Chapter 2

Go to:
Next Chapter, Previous Chapter, or Novel Home Page
or jump to a chapter:
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20 and Chapter 21.

      "Half the trick when dealing with bureaucrats is to know which one to contact," Thorpe said, as he rode the turbolift to the bridge with Matsubara at his side. One of the prerogatives of being the captain was that nobody was going to chastise him for being a few minutes late for the start of the shift. Counselor Lucia Quintollez, who had the duty-officer assignment on the third shift, could sit in the centre seat a little longer. Not much was happening at this hour, regardless of who sat in that chair. The Athena was simply making its best speed to Charamand.
      "And you know who to contact?" the science officer asked.
      "I figure the place to start would be the officials in the Odonan Space Service who are responsible for enforcing blockades and embargoes on worlds within Odonan space. If I could find the official in charge of Norg, I feel that my little piece of information would be able to open doors with him."
      "You think so?"
      "Sometimes you have to think like a bureaucrat."
      "And you do?"
      "It's scary, sometimes, it really is."
      The turbolift came to a stop, and the doors snapped open. The two walked onto the bridge together, which drew absolutely no notice from Commander Johnson and the other first-shift officers already on the bridge. Afterall, Thorpe and Matsubara were well-known for their captain-science officer meetings that invariably happened before the start of the shift-or after. Thorpe glanced at the viewscreen, and saw that the Athena was still moving at high warp on its course to Charamand. "What's the situation?" he asked.
      "Nothing new to report, sir," Quintollez reported. "The third shift was uneventful. We continue on our course to Charamand, and our arrival time has not changed. The latest communications with the planet indicate that they are continuing with their decision to stay out of the affected area, and they have nothing new to report on the fate of those who vanished."
      "Understood. Lieutenant Commander Vorwoorts, I want you to use our fleet-to-fleet protocols to contact the Odonan Space Service, in particular, their Directorate of Embargoes and Blockades."
      "Sir?" Vorwoorts asked.
      Most captains might have simply said that an order was given and that it had to be followed and that an explanation was not really necessary, and yet, Thorpe felt himself compelled to explain, simply because this was unusual. Some of these officers, Johnson in particular, might aspire to their own command one day, and would appreciate an understanding behind the order. Talking about it could clarify his own thinking too. "We have information that the Odonans experienced a similar phenomenon on one of their planets some time ago. Since whatever happened prompted them to abandon the planet and blockade it, clearly something significant was going on. I'd like to get all the information I can before we arrive at Charamand."
      "Understood."
      "When you get through, direct the transmission to the ready room." Turning to Matsubara, he added, "Commander, you're with me."
      The two headed to the ready room and waited. It was almost fifteen minutes before Vorwoorts finally got through, despite the use of fleet-to-fleet protocols. The protocols were supposed to allow direct and quick access by key departments and personnel between Starfleet and the Odonan Space Service in important or emergency situations. With a slight touch of exasperation in her voice, Vorwoorts said, "I finally got through, but the problem is the time delay. We're looking at a time lag of almost seven minutes."
      "Understood. Put me through."
      "Very well. You're speaking to Lieutenant Commander Chadhokh, in charge of ship assignments in Embargoes and Blockades."
      "Okay." Actually, at this moment, Thorpe was not speaking to Chadhokh at all, but was facing a screen showing the graphics that indicated a time-lagged communications. He was initiating contact, and said simply, "This is Captain Leonard Thorpe of the Federation starship Athena. I wish to speak with the official in charge of enforcing the closed status of the planet Norg." With those words, he hit the icon to transmit the message, starting the process.
      "Now we wait for seven minutes."
      "Something like that."
      "What can we do in the meantime?" Matsubara asked. "We've reviewed everything possible about the planet, and what we can do to investigate."
      "There's always crew evaluations."
      "Really?"
      "Yeah, right." Instead, Thorpe had the replicator produce for him a double deck of cards, which they used to get a game of canasta going on the ready room desk. Afterall, Thorpe reasoned, he had to be here, waiting for a response for him message, and Johnson was perfectly capable of taking care of the ship during this very routine travel. Should something extraordinary happen, he was just steps away from the bridge.
      Just under seven minutes later, as Matsubara was melding her second natural canasta in the first hand, the terminal beeped to indicate that the response was incoming. The man appeared on the screen. He was a typical Odonan, slender of build, with long, flowing black hair that made his face appear narrower and darker than it was. The uniform and the position of the image sensor combined to make it hard to tell the gender of this person. "This is Lieutenant Commander Nador Chadhokh, Embargoes and Blockades. Captain Thorpe, I understand that you have a request to make." At least a first name ending in a consonant established gender.
      "Yes," he said. "I need to speak with whomever is in charge of operations at Norg." The message was transmitted, and again, they would have to wait.
      "Time-lag communications are a real pain," Matsubara remarked.
      "No," the captain replied, "what's a real pain is the way this hand is developing." By the time Matsubara had three natural and one mixed canastas, Thorpe could barely scrape two of the latter together. Worse, he still had a devastating amount of cards in his hands when Matsubara went out. They got the second hand going, with Thorpe getting the initial pile after it had built up somewhat. He sat there with six fours, six fives and six sixes all laying open on the table, waiting for more.
      At that moment, the message response came in. The link was constantly open, but Chadhokh was doing the same thing that Thorpe was doing, shutting off the imaging sensor and muting audio during the lag periods. He did not want to have the Odonan officer watch this card game. "Norg is a restricted world. What is your reason for the sudden interest in the planet?"
