Seekers

by Dayton Ward

  Here’s hoping.

  “This is your quarter-hour deodorant check,” remarked Kerry Zane. The ensign pointed at another junior officer, Ensign David Hewitt. “You fail.” The comments elicited more small laughter, and even Stano smiled at the banter, which had continued off and on throughout the afternoon and helped to lighten the heavy mood that had hung over everyone since the group’s last encounter with the Tomol. The pace of activity in the aftermath of that attack had kept them all busy for hours. Fatigue was beginning to set in and tempers in a few cases had grown short, necessitating several quick bouts of conflict resolution on the parts of Stano and Vanessa Theriault. Despite those obstacles, repairs to the Sagittarius had progressed to the point that Captain Terrell was satisfied that the vessel was able to operate and maneuver, and perhaps even do so without breaking apart the instant it reached orbit above Arethusa.

  Tormog spoke up, “I’ve never been in such a contained space with so many Earthers before.” He made a show of sniffing the air and scowling. “I cannot say it is an experience I wish to repeat.”

  “You can always walk,” Zane replied, then gestured toward the sealed hatch on the cabin’s port bulkhead. “Or fly.”

  “That’s enough,” Stano snapped. “We’ll all be back in the fresh air soon enough.”

  Transporting Tormog was a matter of practicality but not one she particularly enjoyed. After hearing from Captain Khatami that the commander of the Klingon battle cruiser, Kang, had pledged the assistance of his ship toward protecting the Tomol villagers and the Endeavour and Sagittarius personnel still on the planet’s surface, Tormog also had volunteered to aid in the effort. Stano suspected both he and Kang still had ulterior motives, not the least of which was capturing one or more Tomol specimens to be returned to the Klingon Empire for study. However, with the battle that likely was coming, she had enough to worry about without keeping an eye on one lone Klingon scientist. Once he was on the ground and under the supervision of the Endeavour landing party’s security detail, Stano would direct Klisiewicz to take any action he deemed necessary if Tormog tried anything. It certainly was not the ideal situation, but for the moment another pair of hands and eyes on the ground would be helpful.

  Using both the shuttle’s instruments and her own eyes as she divided her attention between the controls and the forward view ports, Stano guided the craft up and out of the stone ring created by the Preserver drones. Satisfied that the shuttle was clear of the crash site, she keyed the console’s communications panel. “Masao to Sagittarius. We’re out of your way, if you’re ready to give it a try.”

  The cabin’s internal speakers crackled with the voice of Captain Clark Terrell. “We read you, Commander. Stand by. We’re engaging thrusters now. Here goes nothing.”

  Adjusting the Masao’s orientation so that she could observe the Sagittarius through the shuttlecraft’s forward viewing ports, Stano watched as the Archer-class scout’s thrusters came online, blasting plumes of dirt and grass into the air in multiple directions as the vessel pushed itself from the ground. Even through the shuttle’s thick duranium hull plating, she felt the reverberations from the force of the other ship’s engines as it began lifting toward the sky.

  “Looking good, Sagittarius,” she said. “Nothing’s falling off. At least, not that I can see.” She noted that the ship’s navigational deflector dish, though battered and dulled as a consequence of the crash landing, remained in place as the ship rose. Terrell and Ilucci had been particularly concerned about the dish, as it was necessary for the Sagittarius to travel at warp speeds. For her part, Stano still was not entirely certain the vital component would function properly once the ship was back in space and under way, but for the moment the fact that the dish remained attached was a victory worth celebrating.

  “Ilucci will be happy to hear that,” Terrell replied. “So far, everything’s still green. We’re powering up.”

  The whine of the Sagittarius’s thrusters increased as the ship continued to ascend, and it took only a moment for it to emerge from the band of rock encircling its former resting place. Stano adjusted the Masao’s controls and the shuttle retreated, giving the larger vessel greater room to maneuver. For the first time, she had an unimpeded view at the landscape below her, transformed as it had been by both the Sagittarius’s crash landing and the tremendous power of the Preserver drones.

