by Greg Cox
Orion, Kirk thought. I knew it.
The pirates were obviously out to disrupt the talks—with extreme prejudice.
Kirk cast a pained glance at where Bergstrom had been disintegrated. No trace of her remained, and he still needed to get Santiago and Hague to safety, or some reasonable approximation thereof. He rejoined the civilians at the outer fringe of the oasis. Burning tents lit up the towering sand dunes and mammoth rock formations beyond the torched grove. Kirk heard furious fighting going on in what remained of the oasis.
Only a fool fights in a burning house, a Klingon commander had once told Kirk. Clearly, the vengeful Yusubi had other ideas.
“Come on,” Kirk told the other humans. “Maybe we can get beyond the range of the jamming effect.”
Santiago hesitated. He stared numbly at the empty space Bergstrom had occupied.
“They killed her . . . just like that.”
“Yes,” Kirk said tersely. He knew the commissioner had to be thinking of his murdered sister and her family, but they could mourn the dead later. “She’ll be remembered, trust me.”
Santiago’s face darkened with rage. “Barbarians!” he snarled in a very undiplomatic fashion. “Bloodthirsty, murdering savages!”
“Please, sir!” Hague tugged on his superior’s arm. “You need to listen to the captain. You’re not safe here!”
Kirk appreciated the assist. He was suddenly thankful that neither the commissioner nor his aide was armed, otherwise Santiago might have charged back into the fray himself, which was the last thing Kirk needed right now. He wanted the diplomat safe, not out for blood.
“Truly, there is no safety to be found today!” a fierce voice intruded. “Only death . . . and retribution!”
A Yusubi warrior appeared between them and the beckoning dunes. His green burnoose indicated that he hailed from a more tropical clime. He brandished a smoking rifle.
Kirk lowered his phaser to avoid provoking the Yusubi, who was obviously (and understandably) on edge. He hoped the armed warrior didn’t blame the humans for bringing the carnage consuming the oasis. He appealed to the Yusubi’s fabled code of hospitality.
“These guests are under your protection!” Kirk reminded him. “Help me get them to safety!”
The Yusubi squawked derisively.
“You brought this on yourself, meddlers! You should’ve minded your own affairs!” He aimed his rifle at Kirk. “Drop your weapon, Federation!”
Kirk’s heart sunk as he realized that this particular Yusubi was among those aligned with the Orions. For all Kirk knew, he had helped plan the attack and had revealed its location to the assassins.
“You don’t have to do this,” Kirk said, stalling. He weighed his chances of deploying his phaser before the hostile Yusubi squeezed the trigger on his rifle. Spock would be able to calculate the odds with mathematical precision, but even Kirk knew they weren’t good. “We were here at the chieftains’ invitation!”
The Yusubi’s flat nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Fools and weaklings! Some Yusubi know who our true guests are . . . and who should be left buried in the sands!” He swung the muzzle of his rifle toward the commissioner. “I repeat: Drop your weapon!”
Kirk tossed his phaser aside. His muscles tensed, ready to jump the warrior the minute an opportunity presented itself. Perhaps he could buy the diplomats a chance at escape with his own life? It would be a pricy exchange, but he was willing to pay it . . . if required.
I’m counting on you, Spock, he thought. Complete our mission—and get our passengers home.
But salvation came from another quarter instead. Without warning, an azure phaser beam zipped over Kirk’s shoulder, humming past his ear, to strike the traitorous Yusubi squarely in the chest. The warrior was flung backward by the impact of the blast. He landed unconscious at the base of a dune. Loose yellow sand poured down the slope to dust his head and shoulders.
Kirk was almost as startled as the unlucky warrior. He spun around to see who had saved him.
A statuesque female figure emerged from the fiery oasis, striding confidently toward them. The idol was cradled securely in the crook of her arm, while her other hand gripped a phaser pistol of unfamiliar design. Smoke and shadows partially concealed her identity.
Kirk blinked in confusion. “Bergstrom?”
