Post by Eurydice on May 26, 2007 23:20:14 GMT -5
((Partial fic co-written by Stephen Butters; the Ramoth sim was set somewhere in the future of Trekdom, maybe a hundred years. Not sure. Henyway.))
Briefing
Captain’s Log, Stardate 40112.25
The inhabitants of Beli 8 have been requesting assistance from Starfleet, reporting sightings and attacks of unfamiliar alien forms, dubbed “figments” by the Belians (or rather, the equivalent of “figment” in their language. It really doesn’t matter). Starfleet, until now, has kept clear of the Belian system, as a result of diplomatic tensions, but when asked to investigate, initial scans picked up temporal activity: definitely worth a look. Unfortunately, the activity is most concentrated in the Quoridors, a cave system with immense deposits of quantium-30, which effectively block out all attempts at in-depth scanning . . .
“ . . . Which is why Starfleet has asked us to send an away team to deal with the problem and immediately; we’re en route already. We’ve got an interspecies science conference to show up at, but neither of you is too big on science or conferences, so I seriously doubt you’ll mind much.” Kally paused, glancing from Jamie Fallow to Lyta Chang before continuing. “You’ll beam down a mile from the caves; there’ll be a Belian guide to take you as far as the entrance, but they’re awfully worried about actually going in. They say it’s haunted. From initial scans, we suspect that there’s some sort of time rift within the caves that these ‘figments’ are coming in through. You’ll be equipped with a set of temporal mines to destroy the rift. Here’s a list of the rest of your supplies.” She passed them two PADDs. It was standard away team gear: multi-function trics, type II-D forearm phasers, hand beacons, light jackets, water, and ration pills. “You’ll have enough rations to last for forty-eight hours, but we should be back within twenty-four.” Again, Kally paused, also in her pacing, to look at the pair. “Any questions? Comments? Complaints?”
Lyta and Jamie exchanged such a defined look that if Kally hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn they were communicating telepathically. Then Jamie spoke up:
“Captain . . . have we, um, done something to piss you off recently?”
She blinked and held back a sigh of annoyance; she should have expected this reaction. Instead, she smiled gamely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant. It seems like a perfectly valid away team mission to me.”
“Perfectly valid, sure,” interjected Lyta. “Perfectly valid for androids. People are used in away team missions in which non-definites like emotion, opinion, and intuition come into play. This is a simple search and destroy.”
“Hell, the target’s not even moving,” added Jamie. “Seriously, a shuttle on autopilot could do this.”
“Normally, that would be the case,” Kally said in what she hoped was an agreeable tone. “Unfortunately, the Q-30 in the Quoridors will make it difficult for every your tricorders to work properly, so you can imagine the kind of havoc it’d wreak on a shuttle.”
Jamie sat back in his chair, looking as if he would dearly love to put his feet up on the captain’s desk, just for giggles. “Still, this is totally rudimentary stuff. I think Ensign Taal or Racart would be just as well-suited.”
“No. Starfleet’s current standing with the Belians is precarious enough as it is, and I don’t want a mission of importance . . . ” Here, Lyta mumbled something under her breath, which Kally ignored, “ . . . to be handled by a pair of inexperienced junior officers. Now, if you have any valid complaints, run them by me and I’ll be sure to ignore them; in the mean time, you’re off-duty until we get there in the next few hours.” Grozit, Lyta, she added telepathically as Jamie headed out the door, I know it’s not an interesting mission, but for the love of the Gods, try to make a good impression. You know the Belians don’t trust Starfleet, and I’ll be damned if that gets antagonized on my watch.
I have no love for your or any other Gods, Lyta replied in turn, but I’ll see what I can do.
Lyta hurried out and saw that Jamie was waiting for her, holding the lift. “‘Mission of importance,’ my ass,” he was grumbling.
“No,” she quipped as the doors slid closed, “I don’t think your ass would be defined as a mission of importance.”
Jamie ignored that. “Bloody hell, I remember thinking just yesterday that this was probably the most consistently interesting ship I’d ever served on. And now we get a full day of boy-scouting in caves, followed by twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the Ramoth to come back for us.”
The lift hummed quietly as they rode on. “You don’t suppose that this has anything to do with the peace conference two months ago?” Lyta asked blandly.
“The one where we tried to convince the Arampak high priest that the universe was sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkelseizure?”
“That one.”
“Nah. Couldn’t be.”