  “That is amazing,” Lerax said, his attention riveted on the scene from where he sat in the shuttlecraft’s copilot seat. The petrification effect had covered a lopsided circular area of the ground more than two hundred meters in diameter, the rock converging toward the center of what now was a misshapen oval, from which both the Masao and now the Sagittarius had emerged. From this height it was easy to see that the aperture was nowhere near small enough to have prevented either ship from escaping. Still, there was no denying the immense power held by the Preserver technology present on this world, even if its creators had been dead for millennia.

  “Okay, Masao,” Terrell said a moment later, “we’re clear. There’s a few things rattling around in here, but so far Ilucci’s work with all that emergency tape seems to be paying off. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

  “Are you able to achieve orbit if necessary?” Stano asked. As she spoke, she watched the Sagittarius shudder from port to starboard and back again before once more leveling its attitude.

  “We think so, but I don’t know if I’m ready to go to warp until we get a chance to give everything another once-over, or six. But everything should hold together if we don’t bounce around too much.”

  Stano nodded in satisfaction, impressed with the amount of work the repair teams, operating under the watchful eyes and relentless supervision of Master Chief Ilucci and Commander Yataro, had been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. “If nothing else, the Endeavour can tow you to Starbase 71.” The relatively new, planet-bound facility located in the Benecia system near the Federation boundary of the Taurus Reach still had large areas under construction, but a maintenance depot was already up and running and would be more than sufficient to tackle the repairs to a ship like the Sagittarius. Orbital repair docks soon would come online, allowing for maintenance and repair of larger vessels like the Endeavour. Another Watchtower-class station, similar to the late Starbase 47, was supposed to be established sometime in the coming year, but for now the Endeavour, like the Sagittarius, would call the new base its home port.

  “Wonderful. Your captain will never let me live that down, but it’ll be worth it if I can sleep all the way there.” Stano heard Terrell making inquiries and requesting updates from his bridge officers before he returned to the communications link. “I think we’re as good as we’re going to get for the time being. Ready to get out of here?”

  Stano replied, “Yes, sir. Do you want to take point?” Outside the Masao’s viewing ports, she watched as the Sagittarius banked to starboard and began climbing higher into the sky, heading away from the clearing.

  “Not a bad idea. That way, you can pick up anything that falls off us on the way there.”

  “Acknowledged.” Tapping controls on the console, Stano guided the shuttlecraft to follow the Sagittarius before settling back into her seat.

  “Commander,” Lerax said, “I know that Captain Kha­tami hopes to provide support for us with the Endeavour and the Klingon ship, but what if the Preserver weapons prevent that? If and when the Changed attack, how can we possibly hope to defend the entire Tomol village on our own?”

  Stano replied, “Good questions, Lieutenant. At least we know the Changed can be stopped.” She had seen with her own eyes the fossilized form of Nimur, the female Tomol who had forsaken generations of ritual and societal obligation when her transformation had gripped her. Nimur had been caught up by the drones dispatched from the subterranean complex, and now she stood on the outskirts of the clearing from which the Sagittarius had just risen. It seemed so
mehow an ignominious fate for someone who had caused such strife and suffering. How long was Nimur fated to remain there, isolated from the rest of existence?

  At least long enough for us to be long gone, I hope.

  Lerax said, “Do you think Lieutenant Klisiewicz and Doctor Leone can find a way to help the Tomol, or at least something we can use to fight the Changed?”

  “If anyone can,” Stano replied, “it’s those two.” According to the last report she had received from Khatami, the Endeavour’s science officer and chief medical officer had taken another landing party via shuttlecraft to the Tomol village on the far side of the larger, neighboring Suba island. It seemed that Leone was on the cusp of finding a means of countering or preventing the Change, while Klisiewicz was still attempting to understand the true nature of the Preserver presence on Arethusa and their guardianship over the Tomol in the hopes of finding a way to combat Kerlo and the other Changed, whose numbers appeared to be growing. Even with Nimur immobilized by the Preserver containment protocol, Kerlo and others looked to be stepping up in order to fill the leadership void she had left. Their ranks would continue to swell, Stano knew, as there were hundreds of new foot soldiers in the Tomol village, helpless against forced enlistment by Kerlo and his followers.

