by Dayton Ward
“Moving into a new neighborhood is always a challenge,” Stano said, attempting to join Theriault in the first officer’s feeble attempt to lessen their mutual tension. Using her sleeve, she wiped perspiration from her forehead, the result of time spent out in the midday sun. Though the temperature was not oppressive, there was no breeze. The air was still and the ground here was dry, so anyone running past kicked small clouds of dust into the air, which in turn settled into the defensive positions and onto their occupants. Having experienced the grit in her mouth more than once, Stano had already consumed half the contents of the water canteen given to her by Theriault from the Sagittarius’s cache of field supplies.
Looking past their own holes, she saw that people were moving about the Sagittarius, handing out power packs for weapons and other equipment or supplies she could not identify. She shifted her attention to the crate she had placed near her feet to act as a table, regarding the canteen as well as the five power packs, four for her phaser rifle and one for the pistol on her hip. The Sagittarius’s armory along with the much smaller cache aboard the Masao had been raided and everything distributed in as equal a manner as possible to everyone taking up positions around the ship. Stano had taken advantage of the dispersal to acquire another communicator as well as a tricorder.
Each position was manned by members of the Sagittarius crew, Commander Yataro’s team of engineers, or her own landing party. The group had been divided into pairs, and Lieutenant Lerax had seen to it that each position was numbered and assigned a field of fire for which it would be responsible, and each position’s sector overlapped with the ones to its left and right. The shuttlecraft Masao sat on the ground just behind the scout ship’s saucer section, tucked between the nacelles. Atop the Sagittarius itself was another pair of defensive positions, with Ilucci and Commander Yataro overseeing that effort. Their placement near the maintenance hatch along the rear of the saucer section’s dorsal hull afforded the engineers access to control consoles they had set up within easy reach so that they could monitor the ship’s deflector shield generators, which had been modified to act with greater efficiency to protect the vessel while it remained on the ground. Stano’s hole, which she would shortly be sharing with Captain Terrell, had been designated Station 1. Theriault and Lerax were manning Station 2, and the numbers increased in clockwise fashion around the Sagittarius.
“Kate,” Theriault called out, and Stano saw her colleague examining her tricorder. “I’m picking up something. Indistinct life-form readings.” She pointed into the forest beyond the clearing where the Sagittarius rested. “They’re on the ground, now. Two thousand meters, that way.”
Stano turned to her own tricorder, which was propped up on the narrow parapet she had fashioned from the heavy earth surrounding her hole. Like everyone else, she had set the device to make continuous scans of the area Lerax had designated as her position’s field of fire and increased its scanning range to maximum, keeping watch for any life-forms that might enter her sector of responsibility. The tricorder’s readings remained fixed.
“I don’t have anything here,” she said.
To Stano’s left, standing in what had been designated Station 14, Commander Sorak said, “Our tricorder readings also are negative.” Next to the Sagittarius’s second officer, Lieutenant Sengar Hesh held up the unit he shared with Sorak, as though to emphasize the Vulcan’s statement.
Next to Theriault, Lerax reported, “I am getting reports from other positions, picking up Tomol life readings and movement. There’s no pattern, but it is obvious that they are attempting to advance on us from multiple directions.”
“Do we have any idea how many we might be dealing with?” Stano asked.
“At least ten, possibly twelve.” The Edoan security officer’s pronounced brow furrowed as he adjusted a control on his tricorder. “Or more. Their life signs are fluctuating, much like they did when they transformed from flying creatures to the larger bipeds that attacked us.”
Stano altered her tricorder’s settings to expand its scan vector, and now she saw the life readings. From what she could tell, two or perhaps three individual life-forms were approaching from somewhere ahead of Lerax’s position.
“They’re going to try to envelop us,” she said, setting aside the tricorder and retrieving her phaser rifle. She checked the weapon’s power level, verifying for the third or fourth time that it contained a full charge and was set to maximum. With sustained use, the rifle’s power pack would drain within ten to fifteen minutes, but a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach told her that the impending skirmish, regardless of its outcome, would take only a fraction of that time.
She heard running footsteps behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Captain Terrell carrying a phaser rifle and sprinting across the open ground separating the fighting hole from the Sagittarius’s main airlock. Behind him, the heavy hatch cycled shut, and she could see a handful of other personnel scrambling for their own positions. Terrell covered the remaining ground between them and hopped over the parapet, dropping into the hole beside her.
“Welcome aboard,” Stano quipped.
Terrell nodded. “Happy to be here.” Reaching into a pocket of his rumpled jumpsuit, he extracted a communicator and opened it, then pressed one of the unit’s controls. Immediately, Stano’s own communicator—still open per the captain’s earlier instructions—emitted the familiar tone alerting her of an incoming message. “Terrell to all hands. Maintain this open frequency until further notice. If you need assistance, call out, and let’s keep tabs on each other, in case any of those bastards slip through, somehow. Good luck, people.” Setting the active communicator on the parapet, he turned to Stano. “I was never much for inspirational speeches. We usually end up not having time for that sort of thing.”
“I know the feeling,” Stano replied.