Beam-in
Lyta and Jamie materialized in a field wearing identical dark gray jumpsuits and navy blue jackets, phasers strapped to their right arms. The first thing they noticed, aside from the grass that was such a pale green that it looked like white, a fiery setting sun in the west, a giant yellow moon rising above the hills in the east, the multi-winged birds (birds?) gliding in the distance, the weird scent of alien flora, and a frigid breeze, was the tall, thin Belian sitting on a nearby boulder. He (he? she? it?) was the light color of the grass, with dark compound eyes, long spidery hands, and more jointed legs than either of them could count. Nimbly, it descended from its perch and stopped in front of the two, cocking its head back and forth, probably trying to determine which one was in charge.
“Umm . . . Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“It, um, doesn’t have a mouth.”
“I can see that.”
“So how are we supposed to be able to talk with it?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Swell.”
The Belian’s head swiveled toward Lyta, presumably because she had spoken first. It raised its two hands and then, of all things, began to gesture with them in swift, defined motions. Eyebrows raised, Jamie glanced sidways at Lyta who, to his surprise, was grinning like a child in a toy store and, to his even greater surprise, was gesturing right back. This continued for about a minute, and then Lyta turned abruptly to Jamie. “She’s talking in ASL!” she exclaimed happily. “She told me to tell you that she’s sorry for the inconvenience, but translators won’t lock on well to their UHF language and telepaths can’t seem to get into their heads either. I introduced us, and she said that her name wasn’t translatable, but she’d always liked the Earth name ‘Sofia,’ so we could call her that if we liked. I said it was a very pretty name and thanked her for being our guide. She said it was her pleasure and that she’d always been curious about aliens, so it was a learning experience for her. Then she said that the caves are just under a mile along this path, and we could get started as soon as I brought you up to speed.” She stopped and caught her breath, looking extremely pleased with herself.
Great, though Jamie, slightly annoyed. At least she’ll be having a nice time on this damned mission.
“I sense great sarcasm,” she said evenly, still smiling. “Shall we?”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” He nodded to Sofia, who in turn, gestured towards the path in a universal “thisaway” sign, and they started off. “How do you know sign anyway?”
“Learned it in junior high. You know, for fun. I know it’s not all that important with the kinds of advanced surgery available to deaf-mutes, but hey, you never know when it’ll come in handy. Like now.”
Ahead of them, as they reached the crest of the hill, a second moon was rising, bright and beautiful on the dark horizon while the first one was shining high above the trees. In the distance, Jamie could make out some sort of dark mound, silhouetted against the moonlight.
Lyta was again conversing with Sofia. “That’s the entrance to the Quoridors,” she said, pointing to the silhouette with one hand and spelling Quoridors with the other. “Sofia says that her block-- I think she means town or villiage-- has been lucky; they’ve only been attacked twice and they managed to fight off the figments both times, but many other blocks have been hit pretty bad.”
“What does Sofia think the figments are?”
Lyta relayed the question, and Sofia replied, fast and angry. “She said that most of the Belians think that it’s a test of faith being given by the Gods, so they’re resisting passively through prayer and meditation. Sofia doesn’t buy that, though. She and some other Belian scientists have been tracking their movement; they think the figments are footsoldiers of an imminent invasion.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, they reached the foot of the mound. The sun had set completely, but the two moons lit the landscape before them as bright as day. “The entrance is halfway up this . . . thing,” Lyta translated, gesturing vaguely at the mound in front of them. “Sofia says she would rather not take us any further, but she wishes us the best of luck and hopes we find what we’re looking for. I was going to thank her again for getting us here and briefing us; any last words?”
Jamie was scanning their side of the mound. “Just ‘thank you’ from me too. And in case we don’t find it, whatever ‘it’ is, best of luck to her in trying to convince her religous wacko friends to stop praying and actually do something.”
She repeated Jamie’s message, and Sofia signed back; Lyta smirked. “She says that she has total confidence in our abilities, but she’ll have coffins ready for us, just in case.”
Sofia then bent her front legs into what was undeniably some sort of alien bow or curtsy. Jamie and Lyta both bobbed shallow bows from the waist in return, and the Belian scuttled off, back the way they’d come.
“Lyta?”
“Mmm?”
“D’you think she was more worried about these figments than she was letting on about?”