      Thorpe answered, knowing that he had an ace up his sleeve-and thought that was the wrong card game. "We know what happened at Norg, but only barely. A very similar event has happened on the Federation mining colony at Charamand. We're going to investigate. We would like to know more of what happened at Norg, so that we could avoid making any mistakes, or missteps. We would much appreciate further information on this matter." Again, he had the computer send that message and then shut off the imaging sensor and audio pickup.
      "So you think that'll work? That will get results?"
      "Perhaps. Depending on just what the incident at Norg means to the Odonans, they might already know about Charamand."
      "How?"
      "Odonans seem to know." Matsubara just nodded at the comment.
      The two turned back to the game. Matsubara found herself freezing the discard pile by playing a wild card onto it, and then she started to dump off the fours, fives and sixes that appeared in her hand, while growing columns in the higher ranks of cards. Feeling increasingly alarmed at this, and frustrated at not being able to get those last few cards to finish canastas, Thorpe started to worry. He started to think about playing wild cards onto the columns to create mixed canastas. Finally, Thorpe slipped up and his friend across from him grabbed the whole discard pile. She got the cards needed to complete canastas-but then had excess fours and fives in her hand which she could not meld-no wild cards left-and could not discard in a way that allowed her to go out. She put down a five.
      Thorpe took the pile, and said, "Thank you." He formed up one canasta and threw down a waste card.
      Matsubara drew more cards, saying, "Damn." She put down another four. Thorpe picked up the two cards. He used the four to complete that canasta, and then dropped a king onto the pile.
      The terminal beeped, as the next message came up. Chadhokh spoke up, saying, "I will transfer your request to an individual better able to deal with it. Stand by."
      "Oh great," Matsubara remarked, "a pass-off."
      "It would not be bureaucracy-and Odonans are known for bureaucracy-if we did not get at least one pass-off. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a couple more."
      "We could be here for hours."
      "You have something better to do?" Thorpe asked. Matsubara just shook her head.
      The two finished their hand, with Thorpe accumulating almost twenty-five hundred points. That was just enough to put him into the lead, but not by much. He shuffled the cards and dealt out the third hand. As she picked up her fifteen cards and looked through him, Matsubara said, "We're on duty right now, aren't we?"
      "I believe that eight hundred hours has passed," Thorpe remarked. "Standard procedure requires that during a lag conversation when the lag is ten minutes or less, we're supposed to sit there and do nothing. I find that hard to do."
      "You're right.. Just go and pick up your cards."
      The two got halfway through the deck and still had hands full of cards. They found it difficult to get the initial opening meld of one hundred and twenty points, especially since they tried to keep two of everything in their hands. Then the beep startled them again. Another Odonan appeared on the screen. This person bore an uncanny similarity to Chadhokh, except with wavier and bushier hair. "I'm Lieutenant Ngebene Jhyoung," the person started, and the name established her gender. "I'm in charge of Embargoes and Blockades at Norg. What's your interest in this system, captain?"
      Thorpe decided to take no chances, and started from the beginning. "I understand," he started, "that some time ago, an incident happened at Norg, which cost the lives of some settlers and an away team from an investigating starship. Now, on the Federation world of Charamand, the same thing has happened again." It was too bad that this communications was lagging, since Thorpe was pretty sure that this individual would know more about Norg and would be surprised at the news. "My ship is the one investigating this time. I need the information that you have or have access to concerning what happened at Norg, so that we can learn from whatever your people did. Hopefully, we can avoid the mistakes, if any, that were made."
      Once more, they had to wait for the response. They turned back to the cards. Sure enough, as soon as the captain got stuck with nothing to discard, he gave up one of his fives. Almost too gleefully, he thought, Matsubara picked up the discard pile and started playing cards on the table. She got two natural canastas out of that, and then dropped one of the black threes into the discard pile. Today, he reasoned, luck just was not on his side, but he played out the hand and managed to get somewhat back into the game. A natural canasta in aces certainly helped, but when the score was tallied, Matsubara came up just a little short of the outright win. Thorpe was close enough that he knew the next hand would be a winner-take-all hand.
      Just as he was shuffling the cards and getting ready to deal, the terminal beeped again. The Odonan woman was once more back on the screen, and said, "I have received your request, captain, and I have passed it on to the authorities who will deal with it." Thorpe wanted to say something about the mindless ways that bureaucracies operated, but he was expecting this. Surely this would not end with only the one pass-off. "We have determined the location of Charamand, and will send a ship to assist you."
      "A ship? That's ridiculous. How long will it take you to get a ship to Charamand? Why can't you simply release the information?" Thorpe said that, and then realized that the link was still open and his words were being transmitted. Usually, in a lag conversation, a person had to make each statement, each utterance, purposeful and not just the venting off of a little aggravation. "It's my own personal opinion that no ship can travel from Odonan space to Charamand in reasonable time. The people there need answers, and are worried that it will happen again. We're worried about unknowingly doing something that will cause whatever it was that happened at Norg and led to the current conditions there."
      Once the message was sent, Thorpe faced his playing partner and simply shook his head. "I can't understand what they're doing." He still dealt the cards, although his mind was not fully in the game right now. If the Odonans wanted to send a ship, they must have regarded what happened at Norg as very significant. "What is their problem? I can understand their secrecy, but surely they had to realize that if this unknown phenomenon happened on one of their worlds, and then happened on another planet, they should not be sitting on what it is that they know."