After checking his phaser rifle as though verifying it had not been damaged, Terrell laid the weapon’s barrel on the edge of the section of hull plate forming his end of the hole’s fortification. Shifting his stance so that he leaned against the hole’s forward wall, he looked up to where Ilucci and Yataro sat atop the Sagittarius’s primary hull. “What’s the story with the shields, Master Chief?”
“About as good as it’s going to get, Skipper,” replied Ilucci, not quite shouting. “I’ve extended the range out to one hundred meters in each direction, but that could stress the generators if we start taking any kind of concentrated assault. I know these guys aren’t supposed to have any weapons, but I still don’t like it. If the shields go, we may not be able to get them back up.”
“Understood,” Terrell said. “Do the best you can.” He sighed before looking to Stano. “We’ve done all we can to keep them away from us. Here’s hoping we can drive them off before they find a way to get through the shields.” It had been at Theriault’s recommendation that Ilucci retuned the Sagittarius’s shields to extend their reach beyond the ship, in a bid to keep Nimur and the other evolved Tomol from getting close enough to employ their telekinetic abilities. Of course, there was no real way to know how far the Changed’s mental powers could reach; Theriault had been making an educated guess based on what she and Tormog had witnessed. Stano had wondered about their defenses and whether they might be up to the formidable task of shielding the Starfleet personnel from Nimur and her followers.
There’s really only one way to find out, isn’t there?
An energy discharge echoed across the clearing from her left, near the rear of the Sagittarius’s port nacelle and the defensive position designated Station 11. Stano turned to see something impacting against the deflector shield that had been extended almost to the tree line in that direction, ending just before reaching several trees that had been ripped from their roots and toppled from the scout ship’s crash landing.
“Here they come!” Stano heard a voice shout from above and behind her, and saw Master Chief Ilucci and
Commander Yataro waving aft as something crashed into the deflector shield a second time. Another surge of crimson-hued energy flared at that point, and Stano saw the muzzles of two phaser rifles moving to aim in that direction from the firing position closest to the impact.
“Over here!” came another yell, this time from Stano’s right, and she jerked around to see a new burst of light in the distance ahead of the ship’s bow. The spark repeated twice in rapid succession, and this time Stano spotted a dark, hulking figure dashing back toward the tree line. Mere seconds later, something hit the shields at the edge of the trees in front of Theriault’s hole, and again Stano noted something moving away from the point of contact and disappearing into the forest. The flashes were repeated twice more, each at different points along the perimeter.
Terrell grunted as he lifted his phaser rifle. “Bastards are probing us, looking for a weak spot.” Looking over his shoulder and up to the Sagittarius, he shouted, “Master Chief! How are the shields?”
“They’re hitting different spots, Skipper,” replied Ilucci, “and we’re reading minor fluctuations at those points of impact, but so far everything’s holding.”
“Uh-oh.” Theriault pointed toward the tree line just as another, much larger flash of crackling reddish-white light erupted at the forest’s edge. Stano counted at least five figures—large, dark-skinned reptilian creatures just like the ones into which Nimur and her followers had transformed during their previous skirmish. All of the Changed had slammed as a single projectile into one area of the deflector shield, and even from this distance Stano could hear the crackle of energy, which lasted for several seconds longer than the other strikes.
“Okay, that’s different,” Ilucci called out from above and behind her. “We’ve got a power spike here. If they keep that up, we might have a problem!”
* * *
Propelled by her own unbound wrath, Nimur threw herself against the barrier she could not see. What was this madness? Some new trick of the Shepherds, brought forth to throw yet another obstacle into her path? Or perhaps the sky people had conjured this feat.
No matter its origins, the invisible wall stood between her and those who threatened her people, inflaming her rage as she lashed out at it. Every strike against the barrier sent lightning strikes of energy blasting into her body, further stoking her fury such that she began to feel the grip on her awareness beginning to ebb. Madness flared in her consciousness, her every thought surrendering to savagery and carnage. She wanted to run and smash and kill, with no regard for her fellow Changed or any Tomol. Her followers registered in her mind, their aggression and violence melding with hers as they too attacked the unseen barricade, but their presence was masked by the bloodlust driving her forward, beyond which Nimur felt nothing save the lone, all-consuming desire to unleash death.
And yet it was Kintaren and the others who offered the merest spark of hope. She felt them gathering near her, using their own bodies to hammer at the barrier, energy flaring with every impact.
There!
Amid the cacophony of light and noise assaulting her heightened senses, she felt it.
Weakness!
The wall had buckled, ever so slightly. She was sure of it.
With renewed verve, Nimur threw herself again at the barrier, allowing its power to wash over her. It inundated every last sliver of her being, as though setting her ablaze from within, but even as she felt the barricade’s resistance she also sensed her own body responding in kind, growing stronger the longer she waged this battle. Kintaren’s thoughts merged with hers, along with those of Jorn and Bhar and Ayan, offering Nimur reassurance that her followers were channeling their own strength to the fight.
And again, the barrier moved. More, this time.
Fight! her mind screamed. Fight! The power drenching her body howled in her ears and blinded her eyes. Her flesh and bones rippled as it defied her.