She bit her lip. “Hard to say. Usually you can tell by voice or facial expression or telepathic signature, and we didn’t have any of those to work with. But just as a guess? Yeah, probably.”
Jamie’s tricorder locked on to the mouth of the cave above them. Silently, they began their ascent.
First Hour
Jamie sighed impatiently and slapped the tricorder a few times. In the last half hour that they’d been slowly making their way through the labyrinth of passages, tunnels, and dead ends, the trics must have failed or flickered at least fifteen times from the interference from the deposits of Quantium-30. The result would be that it was probably going to take them twice as long to get out of the damned caves. It wasn’t so much the cold that was bothering him, nor the heavy moisture in the air, nor even the dark that was only somewhat thrown aside by the reddish glow of his and Lyta’s hand beacons. It was the boredom.
Jesus H. Christ, it’s boring.
“It is, isn’t it?
Jamie glanced at her sideways, not sure whether to be amused or annoyed. He settled for a hybrid of the two, and thought as loudly as he could, GET OUT! “Can’t a guy get any privacy these days?”
She shrugged. “Not my fault; you’re broadcasting it loudly enough that I’m surprised it’s not echoing off the walls by now. They walked on in silence for another minute or so. “It is boring, though, isn’t it?”
During that minute of silence, Jamie had been racking his brain for some new method in his never-ending quest to catch Lyta off-guard. Now the opportunity was presenting itself. He kept his tone neutral. “Would you like to play a Q.O.?”
“What’s that?” she asked. “A game?”
“Don’t you know?”
Lyta blinked. “No, I don’t.”
“Statement! One-nothing.”
Lyta blinked again. “What?”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Um, no, you haven’t explained it to me.”
“Statement! Two-nothing.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Foul! No rhetoric, three-nothing.”
Lyta rolled her eyes but decided not to cheat telepathically. She wanted to figure this out herself. “What does Q.O. stand for?” she asked.
“Can’t you guess?”
She was about to open her mouth, but she thought better of it and left him dangling that question in front of her. That question . . . that question, question, question! Questions! “Q.O., questions only!”
“Statement! What’s the score?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Why else would I ask?”
“Ask what?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Am I deaf?”
“Is that why you keep signing?”
“Signing what?”
“Signing everything!”
“Statement! One-four, is this the best you can do?”
“What?”
“Is this the best you can do?”
“Foul! No repetition, five-one.”
“Have you ever noticed the way leaves turn over before a storm?”
“Huh?”
“Foul! No grunting, two-five . . .”
And so on. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Jamie found that the air didn’t seem so thick and heavy, nor did the gloom of the cave seem so dull and oppressive, now that it was filled with their rapid-fire responses and laughter. The game hadn’t worked particularly well in confusing Lyta, but at least the time was passing more easily. Despite the boredom of the mission, they were making the best of it.
“ . . . Are you getting bored of this yet?” Lyta asked some time later; they were tied at nineteen.
“Did you have something else in mind?”
“Will you stop asking questions long enough for me to answer?”
“Will you call ‘statement’ as soon as I do?”
“No.”
“Statement!”
Lyta laughed; that was her own fault.
“Okay,” Jamie said, grinning. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, generally it works better with more people, but it’s called ‘It’s me, It’s me, It’s me.’ Ever heard of it?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“It’s the ceiling, it’s the floor, it’s your tricorder.”
If there had been a mirror available, Jamie would have seen on his face the same expression that had been on Lyta’s when he proposed the game of Q.O. “What is?”
“It is. Who is it?”
“It’s you, it’s Captain Kally, it’s . . . our Belian guide, I have no idea.”
She smiled broadly. “It’s you.”
He nodded wisely with an expression of extreme confusion. “What?”
“It’s the rock, it’s the sky, and it’s the dark.”
“It’s . . . you?”
“No, it’s you. It’s my canteen, it’s your canteen, it’s my jacket.” She giggled, enjoying this. “Who is it?”
“Me again?”
“No, it’s me. It’s the light, it’s the dark, it’s the water . . .”
***
“Not much of a view.”
The two of them stood on a precipice, looking over a drop of what they assumed to be a considerable distance. Tricorders had been acting up again, and they had just found themselves at this dead end; defeated for the moment, they decided that this would be a pretty good time for a break.
Lyta stepped away from the edge. “So . . . it’s the cliff, it’s the rock I’m sitting on, and it’s your left boot.”
“Is there any correlation between these objects?”