For a moment, Kirk thought the murdered crew member had somehow come back to life, but then the woman stepped into a patch of moonlight and Kirk saw that she was a stranger. A skintight blue uniform flattered her attractive figure, which would have warranted closer attention under different circumstances. She appeared human, or humanoid, with alert blue eyes and upswept blond hair combed neatly atop her head. A badge in the shape of a stylized Starfleet emblem was affixed to her chest. Her striking features were adorned with metallic implants or ornaments that seemed to be embedded surgically in her flesh. One such implant partially framed her left eye, while another resembled a cybernetic spider lodged under her right ear. She regarded Kirk with a cool, quizzical expression.
“James Tiberius Kirk,” she greeted him. “Captain of the U.S.S Enterprise. Designation: NCC-One-Seven-Zero-One?”
“That’s right,” he said, puzzled. “Who . . . ?”
“You’re welcome,” she said tartly. “I suggest we postpone any further introductions until a more suitable occasion.” Falling in beside him, she turned to face the smoky oasis, where a furious battle was still being raged. She glanced pointedly at his discarded phaser. “Self-defense appears to be our current priority.”
Kirk retrieved his phaser. “You may have a point there.”
Sure enough, a party of Orion raiders and their Yusubi cohorts burst from the smoke and flames, only to encounter a volley of concentrated phaser fire from both Kirk and his enigmatic new ally. The marauders fell back, leaving their stunned accomplices where they fell. Kirk noted that the woman’s phaser seemed to pack significantly more punch than his own Type-1 phaser, despite being even slimmer and more compact. He also wondered why she had bothered to rescue the idol, which she continued to hold on to with no obvious exertion. Her left hand, he observed, was augmented by the same sort of biomechanical implants visible on her face. He was starting to suspect they were not just cosmetic.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he observed. “And perhaps not quite human?”
She declined to address his query. “You should focus on your aim, Captain.”
“My aim is fine,” he retorted, proving it by stunning another Yusubi traitor, who dropped onto the sands beside his comrades. “As is yours, I must say.”
She fired into the murky smoke and shadows. A dimly glimpsed figure tumbled backward onto the ground.
“I strive for precision,” she observed.
“So I see.”
To his relief, the tide of battle seemed to be turning against the raiders, who found themselves trapped between the phaser barrage and the remnants of the chieftain’s bodyguards. Horns blared in alarm, summoning reinforcements. Rapid-fire gunshots popped like firecrackers.
“Retreat!” a burly Orion marauder bellowed. “We’ve inflicted enough damage tonight!”
Kirk wondered what their exit strategy was. Hiding in the pool before the conclave began had been a clever trick, but it wasn’t going to get them away from the oasis in one piece.
The shimmering glow of a transporter effect partially answered his question. The raiders, including their fallen casualties, dissolved into atoms as the transporter whisked them away to . . . where? Kirk was certain there were no Orion pirate vessels in orbit around Yusub. Spock had carefully scanned the vicinity before the landing party had beamed down.
So where had they . . . ?
A loud motorized rumble shook a nearby dune, setting off a huge cascade of sand that flowed down the slope of the dune like a gritty yellow avalanche. The sandslide swept away a tent staked out at the base of the dune and came rolling toward Kirk and the others like surf at a shore.
�
��Run!” he shouted. “Get back!”
Santiago and the others, including the nameless woman, scrambled out of the way of the sandslide. Kirk didn’t quite make it and was thrown forward by several kilograms of sand slamming against the back of his knees. He landed face-first on the desert floor, many meters from where he had been before. A wave of grit washed over his back, all but burying him. He scrambled to his feet, shaking the loose sand from his hair and shoulders.
That could have been a lot worse, he thought.
“Look!” Santiago shouted. He pointed frantically at the quaking dune. “There’s something beneath it!”
The woman nodded in agreement. “A hidden vehicle, I surmise.”