      "Maybe there's something pretty serious here," Matsubara suggested, "something that worries even the Odonans. We'll get to Charamand before the Odonan ship does, so we'll have to proceed extremely cautiously. Risk is part of the game."
      "I know, but I don't like risk that comes about because somebody in the know is withholding information. I don't like that."
      Thorpe had to get his mind off of the conversation, at least until he got a response, and focused on the game. This time, he managed to get a bunch of high cards early, and had no problem opening with three aces, three kings and three jacks. The whole objective of this hand was to be the first player out. That player would be the winner, regardless of the final score. Matsubara, of course, had the same idea on her mind, and so she played her cards as soon as possible. When she finally got to take the discard pile, she managed to put together one mixed canasta. Thorpe found himself watching her. He was watching her hand to make sure she did not meld everything in it, and he found himself watching her expression. Was she worried? Was she concerned? Worse, he thought, she might not have been thinking at all about the mission the Athena was heading into. It was as if that did not concern her. The card game seemed to matter more. Or maybe, he thought, she was doing what he should be doing. He had to keep his mind clear. He tried to focus on the cards, and tried to win this game. When he picked up the two aces, he finally had his second canasta. However, when he looked over his cards, he realized he was going to be left with one card left in his hand no matter how he played. Either card he put down, he knew, would allow Matsubara to pick up the pile and add to the cards on the table and to her points. Was it enough to allow her to put down all of her cards?
      The terminal beeped. The woman was on the small screen again, and she started speaking, "I'm sorry, captain, but that decision is out of my hand. We had previously been informed about what had happened at Charamand, and so a ship, an Epic-class ship, was sent from Odona by hypergate to Deti, and then on to your planet. The individual with the authority to release that information is on board that ship, and she will assist you when she arrives at the planet. I can do nothing else for you, captain. I apologize for that." The phrasing that was used by the woman implied she was not going to divulge the identity of the ship beyond saying it was an Epic-class starship, so he could not contact the ship itself. Epic-class ships were the fastest ships in the known galaxy, as they were designed solely for speed. With a head start through a hypergate, the ship was sure to arrive in a few days, Thorpe thought. Even so, this lack of information was frustrating.
      Thorpe looked over his cards. Matsubara had had finished playing her hand while listening to the conversation, and was now waiting for the captain to make his move. He was simply resigned to what was happening-both in the conversation with the Odonans and this game. "I understand," he finally said, to the communications pickup. "I don't approve of it. It's not the way I would operate, but I guess I have to go with the hand that I was dealt. Athena out."
      "The hand that I was dealt?" Matsubara repeated. "You could've done better, sir."
      Once more, Thorpe looked over his cards. "The game was on my mind."
      "But not for much longer." The science officer picked up the discard pile. She played the last of the cards in her hand and ended by discarding the last black three. Smiling, she said, "Thanks for the game, sir, but I think we'd better get back on duty."

"Captain's log, stardate 52302.2. The Athena is on approach to Charamand. So far, the most frustrating thing about this situation is the lack of information that we have to work with. It now seems clear that something similar happened on the Odonan planet of Norg, with disastrous consequences. What is worse is that the Odonans seem reluctant to talk about it. They are not sharing information with us, at least until someone arrives in the next few days on a fast ship. I fear that this unwillingness by the Odonans to share information on this matter might have repercussions for any away teams that investigates what happened here. "Now dropping out of warp and on final approach to Charamand," pilot Sanjay Indesakar said from the flight control station. The other positions on the bridge were occupied, with Thorpe in the centre seat and Johnson to his right. Doctor Psakolaps, the chief medical officer on the Athena, sat on the seat to the left. The planet, as it appeared on the viewscreen, looked like the typical class-M world. The planet showed more brown than green, simply because the array of native life was not extensive. The rift valley where the Federation settlements were located was somewhat greener and clearly visible from orbit.
      "Any other ships in orbit?" Thorpe asked.
      Vorwoorts was already scanning. "Negative, sir, although I'm detecting a number of satellites."
      "Helm, take us into orbit, and to a powered geostationary position over Adamsburg. Matsubara, once we're in position, I want you to start scanning, and see if our sensors can tell us anything."
      "Aye, sir."
      Thorpe simply watched as the Athena entered orbit around the planet, and then moved to a position over Adamsburg. At that point, the ship would hover about four hundred kilometres above the surface. It used its antigravity field generators to counteract the pull of the planet's gravity to maintain a stable, stationary position so close to the planet. The impulse engines worked at low levels in essentially plotting a circular path around the planet.
      Several minutes after the Athena arrived in its position and began scanning, Matsubara reported, "Captain, I've done comprehensive scans of Adamsburg, and the entire area in which life had been removed. Some life, mostly lower animals and even some weeds, are creeping back into the zone, but none of the planet's people are in the vicinity. Apparently, they have blockaded all approaches. I'm reading no residual energy, and I'm detecting nothing at all that would suggest an alien device or artifact. If anything, the town looks like the people had simply got up and left."
      "I almost figured as much," Thorpe replied. "If the cause was obvious, the people at Charamand would already know."
      "It's inevitable. We're going to have to send away teams in," Johnson started. "We'll have to do a close-up examination of the place."