“Ohhh, I can’t tell you that, can I? Who is it?”
“It’s . . . me.”
She nodded curtly. “Very good. Why?”
"No idea. Is this the point of the game? Trying to figure out how to play?”
"Exactly.”
“So,” Jamie said, rubbing his hands eagerly, “if I were to say ‘It’s my fingernail, it’s my sleeve, it’s my damned ineffectual tricorder,’ you could . . .”
He trailed off. Lyta started to ask something, but Jamie held a finger to his lips. “Listen. You hear that?”
She heard it all right: a shrill, otherworldly shriek that raised the hair on the back of her neck. It sounded nearby, but it was reverberating off the walls so much that it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.
The two raised their forearm phasers, keying the power on, and swept the surrounding area with their palm beacons. They saw the same thing they’d been staring at for the past hour: rocks, rocks, and, just for variation, more rocks. But the monotony seemed different, somehow. The blue-gray sand on the floor, which neither had noticed before now, shimmered eerily under the light; everything around them had suddenly become sinister and unsettling, the shadows creeping out form where their laughter had driven them.
It was impossible, but Jamie could swear he felt a light breeze. He glanced up slowly, raising the crimson light to his line of sight . . .
Jamie’s shock and alarm hit Lyta’s mind a fraction of a second before she heard his shouted warning; without hesitation, she dropped to one knee, aimed straight above her head and fired. Something stinking of burnt flesh fell to the floor, and she and Jamie lifted their beacons to get a look.
“Wow,” Lyta murmured reverently. “That is one ugly son of a bitch.”
It was pure luck that she had been underneath the thing when she shot it; its belly and head looked squishy, like rubber, but the rest of its body was coated in black, armor-like plates that looked hard enough to easily deflect a phaser blast. Aside from the armor, the creature looked like a bloated, meter-long bat, with leathery wings that were jointed in a way that allowed them to fold up easily. Thick claws, sharp as razors, protruded from four stubby toes and wing tips.
“Do you think that was a figment?” she asked.
“Nah. Too substantial. If they’re calling them ‘figments,’ I think they’re probably referring to something more ghost-like.”
Even as they stood there gaping at the thing, they felt the breeze of wing beats again, this time at least ten times stronger. Lyta and Jamie stood back to back, gazing at the ceiling. The shrill cry came again, much closer; it was taken up by several other voices, circling nearer and nearer.
And then, without warning, they attacked.
The newcomers dove at both of them in equal numbers, surrounding them in massive clouds. Falling back, Jamie felt a sudden weight on his arm, followed by a hot, stabbing pain. One of the bat-creatures had landed on him. Screw this, he thought, stuck his hand at the nearest one, and fired. There was an immediate reaction; the things scattered like bowling pins, shrieking again and taking to the ceiling. Jamie’s shot hit the creature’s armor, but the force of the blast was still sufficient enough to knock the thing away. Lyta, noting his success, fired a shot straight up into their midst. She didn’t actually hit one, but they backed off just the same.
Jamie had gotten up and was coming over to her. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Ugly bastards. Reminds me why I like living on starships and not alien worlds. Anyway, guess they won’t be bothering us any more.”
But the bat-things had seen the one whose armor had been struck, saw that he was perfectly alright and still moving. And, unexpectedly, their wings rotated, and they started flying, backwards, at Jamie and Lyta. The nearest caught Lyta a harsh blow that forced her to the ground with its heavy wings, where several swarmed around her, too close to use her phaser without injuring herself as well. Two others put their claws to use, digging into Jamie’s shoulder, forcing him down. He tried to raise his weapon, but they bit and scratched at him, moving out of harm’s way to cling to his back.
So he slammed himself into the cave wall, back first. His bones and muscles screamed in protest, but what else was he going to do? The rubbery heads hit the rock with a satisfying squish. Wasting no time, he shot down the next two the came at him.
Where was Lyta?
Two things happened simultaneously. The first was that a fifth assailant tackled Jamie to the ground from behind, holding him down and not budging. And the second was that he saw Lyta.
One of the bat things was clinging to the front of her jacket, trying to lift her into the air; two others tugged her towards them by her sleeves. Somehow, Lyta was resisting the pull of all three, desperately trying to free herself from the iron grip of their claws. She yanked her body back stubbornly, one step at a time . . .
. . . Towards the edge of the precipice . . .