And then Nimur fell forward and the maelstrom was gone.
* * *
Another large strike flashed against the shield, this time at the edge of the forest line just to Stano’s left. To her surprise, it was even larger and louder than the previous attack, and this time she could see the deflector shield wavering at the point of contact. As the flare-up began to fade, there was new movement and it took her an additional moment to realize the figure moving across the open ground was coming closer.
Damn.
“We’ve got a breach!” she shouted, shifting the barrel of her phaser rifle so that she could take aim at the oncoming Tomol. Like its companions, this Changed had taken the form of the hulking, muscled creatures that had attacked them earlier, and with long strides it was eating up the distance separating it from the line of defensive positions.
Beside her, Terrell raised his own weapon to his shoulder. “Fire!” His was the first salvo unleashed at the approaching enemy, a blue-white beam of energy spitting forth and accompanied by the phaser rifle’s familiar high-pitched whine. It was followed by three others, Stano’s as well as those fired by Theriault and Lerax. The four beams converged on their common target, striking the Changed in its broad chest and stopping the creature in its tracks. It released a piercing howl of pain, stumbling backward several steps before tripping over a fallen tree and crashing to the ground behind it.
Lowering the barrel of his phaser rifle, Terrell blew out his breath. “Tough sons of bitches.” Behind them, other flashes against the Sagittarius’s extended deflector shields were popping up, but Stano heard no new reports of any Tomol somehow finding a way through the energy barrier.
“That’s a neat trick they pulled,” she said. “Ganging up on the shields and overloading it at the point of impact? They couldn’t have known how to do that.”
Terrell frowned. “No, but they don’t seem to have any problem learning new things.”
From his position in the hole to Stano’s left, Lieutenant Hesh called out, “Captain, I am sensing something.” Stano saw that the Arkenite’s eyes were closed and he was holding one hand to the side of his head, his expression indicating he was experiencing some form of discomfort. “It is as though another consciousness is . . .” The rest of his report faded as the science officer released an agonized grunt and gripped his head in both hands, sinking to his knees and almost out of sight below his hole’s parapet. Next to him, Commander Sorak reached out to support his companion, and Stano noticed that the Vulcan also appeared uneasy.
“Sorak?” Terrell said. “Are you all right?”
The tactical officer replied, “I believe Lieutenant Hesh and I are experiencing a psionic assault.” He paused, and for the first time his stern façade wavered as his pain became evident. “It does not appear to be a focused attack, but rather a broad sweep. I believe it may be one of the Tomol.”
“Damn it,” Stano said. “If they get a bead on any of us, they can kill us all.”
Behind them, Lieutenant Lerax shouted, “Captain Terrell! My tricorder is picking up two new signals approaching this location. Distance less than two kilometers and moving at a rapid pace. Whatever they are, they appear to be airborne.” The Edoan security officer looked up from his tricorder. “I believe they are aerial weapons similar to the ones we encountered before.”
As if in response to Lerax’s report, Sorak cried out in pain. So startled was Stano by the unexpected outburst that she flinched. “Commander! Are you all right?” She began scrambling from her hole, but the Vulcan held up a hand, gesturing for her to maintain her position.
“I am uninjured.”
Still studying his tricorder, Lerax said, “The drones are emitting some kind of signal. It is not a communications frequency, at least as far as I am able to determine.”
“I sense it,” Sorak reported. He paused, his gaze shifting skyward as though looking for the source of a sound only he could hear. Leaning against the side of his hole as if attempting to s
teady himself, he added, “I believe the signal is creating a form of psionic dampening effect. The only way to describe it is that areas of my mind seem to have been blocked.”
“We’ve got incoming!” shouted Master Chief Ilucci, and Stano saw the Sagittarius’s engineer pointing at something in the distance forward of the ship. In the bright midday sun it was easy to spot the pair of dark shapes moving against the backdrop of clouds and blue-green sky.
Grabbing his communicator, Terrell snapped, “Heads up, people! We’ve got inbound. Hunker down and be ready for anything.”
The drones grew larger and closer with every heartbeat pounding in Stano’s ears, along with the cries of alarm and warning coming from the other positions all around the ship. The drones separated, continuing their approach while altering their trajectory to arrive at different sections of the clearing. As they passed the last line of trees at the glade’s far edge, Stano saw that they looked identical to the device from their earlier encounter with the Changed, only this time the drones had arrived with their weapons emitters already glowing with harnessed energy. That power was unleashed just as both objects slowed their advance and began hovering over the clearing, with both drones’ set of twelve emitters firing continuous streams of intense white light. Even from this stance and behind what she hoped was the hardy protection offered by the Sagittarius’s deflector shields, Stano recognized the familiar, and terrifying, results of the beams’ fossilization process. Everything in the drones’ sights—trees, grass, and soil—was swathed by the fresh layer of rock, which formed in seconds. Like a wave moving across a lake, the hardening effect washed over the clearing until it came into contact with the deflector shields. Visible ripples rolled across the shields’ curvature, the supposedly immovable barrier now quivering beneath the onslaught of a possibly unstoppable force.