      "Yes, that's likely. First, however, we need more information. We need to know exactly what the people of Adamsburg could have done to activate the device. I find it hard to believe that it just happened randomly. Something set it off. Vorwoorts, contact the planetary authorities, and inform them that we have arrived. I want a meeting with the governor."
      "Understood..."
      About ten minutes later, the transporter alcove in the main government building in Charamand City came on. Three columns of blue, with white banding travelling the lengths of the columns, appeared, momentarily brightening the room. Those three columns rapidly coalesced into the form of three Starfleet officers, Thorpe, Johnson and Matsubara. As soon a rematerialization was complete, a young man, wearing civilian clothes in styles that would not be out of place on Earth, stepped forward. "Welcome to Charamand, Captain Thorpe and fellow officers. The governor is ready to meet with you. Do follow me."
      The aide led the three down a short corridor to an outer office. He briefly conferred with a woman sitting behind a long desk, and then stepped back to the three officers. Gesturing in the general direction of a pair of large doors, he said, "Governor Whitmore is waiting for you. You may proceed."
      "Thank you," Thorpe simply said, and then led the other two through those doors and into the governor's office.
      The office was surprisingly large. The windows along one wall were large as well, and offered a splendid view into the central square of Charamand City. The buildings around the square were not large or extensive, but were certainly of higher quality than the slap-together prefabricated constructions often found on worlds like this one. Thorpe could also tell, judging by the trees and shrubs and flowers, that it was springtime in this section of Charamand. The office was well-appointed, with a big desk by the windows and a luxurious chair for the occupant. A couch and other less opulent chairs were also provided. One of the side walls had a viewscreen that was displaying a large and detailed topographic map of the planet. Mining installations, archaeological sites and other relics were all clearly labelled. Adamsburg, he noticed, was still on the map.
      Standing by the window was the governor of Charamand, Josephine Whitmore. She was a slight woman, in her early thirties, with a pleasant appearance and long blond hair, now neatly tied back. She had the easy smile and the easy understanding of emotions that most professional politicians seemed to have. She undoubtedly could easily relate to people and deal with a variety of them. Stepping towards her visitors, she said the same thing that the aide had said. "Welcome to Charamand, Captain Thorpe, although we do much prefer having visitors under better circumstances. What happened at Adamsburg has a lot of people worried, and even upset. The people here are all close-knit. A lot of people in the other towns have felt the loss, of friends and family and relatives. Many believe that alien artifacts yet to be discovered lie under much of the rock of this planet, and could strike at them next."
      "I understand, and I sympathize with them," Thorpe said, as he took one of the seats in front of the desk. The other two officers also sat down.
      The doors to the room opened again. The aide walked in, carrying a tray containing a carafe of coffee, some mugs and sugar and whitener. He placed that on the desk, and left without saying a word. Whitmore, who was still standing, walked around and poured the coffee into the mugs, saying as she did, "Authentic Charamandian coffee. Surprised? Actually, the highland regions to the south are prime for growing coffee. It's starting to become known through this sector of the Federation."
      Taking his cup, Thorpe said, "Thank you." Once everybody had their cups, they sampled the coffee. Thorpe found it was surprisingly smooth and without the powerful bitter sensation that he found in most other coffees. However, he quickly discarded those thoughts and got back to business. "Governor, the first thing we must inform you is that the inhabitants of Adamsburg are not necessarily dead."
      "What are you talking about?"
      "What happened here is not unique. Sixty-one years ago, an almost identical phenomenon happened on an Odonan planet."
      "I see," Whitmore managed to say.
      Johnson spoke up, "Have the authorities here at any time been contacted by the Odonans? They are sending a ship to assist us, apparently with somebody on board we believe had actively investigated the first instance. Based on what we heard, this ship left its base about the same time we got the distress call."
      "No, the Odonans have not contacted us. If the people of Adamsburg were not killed, then what happened to them? Is this some kind of alien transporter technology, perhaps to 'capture' people?"
      Thorpe continued, "From what we have been able to infer from the documents-the Odonans are, for some reason really reluctant to share information about this-the inhabitants of that village were sent somewhere. The tragic part of this is that the Odonans realized they went somewhere, but they were not able to recover them."
      "Oh, then it's hardly different. I mean, the majority of those people were 'beamed out' of their beds. They're not dressed for survival, and do not have the training or ability to survive being randomly transported somewhere. Time is essential here."
      "I understand those concerns. We will be investigating this, and will get to the bottom of this. However, before I send my people into Adamsburg, I need more information."
      "I will endeavor to help you any way I can, captain. What do you need?"
      Matsubara had been working on this angle, and so she started, "In all likelihood, it was something that the people of Adamsburg did that activated the alien device-quite unintentional, of course. What we need to do is to limit the possibilities here. First of all, exactly when did this happen?"
      "We believe it happened shortly after six in the morning. I have reports from two individuals who were communicating with people in Adamsburg at around that time, when they were suddenly cut off. Unfortunately, they don't have the precise time it happened."
      "At six in the morning, what would the people of Adamsburg be doing? Would the mining be going on at that time? Does it go on twenty-four hours a day, or in discrete shifts?"
      Whitmore giggled a little, saying, "Actually, it's twenty-five point three four hours here, but I get the point. No, the mining operations generally do not run around the clock, unless they are behind their production targets." After taking a soothing sip of her coffee, the governor sat down behind her desk and pulled up one of several padds on the smooth surface. She activated it, and said, "Actually, the miners at Adamsburg were ahead of their targets, so much so that they were planning to go to half-days for the next couple of weeks. According to the data from the day prior to the disaster, mine one started up around six, and mine two started up at eleven and mine three at thirteen. The latter two run just five hours that day, and mine one ran for eight hours. The schedule I have here indicates that the mines were going to run on that same schedule on the day of the disaster."