Even as Jamie tried to scramble forward, he saw he was too late, saw her foot step over the edge, saw her fall into blackness . . .
Briefing
Captain’s Log, Stardate 40112.25
The inhabitants of Beli 8 have been requesting assistance from Starfleet, reporting sightings and attacks of unfamiliar alien forms, dubbed “figments” by the Belians (or rather, the equivalent of “figment” in their language. It really doesn’t matter). Starfleet, until now, has kept clear of the Belian system, as a result of diplomatic tensions, but when asked to investigate, initial scans picked up temporal activity: definitely worth a look. Unfortunately, the activity is most concentrated in the Quoridors, a cave system with immense deposits of quantium-30, which effectively block out all attempts at in-depth scanning . . .
“ . . . Which is why Starfleet has asked us to send an away team to deal with the problem and immediately; we’re en route already. We’ve got an interspecies science conference to show up at, but neither of you is too big on science or conferences, so I seriously doubt you’ll mind much.” Kally paused, glancing from Jamie Fallow to Lyta Chang before continuing. “You’ll beam down a mile from the caves; there’ll be a Belian guide to take you as far as the entrance, but they’re awfully worried about actually going in. They say it’s haunted. From initial scans, we suspect that there’s some sort of time rift within the caves that these ‘figments’ are coming in through. You’ll be equipped with a set of temporal mines to destroy the rift. Here’s a list of the rest of your supplies.” She passed them two PADDs. It was standard away team gear: multi-function trics, type II-D forearm phasers, hand beacons, light jackets, water, and ration pills. “You’ll have enough rations to last for forty-eight hours, but we should be back within twenty-four.” Again, Kally paused, also in her pacing, to look at the pair. “Any questions? Comments? Complaints?”
Lyta and Jamie exchanged such a defined look that if Kally hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn they were communicating telepathically. Then Jamie spoke up:
“Captain . . . have we, um, done something to piss you off recently?”
She blinked and held back a sigh of annoyance; she should have expected this reaction. Instead, she smiled gamely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant. It seems like a perfectly valid away team mission to me.”
“Perfectly valid, sure,” interjected Lyta. “Perfectly valid for androids. People are used in away team missions in which non-definites like emotion, opinion, and intuition come into play. This is a simple search and destroy.”
“Hell, the target’s not even moving,” added Jamie. “Seriously, a shuttle on autopilot could do this.”
“Normally, that would be the case,” Kally said in what she hoped was an agreeable tone. “Unfortunately, the Q-30 in the Quoridors will make it difficult for every your tricorders to work properly, so you can imagine the kind of havoc it’d wreak on a shuttle.”
Jamie sat back in his chair, looking as if he would dearly love to put his feet up on the captain’s desk, just for giggles. “Still, this is totally rudimentary stuff. I think Ensign Taal or Racart would be just as well-suited.”
“No. Starfleet’s current standing with the Belians is precarious enough as it is, and I don’t want a mission of importance . . . ” Here, Lyta mumbled something under her breath, which Kally ignored, “ . . . to be handled by a pair of inexperienced junior officers. Now, if you have any valid complaints, run them by me and I’ll be sure to ignore them; in the mean time, you’re off-duty until we get there in the next few hours.” Grozit, Lyta, she added telepathically as Jamie headed out the door, I know it’s not an interesting mission, but for the love of the Gods, try to make a good impression. You know the Belians don’t trust Starfleet, and I’ll be damned if that gets antagonized on my watch.
I have no love for your or any other Gods, Lyta replied in turn, but I’ll see what I can do.
Lyta hurried out and saw that Jamie was waiting for her, holding the lift. “‘Mission of importance,’ my ass,” he was grumbling.
“No,” she quipped as the doors slid closed, “I don’t think your ass would be defined as a mission of importance.”
Jamie ignored that. “Bloody hell, I remember thinking just yesterday that this was probably the most consistently interesting ship I’d ever served on. And now we get a full day of boy-scouting in caves, followed by twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the Ramoth to come back for us.”
The lift hummed quietly as they rode on. “You don’t suppose that this has anything to do with the peace conference two months ago?” Lyta asked blandly.
“The one where we tried to convince the Arampak high priest that the universe was sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkelseizure?”
“That one.”
“Nah. Couldn’t be.”
