“I don’t like this, sir.” Franco’s eyes darted around nervously.
“What are you talking about, Franco?” asked Haden.
“I get the feeling that there’s something or someone in those ruins. We’re being watched.”
“Nozawa?” Haden directed his gaze at the science officer.
She took a sweep with her tricorder and made some adjustments. “Nothing, sir. The only higher life forms around here are us.”
“It could be something our tricorders are unable to recognize,” Franco said.
“What gives you the idea that someone is around here?” asked Haden.
“I have no idea, sir. I just know it.”
“With all due respect to your gut feeling, that’s nonsense,” Nozawa snapped. “There isn’t anyone around here.”
Franco’s face darkened. “You rely too much on your instruments, Lieutenant, and not enough on your instincts.”
“We are not wild animals, Ensign,” Nozawa said irritably. “We don’t need to be guided by our instincts when we have data.”
“That’s enough! Get a grip, both of you!”
Franco glowered at him. “Yes, sir.” The ensign was overanxious, not the best trait in a security guard, and he seemed inappropriately aggressive.
Then again, so was Nozawa—and Haden himself. It was wildly out of character for both of them, and he wondered if the red sky caused some kind of aggression among them.
Trying to keep a placating tone of voice, Haden said, “Just keep your eyes peeled. But keep any speculations about invisible enemies to yourself until you can give me something definite besides your gut.”
The man with the red shirt nodded. “Understood, sir.”
By now they had circled half of the looming stepped structure, and were approaching the northern face of the building. Close up they realized that the rock wasn’t completely dark. Thin veins of glittering ore ran through it.
“Can you tell me what this is?” Haden asked Nozawa.
She pointed her tricorder toward the inclusions. “I’m sorry, sir, the ore is not listed in the database. But it’s blocking my tricorder’s readings. I can’t read anything inside it.” Frowning, she swept the instrument from side to side, gave up, and lowered it, frustrated.
Haden shook his head. Why did he have to be surrounded by incompetents? A scared security guard, a science officer unable to take a simple reading, a doctor unable to answer a simple question…
He growled under his breath. “I should have come here alone.”
“Captain!” shouted Clarke when they turned the corner. He pointed ahead with his free hand, phaser still gripped in the other.
At the base of the tiered building was a portal, not far ahead of them.
“I see it,” Haden replied, nodding.
The portal was about four meters high and three meters wide, with the entrance barricaded by a stone slab. When they approached it, the captain realized that the slab, as well as the stone blocks around it, was covered with symbols that looked very familiar.
Pointing at the symbols, Haden asked, “Is that the Lembatta Cluster?”
Nozawa tilted her head. “It’s possible. Many of the early cultures adorned their temples with constellations. Maybe this is an especially prominent star constellation in these parts.”
“In any case, the question is how to open this portal. It looks unscathed, so presumably the secrets of this temple should still be in mint condition, even after all these years.”
Nozawa hesitated. “Sir, I’m not sure we should advance into the building.”
Haden turned to her and almost growled. “And why not? Are you scared?”
“No, Captain, but the radiation values inside these walls might be significantly higher.”
“So? Do you feel any effects yet?”
Nozawa blinked. “No, sir.”
“What about you?” Haden turned to Bhahani.
The doctor shook his head, looking thoughtful. “What about you?”
“How do you mean?”
“You appear to be somewhat… short-tempered, Captain.
Are you all right?”
Haden made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You’re imagining things, Doctor. I’m fine.”
Or did Bhahani have a point? Was he acting out of character?
Nonsense, thought Haden. The quack doesn’t know what he’s talking about!
The captain regarded his security guard. “And you, Franco? Do you also have reservations? A gut feeling or some such?”
Franco glowered at him. That was the second time he’d done so, and Haden was determined to report Franco’s insubordinate behavior when they returned to the ship. “Something is there, Captain. Something is lurking in there. Something dangerous. I can feel it.”