      "So the event we are looking for happened in mine one," Matsubara remarked.
      "Are you confident of jumping to such a conclusion?"
      "I believe so. In all likelihood, the alien artifact is underground. The Odonans seemed to imply that it was. The town that they lost was also a mining community. The miners could have, somehow, accessed it."
      Thorpe jumped in with his own question, "Any time upto the morning of the incident, was there any reports of anything unusual, anything unexpected, like a sign of previous activity, an archaeological or alien artifact, anything?"
      Once more, Whitmore had to hunt through the padds in front of her on her desk. She scrolled through the information, and noticed something she perhaps had not noticed before. "I've come to a report indicating that the miners had come across an unexpectedly rich vein of a palladium ore, which did not show up on the initial sensor sweeps. Before the mining operations were to begin, a survey team was going to take samples to confirm it."
      "I wonder if that's significant?" Thorpe remarked.
      "I don't know," Matsubara remarked. "It's possible the alien artifact would have palladium in its structure. Afterall, palladium is used extensively in transporter systems as an energy conduit, but I would think that trained miners would immediately recognize the presence of processed palladium."
      "I do believe so," the governor remarked.
      Johnson said, "For all we know, this alien device could be an automated mining device, and might be present within rich ore veins."
      "Then why would it transport lifeforms only? Only living things were transported. Organic material was not transported, just living things."
      "I do not know," the captain replied, "but this is a lead, and about the only one we have right now. The actions of the survey team might have been enough to activate the alien device. That's a difference. It would appear that most everything else that was going on in Adamsburg that early in the morning would be routine and nothing that had not occurred on previous days."
      Whitmore continued to look over the material in the padds, and said, "You're probably right. I don't have complete records, but otherwise, the day was very routine. Other than people in their houses getting up and ready for their day, the only other facility that was operating would be the town's fusion reactor. The staff there would be bringing the other two reactors up to operational power in order to power the mining and transport operations, but nothing out of the ordinary would have been underway. Most other people, the children, those who don't work in the mines, the service people, mostly would still be in bed... when this struck."
      Thorpe finally said, "That's what we'll look at."
      Turning to the captain, Johnson said, "So we're going in?"
      "We have no choice."
      "We could wait for the Odonans."
      "We have no idea how long that would take. One of our ships would take two weeks to reach Odonan space from Charamand, although their Epic-class ships are admittedly much faster. It could still be days. I would rather not wait around. If the people of Adamsburg have been transported somewhere, then they could be existing somewhere without food and perhaps without water, or any other necessities of survival. Time is important here." While saying that, Thorpe could not help but think of the Odonan town that vanished in a similar circumstance, and how they were not recovered. He had to wonder if they were never recovered, or were not found alive. People could be dying every moment he was sitting here.
      "Yes," Whitmore implored. "Time is very important."
      Zhi Len Takoo thought what was happening to her was rather unusual. She was on this starship, the Bluestar, and she was heading to a Federation world that she had never heard of. What was worse was that the captain of this ship, Captain Nozhe Padda, had not told her why she was suddenly on this ship. When she asked to speak to the captain for an explanation, she was told that the captain was busy and could not talk to her at that time. Activity on the bridge occupied her time, she was told. In a way, Takoo could understand that. This was the middle of a war, and in wartime, strange things could happen. Takoo had heard something about a bold plan to strike at the Founders' homeworld in the Gamma Quadrant. It involved a secret mission to build a hypergate in the Gamma Quadrant, through which a task force would strike at the Founders' planet. She was pretty sure that she would not be told anything about it until the Bluestar had transited through the hypergate and entered the Gamma Quadrant.
      The only problem was that Takoo was not sure if the hypergates were stable over distances of tens of thousands of light years. Engineers were generally divided on the issue, although they agreed it was possible in theory that they would be stable. Nobody knew if this was true in practice. It was hard to notice the passage through the hypergate, but she would be able to tell roughly how long the journey was since the chronographs would jump forward. Takoo had with her a small pocket chronograph. When she awoke, she noticed that it and the ship's chornograph varied by less than twenty iyoyn, which was not surprising with relativistic effects and the like. The Bluestar had gone through a hypergate, but she was pretty sure that hypergate in the Odona system did not take her to the Gamma Quadrant.
      Another thing that Takoo noticed was that she had slept for a long time, perhaps more than five iyoyn, or half of the day. Maybe now was the time to seek answers, she thought. She got out of the bed, and had the computer replicate a fresh uniform for her. She stood in front of the mirror, running her hand over the uniform. It had hardly changed since her active-duty days, although the trim was a bit different, the colours subtly altered and the finish just a little finer. It also seemed more comfortable, conforming to her body and yet not snug nor biting. Maybe, Takoo thought, it just felt good to have the uniform back on. She was not old by Odonan standards, although she had spent many years in the Odonan Space Service In that time, she had seen many wondrous things, including one that only she among the living had ever seen. Takoo was taller than most Odonans, but slender like virtually all of them. Her hair was long and black, with only a slight wave at the end of the waist-length strands. She did not bother to bind up her hair. Officially, she was not on the crew roster of this ship, and did not have to adhere to the letter of the regulations. On the other hand, she had to acknowledge the truism "once an officer of the Space Service, always an officer of the Space Service." She was back in uniform and back on duty-but she left her hair lose anyway. She noticed the pattern of gold and silver pins on the shoulder straps of the uniform. They spelled out "commander." It was the highest rank she achieved in active service.