Beam-in
Lyta and Jamie materialized in a field wearing identical dark gray jumpsuits and navy blue jackets, phasers strapped to their right arms. The first thing they noticed, aside from the grass that was such a pale green that it looked like white, a fiery setting sun in the west, a giant yellow moon rising above the hills in the east, the multi-winged birds (birds?) gliding in the distance, the weird scent of alien flora, and a frigid breeze, was the tall, thin Belian sitting on a nearby boulder. He (he? she? it?) was the light color of the grass, with dark compound eyes, long spidery hands, and more jointed legs than either of them could count. Nimbly, it descended from its perch and stopped in front of the two, cocking its head back and forth, probably trying to determine which one was in charge.
“Umm . . . Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“It, um, doesn’t have a mouth.”
“I can see that.”
“So how are we supposed to be able to talk with it?”
“Damned if I know.”
“Swell.”
The Belian’s head swiveled toward Lyta, presumably because she had spoken first. It raised its two hands and then, of all things, began to gesture with them in swift, defined motions. Eyebrows raised, Jamie glanced sidways at Lyta who, to his surprise, was grinning like a child in a toy store and, to his even greater surprise, was gesturing right back. This continued for about a minute, and then Lyta turned abruptly to Jamie. “She’s talking in ASL!” she exclaimed happily. “She told me to tell you that she’s sorry for the inconvenience, but translators won’t lock on well to their UHF language and telepaths can’t seem to get into their heads either. I introduced us, and she said that her name wasn’t translatable, but she’d always liked the Earth name ‘Sofia,’ so we could call her that if we liked. I said it was a very pretty name and thanked her for being our guide. She said it was her pleasure and that she’d always been curious about aliens, so it was a learning experience for her. Then she said that the caves are just under a mile along this path, and we could get started as soon as I brought you up to speed.” She stopped and caught her breath, looking extremely pleased with herself.
Great, though Jamie, slightly annoyed. At least she’ll be having a nice time on this damned mission.
“I sense great sarcasm,” she said evenly, still smiling. “Shall we?”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” He nodded to Sofia, who in turn, gestured towards the path in a universal “thisaway” sign, and they started off. “How do you know sign anyway?”
“Learned it in junior high. You know, for fun. I know it’s not all that important with the kinds of advanced surgery available to deaf-mutes, but hey, you never know when it’ll come in handy. Like now.”
Ahead of them, as they reached the crest of the hill, a second moon was rising, bright and beautiful on the dark horizon while the first one was shining high above the trees. In the distance, Jamie could make out some sort of dark mound, silhouetted against the moonlight.
Lyta was again conversing with Sofia. “That’s the entrance to the Quoridors,” she said, pointing to the silhouette with one hand and spelling Quoridors with the other. “Sofia says that her block-- I think she means town or villiage-- has been lucky; they’ve only been attacked twice and they managed to fight off the figments both times, but many other blocks have been hit pretty bad.”
“What does Sofia think the figments are?”
Lyta relayed the question, and Sofia replied, fast and angry. “She said that most of the Belians think that it’s a test of faith being given by the Gods, so they’re resisting passively through prayer and meditation. Sofia doesn’t buy that, though. She and some other Belian scientists have been tracking their movement; they think the figments are footsoldiers of an imminent invasion.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, they reached the foot of the mound. The sun had set completely, but the two moons lit the landscape before them as bright as day. “The entrance is halfway up this . . . thing,” Lyta translated, gesturing vaguely at the mound in front of them. “Sofia says she would rather not take us any further, but she wishes us the best of luck and hopes we find what we’re looking for. I was going to thank her again for getting us here and briefing us; any last words?”
Jamie was scanning their side of the mound. “Just ‘thank you’ from me too. And in case we don’t find it, whatever ‘it’ is, best of luck to her in trying to convince her religous wacko friends to stop praying and actually do something.”
She repeated Jamie’s message, and Sofia signed back; Lyta smirked. “She says that she has total confidence in our abilities, but she’ll have coffins ready for us, just in case.”
Sofia then bent her front legs into what was undeniably some sort of alien bow or curtsy. Jamie and Lyta both bobbed shallow bows from the waist in return, and the Belian scuttled off, back the way they’d come.
“Lyta?”
“Mmm?”
“D’you think she was more worried about these figments than she was letting on about?”
She bit her lip. “Hard to say. Usually you can tell by voice or facial expression or telepathic signature, and we didn’t have any of those to work with. But just as a guess? Yeah, probably.”