  So we find a way to stop them. Piece of cake, right?

  * * *

  Perched atop the curved railing to the left of the Endeavour bridge’s main viewscreen, Atish Khatami regarded the computer-generated map of Suba and the two blue dots now moving across the island’s green expanse after making the transit over the stretch of ocean separating the landmass from a smaller, neighboring island. The icons represented the Masao and the Sagittarius, the latter not having yet exploded in flight.

  “Glad to see you’re up and about, Captain,” she said, raising her voice for the benefit of the bridge’s communications system.

  Over the speaker, Clark Terrell replied, “Ilucci’s one talented sorcerer. It’s really the only reason I haven’t had him court-martialed. That said, we couldn’t have done it without your people, Atish. Commander Yataro and his team are first-rate, and don’t even get me started on the rest of what we’ve been dealing with down here. Drinks are on me the next time we all find ourselves in the same bar.”

  “Let’s hope that’s sooner rather than later. Contact us when you’ve arrived at the village. We’re maintaining station for the time being, just to be on the safe side. Endeavour out.” Khatami allowed herself a sigh of relief. With the worst of the damage inflicted upon the Sagittarius repaired or at least mitigated, its crew as well as her landing party could now safely depart the planet and avoid any further attacks by the Changed. This was a huge weight off her shoulders, given the Endeavour’s own problems with repairs and only partially functional transporters. Other shuttlecraft were available, of course, but she was reluctant to use them for fear of giving the Changed more targets to capture and perhaps use to escape Arethusa. This threat likely brought with it further fear that the Preserver pyramid beneath Arethusa’s surface, which so far had seemed willing to leave her ship alone, might react in a hostile manner if it detected any of the Change attempting to make a getaway.

  Of course, much of this was irrelevant. Despite their previous skirmishes and the very real threat to their own safety, neither the Sagittarius nor her landing party was leaving the planet, not while the Tomol were endangered by the Changed. It was why the scout ship and her own people now were on their way to the village, and why Lieutenant Klisiewicz and Doctor Leone had gone to the Preserver pyramid in the hopes of finding some way to combat the rapidly evolving Tomol. Klisiewicz was continuing to investigate the ancient race’s technology, and Leone was closing in on some form of cure for the Tomol’s affliction. How much time did they have to pursue their goals? Khatami knew it almost certainly would not be enough, which was why she and the Endeavour and her crew—along with the unlikely assistance of Captain Kang and his ship—would be on hand to provide support for operations on the ground

  Once more unto the breach, and so on and so forth.

  Pushing herself from the railing, she made her way around the starboard side of the bridge’s upper deck ­toward the science and communications stations. “Mister Estrada, I take it our communications are holding steady?”

  The veteran lieutenant replied, “That’s affirmative, Captain. The relays we’ve deployed around the planet to boost our signal throughput don’t seem to be attracting any unwanted attention.” It had been Estrada’s idea to launch a trio of subspace relay buoys, which the Endeavour carried in storage. Though intended for use in extending Starfleet’s communications reach into newly charted territory—which at present included much of the Taurus Reach—Estrada, working with the Endeavour’s assistant chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Phu Dang, had recalibrated the devices to operate at a lower power and more limited range of frequencies. It was hoped that the relays’ reduced capacity might enable them to escape notice by whatever sensors were active within the Preserver artifact, and so far Estrada’s plan seemed to be working.

  “Nice work, Lieutenant,” Khatami said. “Let me know the instant you detect even the slightest change.”

  Estrada nodded. “Aye, Captain.”

  “Iacovino,” Khatami said, turning to the science station, “any signs that the pyramid cares what we’re up to?”