      Takoo left her quarters, and walked for a short distance along the corridors. The Epic-class ships were unlike anything she had seen before. The corridors seemed...different, with their angled walls, the arch-like support beams at regular intervals, and even the colour scheme. This one was mostly blue, with blue metal, reflective blue duraplast on the walls and black panels hiding controls and computer access. The corridors were more sharply curved than Takoo was familiar with. The Bluestar was, afterall, not a terribly large ship, just two hundred and seventy metres long and only eight decks deep at its thickest. The Epic-class ships were described by some as being "all engine," which was not strictly true. Afterall, this ship had no "main engineering" and no single, powerful warp core. Instead, it had with two hundred and fifty-six individual warp cores, all much smaller than single warp cores but working in perfect unison. The combination meant that Takoo simply could not feel the sensation of warp flight. It was if the Bluestar was travelling at sublight on inertia. Maybe it was, she thought. Maybe something had gone wrong.
      On the way to the turbolift, she only saw a couple members of the crew. None unnecessarily acknowledged her presence. They acted as if she was just another member of the crew, and they all had jobs that they had to attend to. Takoo found the turbolift and stepped on board. She merely had to think of the destination, and the turbolift came on. She felt nor heard nothing, but did see the graphics displaying her destination and the brief travel through the ship to get there.
      The doors opened almost noiselessly. Takoo walked through a short corridor, and onto the bridge. As befitting a small ship whose main purpose was to get somewhere fast, the bridge was expectedly small. In the centre was the captain's chair, with another to the right of that. In front was the forward console, although only one of the two seats, that of the pilot, was occupied. Behind the captain's seat was a central console that handled mission operations, and on the sides of the bridge, support operation consoles like engineering and security. Takoo could not see who was in the captain's chair, but saw that in addition to the pilot and the captain, only one other person was on the bridge, at the mission operations console.
      The captain did notice the arrival of Takoo. That individual was Captain Nozhe Padda, a woman younger and shorter-and somehow less experienced-than Takoo. She knew next to nothing about Padda, except that she was the flag commander for the task force that had been assembled to defend Ori from a possible Dominion attack. Of course, the attack never went there, as it went to Pusedchou instead. Beyond that, she had no idea who Padda was. Takoo did get the idea that she was on the Bluestar only because it was the closest ship on hand.
      "I see you're up," Padda finally said.
      "Yes," Takoo remarked. The other two officers kept to themselves, and did not interfere. Takoo walked down to the command level of the bridge, and sat down in the righthand chair. She glanced at the viewscreen, which was large and dominated the bridge. It showed the stars moving by at a clip Takoo had not seen before. How fast were they going, she wondered. At least five hundred thousand times the speed of light? "Now, I would like to know why I'm here on this ship, heading out there... somewhere. Why wasn't I told before?"
      "Patience, commander," Padda said calmly.
      "Really? I mean, I leave the class I'm teaching at the Training Directorate, and two officers come up to me, and said that I was to report immediately to the ship they were escorting me to, no time to contact family, no time to take care of personal business. It will be taken care of, I'm told. Seemingly within did, I'm beaming up to this ship, and by the time I get to the bridge, I learn we're approaching the hypergate at Odona, having received top-level clearance. Basically, we got to go to the head of the queue and had emergency clearance-and nobody tells me anything."
      "I apologize for that," Padda replied. She was still sounding calm. "In truth, when I first saw you, all I knew was that I had top priority to get to Deti. Then I would be getting the orders. The implication was that I had to get you somewhere as quickly as possible, and I had to get underway before I even learned why."
      "And you just follow along?"
      "I just follow orders, commander," Padda said. "My orders are to get you to Charamand, a small Federation mining colony, as soon as possible."
      "And you still don't know why?"
      "I know now, or at least I have enough information that if I relay that to you, you'll know."
      "How much information?"
      "One word basically. Norg."
      The expression on Takoo's face changed noticeably. Upto the moment that she had received the information, Padda knew the basics about Norg, about what most Odonans, especially those in the Space Service, needed to know. An alien artifact had been found there sixty-one years ago. Activation of that artifact had wiped out a city on Norg and cost the lives of sixteen thousand people-and two more on the Prodakh, the first Odonan ship that had gone to Norg after the disaster. Further disasters rendered the planet uninhabitable. Padda had found out one more piece of information. Takoo was a member of the crew on the Prodakh when it investigated the incident at Norg, and she believed-but was not told-she was one of two landing-party members that survived the mission.
      "Are you saying... it happened again, somewhere else?"
      "Yes," Padda continued. "Ileo teams picked up the distress message that was transmitted form Charamand and determined what was going on. I got this order to pick you up from Odona, and to head to the hypergate and to Deti. You would know why."
      "When I left the active service, I was told that since I was-and this might sound silly-the foremost expert on what happened at Norg, if the same thing happened somewhere else, I would be immediately returned to the service in an advisory role, to assist whatever race, if it was not us, that encountered this artifact. It happened on a Federation world?"
      "That is what Charamand is. It's a class-M planet, mined by humans and other races in the past. Miners apparently ran into the artifact, and that touched off the activity."