Her supposition proved as accurate as her aim. A tank-like ground vehicle, roughly the size of a Starfleet shuttlecraft, bulldozed out from beneath the collapsing dune. Armored treads carried the “getaway car” briskly across the desert, away from the torched oasis. Kirk kicked himself for forgetting that not only starships were equipped with transporters.
“Stop them!” Santiago cried out. “Don’t let the butchers get away!”
Kirk had managed to hang on to his phaser during the sandslide. Chasing after the vehicle on foot, he fired his phaser at the treads, but the beam was deflected by the tank’s ablative plating. He watched in frustration as the Orions escaped across the sands.
Another day, he vowed.
He had not forgotten Bergstrom. The young lieutenant had deserved better than to die in a firefight many light-years from home. He regretted that there wasn’t even a body to be provided with an honorable burial in space.
The familiar whine of a transporter caught his ear. He whirled about, half-expecting more Orion raiders, only to spy a Starfleet landing party materializing on the sands only a few meters away. Spock, McCoy, and four red-shirted security officers arrived with phasers drawn.
Better late than never, Kirk thought.
“Jim!” Bones shouted, relief and anxiety both present in his voice. A medkit was slung over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Most of us,” Kirk said grimly. “See to the commissioner. He may be in shock.”
McCoy did a quick head count. “That lieutenant? Bergstrom?”
Kirk shook his head.
“Damn it,” the doctor swore.
Spock took the news of the fatality with his usual Vulcan reserve. He scanned the vicinity with his tricorder. “My apologies for the delay, Captain. Per your orders, I was reluctant to disrupt the conclave unless absolutely necessary. We mobilized a rescue party as soon as we detected signs of a significant armed conflict at the site of the conference. Communications difficulties prevented us from locking onto you with the transporters.” He coolly observed what was left of the oasis. Wounded and wary Yusubi staggered from the battlefield. Wails and curses indicated that emotions were running high. Hostile glares were cast in the direction of the landing parties. “I recommend that we vacate this area immediately. The situation here appears to remain volatile.”
“I concur,” the mystery woman said. “We should relocate to your ship, Captain. There are matters that require our attention. It would be best to discuss them in a less chaotic environment.”
Kirk wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or irked by her presumption. He saw that she was still holding on to that damned idol as though it was the Holy Grail or the Crown Jewels of Paoli VI.
What was that all about?
Spock took note of the puzzling stranger. An arched eyebrow betrayed his curiosity.
“I am unfamiliar with this individual, Captain,” he observed.
“Join the club,” Kirk said. Now that the fighting was over for the time being, he wanted answers. He looked over the woman who had saved his life before. She was actually quite breathtaking, he observed. “You know, I don’t believe I caught your name, Miss . . . ?”
She paused briefly before answering.
“Seven,” she answered. “Call me . . . Annika Seven.”
Three
Personal log, Seven of Nine. Stardate 53786.1.
Voyager has detected an unusual signal from a lifeless planetoid in an otherwise unremarkable sector of the Delta Quadrant. The fact that the transmission appears to be an obsolete Starfleet distress signal, dating back nearly a century, poses a considerable puzzle. An away team has been mobilized to investigate the mystery, and Captain Janeway has requested my presence on the mission.
I confess that I find the puzzle . . . intriguing.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Captain Kathryn Janeway said as the away team gathered in the transporter room. “What’s an old, defunct Starfleet signal doing this far from home? Starfleet hadn’t even set foot in the Delta Quadrant the last time that signal was in use.”
This was hardly the first time that the captain had voiced her bafflement, but Seven had observed that humanoid individuals often repeated themselves as a means of processing new data. She had become accustomed to such behavior during her stay on Voyager. It no longer offended her sense of efficiency . . . much.
“It appears Starfleet’s historical records are incomplete,” Seven stated. “It is probable that an earlier vessel, considered ‘lost’ by Starfleet, was displaced by some unexpected event and left stranded in this sector, its fate a mystery.”
Such occurrences were not without precedent. Voyager’s own circumstances were proof of that, as was the case of the Ares IV, an earlier Terran spacecraft recently discovered lost in the Delta Quadrant.
