel Captain Khatami’s eyes on him as she stood silent, waiting for him to provide her with new information.
Well, perhaps not silent.
“Please tell me you got a tracking lock on that . . . hell . . . you tell me what to call it.”
Lifting his face from the viewer, Klisiewicz shook his head. “Whatever it was, Captain, it’s gone. Vanished from our scans like it was never there.” He had been able to monitor the unidentified object’s flight path during the frenetic moments it had spent over the Sagittarius crash site, but it had been a struggle to keep up with the drone—or whatever it was—even with the Endeavour’s impressive sensor array. “I don’t know if it ducked into a hole or ditched in the ocean or even self-destructed.” He blew out his breath. “That said, I’m pretty sure I can pin down its point of origin.”
“How confident is ‘pretty,’ Lieutenant?” Khatami asked, and Klisiewicz noted the impatience in her voice.
“I can definitely confirm that it came from the general vicinity of the Preserver pyramid. That entire area is littered with the same mineral deposits that have been fouling our sensors.” Reaching for the science console, he input a sequence of commands and in response one of the station’s overhead monitors switched its image to display the computer-generated schematic of the Suba island Klisiewicz had instructed the computer to create. “I tried an old-fashioned trick and realigned the navigational deflector to emit a series of low-frequency acoustic waves that I directed toward the ground. As the waves penetrated the surface, they generated minor seismic readings that the sensors could then interpret in order to create a crude imaging of the subsurface areas.”
“Like a tomograph,” Khatami said, stepping closer so that she could lean against the railing separating her from him. “Basically, you went sounding.” She smiled, though she felt anything but happy at the moment. The news of Ensign Sotol and two more members of her crew having been caught up in the drone’s bizarre petrification effect was fresh in her thoughts, accompanied by her own doleful ponderings of what, if any, pain or discomfort her people might be enduring. Commander Stano had informed her that the men for all intents and purposes were in a state of deep hibernation, but that did not assuage Khatami’s feelings in the slightest.
“That’s a nice bit of creative thinking, Mister Klisiewicz,” she said after a moment. She looked past him to the rudimentary map. “Can you enhance the imagery you’re getting?”
Klisiewicz nodded. “Yes, by increasing the strength of the acoustic signals. We don’t want to push too far, of course. We might set off an earthquake.”
“That would be bad,” Khatami conceded. “Okay, up the power, but just enough to give us a complete picture of that complex. I want to know where those drones are launched and if there are any other surprises waiting for us down there.”
Already beginning the process of entering the required instructions to his console, Klisiewicz said, “I’m recalibrating the deflector dish, but this will work better if we can reorient the ship so that I can target the specific coordinates.”
“Feed that data to the helm,” Khatami said before moving to her command chair and pressing its intercom button. “Bridge to engineering.”
“Engineering. This is Lieutenant Dang, Captain,” replied the voice of the Endeavour’s assistant chief engineer.
“Phu, are you monitoring the output of the nav deflector while Lieutenant Klisiewicz is conducting his little experiment?”
“Affirmative. So far, we’re not picking up anything unusual.”
“We’re about to increase the power. Is that going to give us any problems?”
There was a pause, and Klisiewicz could picture the young Vietnamese engineer consulting various status indicators and other readouts. “We won’t cause any damage to the area being swept, but the harmonics of that beam will cause fluctuations in our deflector shields. We could lower them, but I’m guessing that’s not something you want to do.”
“Probably not a good idea,” Klisiewicz said. With the Voh’tahk still lurking in nearby space, wounded or not, letting the Endeavour’s guard down would not be prudent.
“Exactly,” Khatami said. “Thank you, Mister Dang. Bridge out.”
“We’re ready,” Klisiewicz reported.
The captain nodded. “Do it.”
After keying the instructions into the ship’s computer, Klisiewicz did not have to wait long before results from the sounding and its interpretation by the sensors began to feed to his viewer. The map he already had created began to expand and fill in, the seismic reaction to the enhanced acoustical beam providing information on what he now saw was a vast underground network of caverns and connecting passages.
That’s it, he thought, watching the map coalesce. You just needed a little massage.
Then the alarms sounded.
“What the hell?” he heard Khatami bark over the Red Alert siren, and he turned from his console to see the captain moving to stand between the helm and navigator positions.
“Something inbound from the planet’s surface!” called Lieutenant Neelakanta.
Checking his instruments, it took Klisiewicz only a moment to see what was happening. “Some kind of energy beam, Captain. It’s locked onto us!”
“Disengage the deflector!” Khatami ordered. “Helm, get us out . . .”
The deck heaved with enough force for Klisiewicz’s knee to slam into the underside of his console. The sensor viewer was his only handhold as the deck continued to pitch, but he lost his grip and spilled to the deck. In his peripheral vision he saw Khatami flopping into her command chair and other members of the bridge crew trying and failing to keep from being thrown from their seats. All the lights flickered at the same time that alarm indicators on every console flared to life, accompanied by a cacophony of harsh tones and whistles demanding attention.
“Evasive!” Khatami shouted above the noise. “Full power to the shields!”
The assault faded after a moment and the deck’s movements subsided, leaving everyone on the bridge with the sounds of the various alert indicators. Crew members returned to their stations, silencing the various alarms and already beginning the process of determining the extent of the beam’s effects. It took Klisiewicz a moment to realize that the primary lighting had gone out, leaving only emergency illumination around the bridge.
“Damage report!” Khatami ordered. “Klisiewicz, what was that?”
“Still trying to figure that out, Captain,” replied the science officer, back at his station and consulting his sensor data. “It looks like the attack tracked right up the deflector beam but stopped just as soon as we disengaged.” He flinched as the image in the viewer flashed before his eyes before fading altogether. A cursory check of this console told him what he already suspected. “We’ve got an overload in the sensor array. I’m blind here.”
At the communications station, Hector Estrada said, “Minor casualties reported so far, Captain, but initial damage reports are indicating we took a pretty good punch. Engineering is reporting overloads and cutouts all over the ship. Shields, weapons control, even the transporters.” Holding his Feinberg receiver to his ear, he winced, closing his eyes and releasing a grunt of shock as he pulled the device free. “Wow,” he said, turning to his console. “Something’s up with intraship comm, and ship-to-ship and ship-to-surface communications are already out. I’m seeing an overload in the subspace transceiver as well.”