      So many memories about Norg and the time inside the alien artifact returned to Takoo. Even after sixty-one years, she was not sure if she was ready to deal with that again. "Yes, that's possible. I was there, right at the very core of what happened. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and trying to resolve what I had seen. That's another reason why getting gang-pressed like this, not even a chance to go home for a change of clothing and my files, was not a good idea."
      "Commander, your files were all in the Central Memory Core. We have received a transmission, although it is encrypted, and you'll need to supply the decryption key."
      "Okay. Do you know which ship the Federation is sending?"
      "I believe it is the Athena."
      "The ship which helped in the defense of Pusedchou?"
      "Yes, that one."
      "I'd like to transmit a message. I don't think that they were specifically picked for this mission, but responded because they're the closest ship. Therefore, they'll be there before we are-how long until we get there?"
      "Less than three days now."
      "I'd like to contact them and make sure they do not make the early mistakes we made."
      "That's not permitted."
      "What?" retorted Takoo angrily.
      "Standard wartime communications blackout, commander. We're not transmitting in such manner unless the circumstances are extraordinary. This is not that."
      "I see..."
      Commander Matsubara led the first away team to the surface. They had beamed down outside the circle within which everything alive had been taken. Matsubara, along with Ensign Daniel Combes, a biologist, and Lieutenant Helene Richelou, an archaeologist, along with a couple of security officers, had rematerialized. The three scientists were using their tricorders to get a good, detailed look at the lost town and the surrounding land.
      "I can't read anything at all," Richelou started. "It's like there is nothing here."
      "But there is," Matsubara replied. "Undoubtedly, the device is shielded or cloaked. Otherwise, we would've found it a long time ago."
      "It's too bad," Combes said, "that the Odonans are not sending the information on what they know."
      "They are sending a ship."
      "But what if we make the same mistake that the miners made?"
      "That's unlikely," Matsubara replied. "We're not going to start up the mining equipment and trip some kind of built-in defense mechanisms. In fact, life is already returning to the lost area."
      The group moved through the last of the strands of trees before emerging into a sudden clearance. The open area was quite barren, as if no life had ever been there. The soil had dried, and some of it had been caught up by the wind. When Matsubara looked out into the cleared area, she was surprised at how sharp the boundary was. Trees were literally cut in half by the effect, and a couple had fallen over as a result. She and the others had travelled through generally lush and unaltered vegetation, but that came to a rather sudden end.
      "Very sharp," Matsubara remarked.
      "A most unusual phenomenon," Combes added, as he continued to sweep his tricorder over the barren region. He reported what they could already see. "Nevertheless, life is already starting to reclaim the barren area." He pointed out some tiny green shoots of grass that were already starting to push up through the exposed dirt. "Underneath, earthworms are starting to move back in. I'm reading ants and other insects penetrating the barren area. Once these various plants go to seed, I can imagine that they'll start to reclaim this area." As the man spoke, a couple of birds flew overhead, passing from the vegetation areas into the barren area. The two flew about a hundred metres past the transition line, and then wheeled about and flew back out.
      Richelou said, "It looks like the alien device is not on-going. It felt threatened when the miners somehow hit it, but once that threat was gone, it became inert again."
      "So you're confident that we can walk into that area without risk?" asked Matsubara.
      "I believe so."
      "I'm still thinking about the Odonan ship and the missing away team. What did they do?"
      "Maybe they attempted to duplicate what the people who had originally caused the incident did."
      "That sounds incredibly foolish," Matsubara replied.
      Combes added, "No kidding."
      The archaeologist continued, "Maybe they didn't know."
      Matsubara added, as she resumed walking parallel to the transition line, "There are too many unanswered questions."
      "So we're not going to take the chance?"
      "Not until Captain Thorpe authorizes it."
      On board the Athena, Captain Thorpe was waiting for reports from the away teams on the surface, including Matsubara and her group. He met with his chief engineer, the Odonan Rodall Dewuchun, in the chief engineer's office. "What do you know about the incident at Norg?" the captain asked.
      "Very little, sir," Dewuchun remarked. "Basically, it involved an alien artifact that was accidentally activated and in the end rendered the planet uninhabitable. The object was apparently destroyed, so they could not study it. However, the impression I got was that those behind the incident believed that similar structures existed elsewhere. I think that's why they set up a kind of monitoring system to alert them to the discovery of another one."
      "That's another thing that worries me," Thorpe continued. "The Odonans heard about what happened at Charamand very fast."
      "That's what intelligence is about, sir," Dewuchun said, unapologetically.
      "Then there's also the question on why they are not giving us any information, putting ourselves and the rest of the people on this planet at risk."
      "There are a couple of reasons for that," the engineer answered, as he sat back in the chair. "Given the nature of the Odonan bureaucracy, part of the problem may be that mistakes were made. The starship involved, the Prodakh, lost two members of its crew, and did something that resulted in the destruction of the inhabitability of the planet. I get the feeling that judging by what might be a cover-up that mistakes were made. The first rule of bureaucracies, to paraphrase an Earth expression, would be to cover their butts."
      "Yes, in that bureaucracies in the Odonan Empire and the Federation are quite similar."
      "The commanding officer of the Prodakh was, if I remember correctly, Chiang Hualei. I believe at that time, since it was before the Voyan incident, that she was still in command. She's now a high-ranking counselor in the central government, and an influential and even powerful person. She might remember her mistakes, if that was the case. It's possible that a command error that she made resulted in the catastrophic resolution of the situation there."