“Perhaps we can fill in some of those blanks.” Janeway smiled at Seven, clearly looking forward to engaging with the mystery. “You up to the challenge?”
“I completed a full regeneration cycle less than seventy-two minutes ago,” Seven replied. “My faculties are at peak performance levels.”
Janeway regarded her skeptically. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a joke.”
“Your confidence in my wit is gratifying,” Seven responded.
The away team waited in front of the transporter platform while Lieutenant Torres manned the control console. Along with the captain and Seven, Lieutenant Tuvok had also been selected for the mission. The Vulcan security chief glanced at a nearby chronometer. His stoic features displayed a flicker of impatience.
“Mister Neelix is less than punctual,” he noted. “As usual.”
As if on cue, the doors whispered open and Neelix rushed into the transporter room. The Talaxian crew member was flushed and winded, as though he had run all the way from his quarters on Deck 8. The motley colors of his native garb were much more chaotic than the Starfleet uniforms worn by the captain and Tuvok, not to mention Seven’s own skintight dermaplastic attire. She always had found Neelix’s fashion choices to be contrary to conventional aesthetic standards, but she had come to tolerate them as evidence of his individuality. They suited him.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Captain.” He leaned against the control console while he caught his breath. “But I got caught up researching some fascinating myths and legends involving this sector. Very interesting, if I say so myself.”
“No need to apologize, Mister Neelix,” Janeway said. “We’re still a few minutes out of transporter range.”
Tuvok frowned slightly, nonetheless, but Janeway was evidently less concerned with the Talaxian’s tardiness. She was more indulgent than Seven would have been. Like Tuvok, Seven valued punctuality. It was a sign of a properly organized mind and schedule. Anything less was inefficient.
“What have you learned?” Janeway asked. “Anything that might be relevant to our mission?”
“Very possibly,” Neelix said with characteristic enthusiasm. “As you know, we’re now far beyond the territory I knew back when I was an independent trader, but I’ve made a point of trying to familiarize myself with the lore and customs of each new sector in our path, in order to remain as useful as possible to Voyager and her crew . . . beyond my vital duties as cook and morale officer, of co
urse.”
Seven was aware that Neelix had originally served as a native guide, of sorts, to the uncharted expanses of the Delta Quadrant, but his value in this capacity had steadily diminished over the years, as Voyager left his former haunts behind. No doubt he was eager to maintain his relevance.
“Of course,” Janeway said. “That’s why I included you in this mission. You always have your ear to the ground, wherever our journey carries us.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “So, you were saying . . . ?”
He practically beamed at her praise. “Well, during our recent layover at that rundown commercial space station in the Hokilee System, I made the acquaintance of a scaly old merchant-slash-smuggler who has been plying these space lanes since before any of us were conceived. He was quite the character, let me tell you. The stories he could tell, especially after several steaming mugs of hot Flibarian rum. . . .”
“The point, Mister Neelix,” Tuvok interrupted. “If you please.”
“Oh, right,” Neelix said, only slightly abashed. “Anyway, he shared with me a curious folk tale regarding these parts. Seems the locals still tell stories about a ‘wizard’ from the other side of the galaxy who was said to be able to traverse space-time at will. The secret of his ‘magic’ is supposed to be hidden somewhere in this sector, but nobody really believes the legend anymore.” He shrugged. “It’s just an old story from centuries ago.”
“How many centuries?” Seven asked. “Please be more precise.”
“Depends on who is telling the story,” Neelix said. “As I said, it’s a tall tale, not a documented historical account. It might not mean anything at all.”
“Perhaps not,” Janeway conceded. “But what if this myth has some basis in fact? That misplaced Starfleet signal certainly seems to be from a distant time and place.” Her voice took on a speculative tone. “Is it possible that this so-called ‘wizard’ actually possessed some form of advanced technology that might get us back to the Alpha Quadrant years ahead of schedule, perhaps by bending time and space in ways unknown to Starfleet? You know what they say, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is—’ ”