Jamie’s tricorder locked on to the mouth of the cave above them. Silently, they began their ascent.
First Hour
Jamie sighed impatiently and slapped the tricorder a few times. In the last half hour that they’d been slowly making their way through the labyrinth of passages, tunnels, and dead ends, the trics must have failed or flickered at least fifteen times from the interference from the deposits of Quantium-30. The result would be that it was probably going to take them twice as long to get out of the damned caves. It wasn’t so much the cold that was bothering him, nor the heavy moisture in the air, nor even the dark that was only somewhat thrown aside by the reddish glow of his and Lyta’s hand beacons. It was the boredom.
Jesus H. Christ, it’s boring.
“It is, isn’t it?
Jamie glanced at her sideways, not sure whether to be amused or annoyed. He settled for a hybrid of the two, and thought as loudly as he could, GET OUT! “Can’t a guy get any privacy these days?”
She shrugged. “Not my fault; you’re broadcasting it loudly enough that I’m surprised it’s not echoing off the walls by now. They walked on in silence for another minute or so. “It is boring, though, isn’t it?”
During that minute of silence, Jamie had been racking his brain for some new method in his never-ending quest to catch Lyta off-guard. Now the opportunity was presenting itself. He kept his tone neutral. “Would you like to play a Q.O.?”
“What’s that?” she asked. “A game?”
“Don’t you know?”
Lyta blinked. “No, I don’t.”
“Statement! One-nothing.”
Lyta blinked again. “What?”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Um, no, you haven’t explained it to me.”
“Statement! Two-nothing.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Foul! No rhetoric, three-nothing.”
Lyta rolled her eyes but decided not to cheat telepathically. She wanted to figure this out herself. “What does Q.O. stand for?” she asked.
“Can’t you guess?”
She was about to open her mouth, but she thought better of it and left him dangling that question in front of her. That question . . . that question, question, question! Questions! “Q.O., questions only!”
“Statement! What’s the score?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Why else would I ask?”
“Ask what?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Am I deaf?”
“Is that why you keep signing?”
“Signing what?”
“Signing everything!”
“Statement! One-four, is this the best you can do?”
“What?”
“Is this the best you can do?”
“Foul! No repetition, five-one.”
“Have you ever noticed the way leaves turn over before a storm?”
“Huh?”
“Foul! No grunting, two-five . . .”
And so on. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Jamie found that the air didn’t seem so thick and heavy, nor did the gloom of the cave seem so dull and oppressive, now that it was filled with their rapid-fire responses and laughter. The game hadn’t worked particularly well in confusing Lyta, but at least the time was passing more easily. Despite the boredom of the mission, they were making the best of it.
“ . . . Are you getting bored of this yet?” Lyta asked some time later; they were tied at nineteen.
“Did you have something else in mind?”
“Will you stop asking questions long enough for me to answer?”
“Will you call ‘statement’ as soon as I do?”
“No.”
“Statement!”
Lyta laughed; that was her own fault.
“Okay,” Jamie said, grinning. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, generally it works better with more people, but it’s called ‘It’s me, It’s me, It’s me.’ Ever heard of it?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“It’s the ceiling, it’s the floor, it’s your tricorder.”
If there had been a mirror available, Jamie would have seen on his face the same expression that had been on Lyta’s when he proposed the game of Q.O. “What is?”
“It is. Who is it?”
“It’s you, it’s Captain Kally, it’s . . . our Belian guide, I have no idea.”
She smiled broadly. “It’s you.”
He nodded wisely with an expression of extreme confusion. “What?”
“It’s the rock, it’s the sky, and it’s the dark.”
“It’s . . . you?”
“No, it’s you. It’s my canteen, it’s your canteen, it’s my jacket.” She giggled, enjoying this. “Who is it?”
“Me again?”
“No, it’s me. It’s the light, it’s the dark, it’s the water . . .”
***
“Not much of a view.”
The two of them stood on a precipice, looking over a drop of what they assumed to be a considerable distance. Tricorders had been acting up again, and they had just found themselves at this dead end; defeated for the moment, they decided that this would be a pretty good time for a break.
Lyta stepped away from the edge. “So . . . it’s the cliff, it’s the rock I’m sitting on, and it’s your left boot.”
“Is there any correlation between these objects?”
“Ohhh, I can’t tell you that, can I? Who is it?”
“It’s . . . me.”