Haden threw his arms in the air. His people really annoyed the hell out of him all of a sudden. “I don’t believe it! What has gotten into all of you? What happened to the pioneering spirit of Starfleet? Didn’t they tell us at the Academy time and again that we’re supposed to explore strange new worlds? That’s exactly what we’re doing here!” Looking at the other security officer he asked, “Clarke, can I at least count on you?”
“Aye, sir,” the stocky guard said. “Always. Let’s kick a few heads in, sir.”
“Well, a stone door will do for now. Come on, help me get this thing open.”
“With pleasure, Captain.”
Both men holstered their phasers and started inspecting the slab.
After brief hesitation, Nozawa raised her tricorder again. “I don’t understand this.”
Haden looked up from the slab. “What is it now, Lieutenant?” Haden demanded to know.
“This portal doesn’t seem to have any kind of opening mechanism. It’s just a huge stone slab that fits perfectly into the frame of the entrance.”
“What’s so remarkable about that?” asked Franco. “On Earth, every door fits perfectly into its frame. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Nozawa looked at him derisively. “Once again, you haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, Ensign. Judging by the buildings, a culture used to live on LC-13-II that’s roughly equivalent to the Mayans or Aztecs. The buildings have been erected skillfully, but not with the technical precision that we’re accustomed to. This slab in the portal has been fitted with the accuracy of approximately one millimeter— although the stone weighs several tons at least. I have no idea how the natives might have achieved that.”
“We can worry about that later,” Haden grumbled. “Now, I want to find out what’s hidden inside this thing.”
“But we haven’t found an opening,” Nozawa said.
Haden drew his phaser again. “We’ll make our own, then.”
The science officer’s eyes widened. “Are you out of your mind? That’s an irreplaceable scientific find!”
“Lieutenant, you’re forgetting yourself!” the captain snapped at her. “What’s more, you’re talking nonsense. This is nothing but a door. The real treasures are behind it. Clarke.” He nodded toward the security guard who also drew his weapon.
“No!” cried Nozawa.
Haden ignored her. “Fire on my mark.” He needed to find out just what secrets LC-13-II was hiding. Since beaming down, it had become incredibly important to him.
Nozawa grabbed his arm, but Haden shook her off so violently that she staggered backward and fell over.
“Captain!” Bhahani cried disgustedly, and he ran to treat Nozawa.
“Fire!” ordered Haden.
The shimmering beams swept across the heavy stone slab. At first, the weapons had no effect on the portal. But slowly, the ore veins started to glow. Shortly thereafter, the heavy plate shattered with a deafening noise.
A strong breeze blew toward them, pushing Haden two steps backward. Red dust billowed out of the opening, enveloping all of them.
Nozawa leapt to her feet, pushing Bhahani aside. “You lunatic! What have you done? That might have
been the most important discovery in the history of space travel. And you simply blasted it to dust with your phasers!” She advanced on her captain, suddenly and inexplicably carrying a club, ready to bludgeon Haden with it.
“Hey, not another step.” Clarke stepped in front of Nozawa.
Without hesitation, Nozawa struck at him.
Clarke easily blocked the strike and then placed a well-aimed uppercut on the woman’s chin. She staggered backward into Bhahani’s arms.
“Are you out of your mind?” the doctor barked at Clarke.
“No one attacks the captain,” the security guard retorted, “unless they want a smack in the face.”
Suddenly, Franco started gesturing frantically. “Over there! It’s coming! I knew it! We’re under attack!” He started firing his phaser aimlessly. Clarke cried out in pain as his arm took a scorching hit.
Haden threw himself on the ground. What a loser. The thought pounded in his mind. He deserves to die. Furiously, he raised his revolver. Revolver? He briefly succumbed to confusion as to how his phaser had been replaced with an antique, but a second later it didn’t matter. A weapon was a weapon.
He heard the report of the six-shooter, felt the kick in his hands as the bullets flew and struck Franco in the back.
Screaming, Nozawa freed herself from Bhahani’s grip and ran toward Haden. A knife flashed in her hand. Before he could fight her off she stabbed the blade into his shoulder.
Haden gasped in agony.