  Standing at her console, one hand resting on the station’s sensor viewer, Ensign Kayla Iacovino replied, “So far, it seems content to leave us alone, Captain. Just to be on the safe side, I haven’t subjected the pyramid site to a full sensor scan using the modifications made by Lieutenant Klisiewicz, but I figure we’ve given it plenty of reasons to be angry with us by now.”

  Khatami crossed her arms. “You’ve had time to analyze the sensor data we’ve collected to this point. What’s your take on all of this?”

  “My take, Captain?”

  “What’s your gut feeling, Ensign? Does the pyramid consider us a threat?”

  The junior science officer shrugged. “Based on what we’ve been able to determine about the structure, we could destroy it via orbital bombardment, but we obviously don’t want to if that can be avoided. I don’t know if its own scans have convinced it of that or not, but I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Agreed,” Khatami said. “Whatever automated defense protocol was triggered by our first attempts to scan the pyramid seems to be able to examine and adapt to evolving situations. That said, I’m not willing to push our luck until we have to.”

  “And it doesn’t seem to have raised any issues with our people studying it on the ground.” Iacovino tapped several controls and one of the larger display screens above her console activated, displaying a computer-generated schematic of what Khatami recognized as the Preserver pyramid. “He’s been poking around in there for a couple of hours and hasn’t reported anything troublesome. I suspect that as long as we don’t damage anything stored there, the pyramid will not register our activities as threatening.” She shrugged again. “After all, they called themselves ‘Preservers,’ right? It seems reasonable to think they wouldn’t harm or kill others unless they had no other choice.”

  “It’s a nice theory, at any rate,” Khatami conceded. Despite the Preserver pyramid’s earlier defensive action in response to the Endeavour’s initial sensor sweep, the ancient artifact had taken no overt notice of the starship’s subsequent activities. Following the deployment of the communications relay buoys, Khatami had ordered the ship’s orbit around Arethusa contracted, with an emphasis on maintaining sensor contact with her landing party and the Sagittarius while studiously avoiding the pyramid. She very much wanted to employ her ship’s full spectrum of sensor capabilities on the artifact buried within that mountain hideaway in the hopes of learning as much about the Preservers as possible. However, she knew that using the enhancements Klisiewicz had made to the sensor arrays likely would invite unwanted
scrutiny, or worse. Therefore, Khatami had prohibited the use of such tactics against that area of the Suba landmass until further notice. So far, the Endeavour’s movements appeared to be attracting no attention from the Preserver complex.

  For now, anyway.

  “What about Kang?” Khatami asked. “Is he behaving himself?”

  Iacovino nodded. “Seems to be, Captain. The Voh’tahk is holding station near Arethusa’s inner moon, and sensors show their propulsion and weapons systems are back online.”

  “Good.” Following the deal she had struck with Kang, Khatami had seen to it that replacement components and other requested items—including a few that had required fabrication—had been transported to the Klingon battle cruiser. Kang, true to his word, had incited no provocative action and even had thanked her for the assistance. Though she was confident the Klingon captain would honor their agreement, Khatami held no illusions that he was not planning some final move once the current situation was resolved.

  Assuming we can resolve it, that is.

  An alert tone sounded from the science station, and Iacovino turned to investigate. “Captain, you asked me to keep sensors trained on the surface near the Changed Tomol’s last known location. I’m picking up Changed life signs where I wasn’t before.” She paused, tapping several controls on the console, each eliciting a melodic beep. Moving to the sensor viewer, the science officer bent over to peer into the unit, pale blue light playing across her face. “Sensors are detecting several Changed bio readings. They may be airborne.”

  Khatami frowned, recalling Katherine Stano’s report of the ability of the Changed to transform into other life-forms capable of flight and even—according to Captain Terrell—maneuvering underwater. “Let me guess. They’re on their way to the Tomol village.”

  “Affirmative, Captain. At their present speed, they should be there within half an hour.”