She nodded curtly. “Very good. Why?”
"No idea. Is this the point of the game? Trying to figure out how to play?”
"Exactly.”
“So,” Jamie said, rubbing his hands eagerly, “if I were to say ‘It’s my fingernail, it’s my sleeve, it’s my damned ineffectual tricorder,’ you could . . .”
He trailed off. Lyta started to ask something, but Jamie held a finger to his lips. “Listen. You hear that?”
She heard it all right: a shrill, otherworldly shriek that raised the hair on the back of her neck. It sounded nearby, but it was reverberating off the walls so much that it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.
The two raised their forearm phasers, keying the power on, and swept the surrounding area with their palm beacons. They saw the same thing they’d been staring at for the past hour: rocks, rocks, and, just for variation, more rocks. But the monotony seemed different, somehow. The blue-gray sand on the floor, which neither had noticed before now, shimmered eerily under the light; everything around them had suddenly become sinister and unsettling, the shadows creeping out form where their laughter had driven them.
It was impossible, but Jamie could swear he felt a light breeze. He glanced up slowly, raising the crimson light to his line of sight . . .
Jamie’s shock and alarm hit Lyta’s mind a fraction of a second before she heard his shouted warning; without hesitation, she dropped to one knee, aimed straight above her head and fired. Something stinking of burnt flesh fell to the floor, and she and Jamie lifted their beacons to get a look.
“Wow,” Lyta murmured reverently. “That is one ugly son of a bitch.”
It was pure luck that she had been underneath the thing when she shot it; its belly and head looked squishy, like rubber, but the rest of its body was coated in black, armor-like plates that looked hard enough to easily deflect a phaser blast. Aside from the armor, the creature looked like a bloated, meter-long bat, with leathery wings that were jointed in a way that allowed them to fold up easily. Thick claws, sharp as razors, protruded from four stubby toes and wing tips.
“Do you think that was a figment?” she asked.
“Nah. Too substantial. If they’re calling them ‘figments,’ I think they’re probably referring to something more ghost-like.”
Even as they stood there gaping at the thing, they felt the breeze of wing beats again, this time at least ten times stronger. Lyta and Jamie stood back to back, gazing at the ceiling. The shrill cry came again, much closer; it was taken up by several other voices, circling nearer and nearer.
And then, without warning, they attacked.
The newcomers dove at both of them in equal numbers, surrounding them in massive clouds. Falling back, Jamie felt a sudden weight on his arm, followed by a hot, stabbing pain. One of the bat-creatures had landed on him. Screw this, he thought, stuck his hand at the nearest one, and fired. There was an immediate reaction; the things scattered like bowling pins, shrieking again and taking to the ceiling. Jamie’s shot hit the creature’s armor, but the force of the blast was still sufficient enough to knock the thing away. Lyta, noting his success, fired a shot straight up into their midst. She didn’t actually hit one, but they backed off just the same.
Jamie had gotten up and was coming over to her. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Ugly bastards. Reminds me why I like living on starships and not alien worlds. Anyway, guess they won’t be bothering us any more.”
But the bat-things had seen the one whose armor had been struck, saw that he was perfectly alright and still moving. And, unexpectedly, their wings rotated, and they started flying, backwards, at Jamie and Lyta. The nearest caught Lyta a harsh blow that forced her to the ground with its heavy wings, where several swarmed around her, too close to use her phaser without injuring herself as well. Two others put their claws to use, digging into Jamie’s shoulder, forcing him down. He tried to raise his weapon, but they bit and scratched at him, moving out of harm’s way to cling to his back.
So he slammed himself into the cave wall, back first. His bones and muscles screamed in protest, but what else was he going to do? The rubbery heads hit the rock with a satisfying squish. Wasting no time, he shot down the next two the came at him.
Where was Lyta?
Two things happened simultaneously. The first was that a fifth assailant tackled Jamie to the ground from behind, holding him down and not budging. And the second was that he saw Lyta.
One of the bat things was clinging to the front of her jacket, trying to lift her into the air; two others tugged her towards them by her sleeves. Somehow, Lyta was resisting the pull of all three, desperately trying to free herself from the iron grip of their claws. She yanked her body back stubbornly, one step at a time . . .
. . . Towards the edge of the precipice . . .
Even as Jamie tried to scramble forward, he saw he was too late, saw her foot step over the edge, saw her fall into blackness . . .