“Have you all lost your minds?” the chief medical officer screamed shrilly. “Stop it, all of you, or I will have to take you all out for your own safety.” With trembling hands, he struggled to adjust his phaser.
Nozawa knelt atop Haden, but he knocked her out with a forceful blow to her temple. Growling, he flung her away. From the corner of his eye he noticed Franco and Clarke wrestling each other. Both had ripped tunics, and their faces were red and covered in sweat.
What the hell is going on here? A brief moment of clarity washed over Haden, and for just a moment, he realized how terribly wrong this all was. Was the radiation responsible for them acting like idiots? If so, why had Bhahani and Nozawa not warned him?
They want me to meet my doom! Once again, burning rage overwhelmed him. The world sank into a red mist of blood and violence. He simply wanted to kill everyone, all those who had destroyed his dream of becoming a famous Starfleet captain. Screaming, he raised the machete that was now in his palm over his head, lunging toward Bhahani.
In the sky a noise like the rush from an ocean began, and then a huge flaming body passed over their heads. Haden’s eyes widened as he looked up. The others also interrupted their fighting and stared up to the skies.
It was the Valiant plummeting toward her doom, enveloped in a swirling, glowing mist. With a deafening thunderous roar the gigantic starship impacted on the surface, sending shockwaves across the planet’s crust as if the hammer of a seething god had struck the hapless world. The ground burst open, trees snapped like matches, and the city in ruins collapsed.
What have we done? shot through Haden’s mind as he was thrown into the dust. Searing heat consumed the air in his lungs while the building’s heavy stone blocks dropped around the landing party. Something smashed into him with unimaginable force, and then he didn’t feel anything anymore.
1
OCTOBER 29, 2385
Somewhere in the border region between the United Federation of Planets and the Tzenkethi Coalition
A small mercenary ship floated in orbit of a gas giant, bright flashes of energy flaring through the upper atmosphere. Shrouds of mist escaped soundlessly into space, enveloping the ship’s hull that vaguely resembled a mandible-bearing insect skull. The star system to which the gas giant belonged was not on any common travel routes, and was devoid of life. With its cold blue sun and six lethal worlds surrounded by a dense asteroid belt, it was not only inhospitable, but a navigational nightmare—and thus the perfect place for a clandestine meeting.
Vol-Ban paced through the ship’s cockpit. “So? Where are your ever-so-trustworthy clients? I don’t see anyone anywhere around here!”
Looking up from the displays of his bridge console, Rah-Ban sighed deeply, and turned around to face his twin brother. “That’s because, unlike you, they aren’t complete idiots. They are somewhere around here. But they’ll only show if they deem it right.”
Vol-Ban, pressing his fists into his waist, snorted. “Deem it right, my backside! Did they want us here or was it the other way around?”
“You’re too impatient, brother. It’s bad for business.” As he so often did when frustration overwhelmed him, Rah-Ban reached up to massage his bony forehead that was divided into two hemispheres by a small strip of black hair.
The mercenaries were Miradorn, and they valued family bonds more than most species. He would go through hell and high water for Vol-Ban, and his brother would do likewise for him. There was no business endeavor that the twin mercenaries wouldn’t tackle together.
Still, on certain days Rah-Ban wished he could jettison his partner out of the first available airlock in order to work in peace in future.
They had been doing business alongside each other for several years now, ever since winning their ship in a game at a gambling den in Sector 221-G. Traveling through space, they offered their weapons, their time, and their considerable contacts to the underworlds of various regions to anyone and everyone who wanted jobs of a dubious nature done and who were able to pay the required money. They were fast, discreet, ruthless, and didn’t ask questions. They stood by the quality of their work, which was superlative.
Therefore, Rah-Ban had no intention of asking the Tzenkethi any questions. He would listen to the task they wished to hire the twins for—probably some kind of smuggling trip into Federation territory; relations between the local big powers had been rather frosty since the Typhon Pact formed—they would name their price, and negotiations would continue. Things could be pretty simple if you allowed them to be.
“Impatient?” Vol-Ban knew as much about “simple” as he knew about “waiting.” “I’m not impatient. I just don’t like the orange-skinned warmongers asking us to come to the middle of nowhere without showing their faces. Getting here was anything but easy. This is no way to treat professionals! Let’s turn around. I don’t even want their money anymore.”
Rah-Ban swallowed half a dozen sharp replies. There was no point in upbraiding Vol-Ban for his almost woefully shallow definition of the Tzenkethi; they were neither warmongers nor did all of them sport orange skin. At the same time, defending the meeting point wouldn’t do any good as it had been Vol-Ban himself who had navigated their ship, the Vel-Tekk, expertly through the treacherous star system to this destination.
Instead, he simply stated, “We’re staying put.”
Vol-Ban lowered his fists, his shoulders sagging. “Why?”
“Because we really need this job.”
“If there is a job!” replied his brother, turning away from the monitor to face his brother. “Can’t you see it? They are scr—”
Rah-Ban’s console interrupted Vol-Ban with a shrill alarm. “A ship!” he said after glancing at his displays. “It’s approaching. No, it’s almost here.”
“Impossible.” Perplexed, Vol-Ban moved next to him, looking over his shoulder. “Was it cloaked? The sensors should have noticed it much earlier. Nobody can sneak up like that.”
“They must have used the gas giant’s atmosphere to their advantage.” Rah-Ban stifled a curse. His fingers danced across the keys, activating scan routines, arming beam weapons, and loading torpedoes. “With all the interference around here I can’t get any definitive readings.”
“That’s just brilliant.” Vol-Ban looked back at the monitor, frowning. “We’re almost blind, and we’re getting visitors. Maybe we should get out of orbit in order to—”
In front of them the huge shape of a Tzenkethi Marauder emerged from the mist. Slowly the tear-shaped ship fl
oated closer, the colors of the gas giant’s yellow atmosphere reflecting on its silver hull. The Marauder silently and menacingly caught up to their much smaller ship.
Vol-Ban’s eyes widened. “That thing is huge.” While they had seen images of Tzenkethi ships, they had never encountered one in person before today.
“Enough gaping.” Rah-Ban pushed his apprehensive feelings aside. “Let’s see what they want from us.” He touched the communications console, opening a hailing frequency. “This is the Vel-Tekk calling the Tzenkethi Marauder. We’re here, you’re here. Let’s talk business.” He waited.
The Marauder floated in space, taking up a position relative to theirs. Fleeting misty veils of the planet’s upper atmosphere swirled around it, while reflections of lightning in lower layers danced on the smooth, gleaming hull.
There was no response to their hail.
The Miradorn frowned, deepening the ridge in the middle of his brow. “Tzenkethi Marauder, this is the Vel-Tekk. Respond!”
Again, they received no answer.
Suddenly, the Marauder turned, pointing its rear section toward their small ship.
“Hey, are they trying to impale us, or what?” Vol-Ban asked with confusion.
The proximity alarm on their console started howling. “What the…” Rah-Ban’s gaze flickered toward the display. “What’s that? Another ship? No! Three ships!”
“It’s a trap!” Vol-Ban screamed. All color drained from his face while he started toward conn. “Shields to maximum power. Setting an escape course.”
Rah-Ban didn’t even listen. Without reliable sensors the Vel-Tekk might have been able to evade one ship. But three? “That’s not fair,” whispered the Miradorn mercenary, staring at the main screen. “Simply not fair.”
Before them, the Tzenkethi Marauder’s aft section started to glow brightly. Abruptly, the tear-shaped ship darted off into the distance at full impulse power.
Less than a second later, three more vessels swooped down from a higher orbit onto the Vel-Tekk. Rah-Ban envisioned the pallid ship hulls as a howling pack of vengeful ghosts returning from the dead.
There were three very different ghosts. Two were elongated, featuring a tip and a narrow “belly” dotted with illuminated windows on the left and right side respectively, and two warp nacelles with red glowing heads. Ghost number three came without belly or attachment, and appeared to be an arrowhead. It featured a ship’s registry that caught Rah-Ban’s horrified eyes: NX-59650.
Star Trek Prometheus -Fire with Fire Page 2