      "What kind of command error?"
      "The implication was that the alien artifact was a kind of mass transporter, and instead of killing the people in the area where it operated, it beamed them... somewhere else, perhaps a location that was either unknown or a long distance away. By having the device destroyed, she removed any chance of recovering the people who had been taken away, including two of her officers."
      Thorpe thought this over, and said, "So it's possible that the now-Counselor Chiang was using her influence to make sure that Ileo monitored routine comm traffic, like this distress signal from Charamand, for any sign of a similar alien structure, as a faint hope that she might be able to re-establish contact with the lost away-team members or the people originally taken."
      "Or at least learn their fate. After sixty-one years, unless they could somehow acquire compatible food, they would not have survived."
      "True," the captain said. "But what about the bonding? Undoubtedly, there would be at least some people who would have individuals they were bonded to, like parents, children, or whatever, who were not taken in this fashion. This is especially true of the two officers that were lost."
      "I believe that the report said all the bond-links were severed."
      "I've heard some impressive things about the bond-links. For example, when we were in the various quadrants, thanks to Q and the wormhole network, did you lose the bond-link with your wife?"
      "No," Dewuchun remarked. The bond-link with his wife was, of course, far stronger than the links to his parents or his daughter. "There were variations, especially during the moments we were moved by Q or travelled through the wormholes. In the wormholes themselves, the bond-links did weaken, but once we returned to normal space, they returned to normal strength."
      "So basically, the range of the bond-links is at least seventy thousand light years."
      "Yes."
      "What is the range?"
      "That's unknown, sir. Some have speculated that the distance between galaxies might be enough to weaken the bond-link to the point it would break."
      "It appears that the inhabitants of that town on Norg that were transported at least survived the initial journey, although they might've died due to a lack of food, harsh conditions, or whatever. Therefore, the bond-links would not have been severed immediately, but over time. Weren't they all severed from the moment the individuals disappeared?"
      "I'm not fully sure, but I believe that is true."
      "Which means that the individuals were transported a distance away, perhaps to another galaxy."
      The ideas that the captain was coming up with seemed fantastic to Dewuchun. He thought it over, and answered, "That seems incredible, but might explain why no ship was ever sent to find out what happened. It might've been too far away, even for an Odonan ship. I guess we'll just have to wait for the Bluestar to arrive, and hear what the person on board has to say."
      "Could that person have been on the Prodakh, perhaps even a surviving member of the away team?"
      "It's possible."
      Thorpe was about to explore that angle a little further, but he heard his commbadge chirp. He tapped it, saying, "Thorpe here, go ahead."
      The voice that came out from the other end was that of Johnson. "Sir," she said, "Commander Matsubara has reported in from the surface. She has learned very little information, but has confirmed what the ship sensors have indicated, that life is already creeping into the barren area, and that some animals have been observed freely moving into the zone. She believes that they could also enter the zone, and perhaps get closer to the centre of this barren area. She's seeking permission to proceed."
      "Not yet. Recall the away teams, and we'll go over what we've learned so far."
      The senior officers gathered in the observation lounge behind the bridge, with Matsubara and the other landing party leaders giving their reports. They all basically said the same thing and what they had to say contained little of substance. The barren area, where all vegetation and life had been removed, was clear, but the alien effect was no longer detectable. They detected no radiation or anything else that was clearly non-natural, or even a little out of the usual. They also detected that life was already moving back into the barren zone. To Thorpe, the conclusion was pretty obvious. They could re-enter Adamsburg and look around more closely. Unfortunately, he also found himself a little distracted.
      Johnson spoke up, and it took Thorpe several seconds to realize that she was speaking. "We should enter the town itself, and see if getting closer to ground zero-the centre of the barren zone-might give us more information." She looked in the direction of the captain, and could almost sense his feeling of distraction. "Sir?"
      "I hear you, commander," Thorpe finally said. "I was thinking along those lines myself. The alien artifact clearly produced a one-time effect here."
      "But you don't believe that?"
      "Something happened at Norg, something beyond the initial activation of the device."
      "We don't know what," Matsubara said.
      "And that bothers me."
      "The solution would be quite simple," Johnson started. "We could simply sit here and wait for the Odonan ship to arrive."
      "Not exactly the approach I would like to take."
      "Sir," T'Kor, the Vulcan intelligence officer on the Athena, spoke up. "If I may offer a suggestion."
      "Yes."
      "We should not concern ourselves overly about how the Odonans approached this. We should, instead, approach this on the basis of the information that we already have, and continue with our investigation as if this had not happened previously, and we would have no other experience to fall back on."
      "The problem with that approach, T'Kor," Thorpe started, "is that the Odonans did something. Maybe it was a routine thing they did. Maybe they followed proper procedure and maybe they did not. If we are to approach this as if we had no knowledge of the Odonan experience, then the most logical approach would be to visit the tunnel site where the action on our part that activated the alien device likely occurred. We could get a clearer look at what we are dealing with."
      "It might be risky to directly beam into the tunnel face where the miners were when the alien device was activated. We could approach it on the ground. I believe that is safe."
      "I would concur," Johnson added. "We've seen no evidence to the contrary."
      Thorpe thought it over for a few minutes, always aware that the eyes of the other senior officers were fixed on him. Since this was not a moment when a quick decision was required, he knew that he should take his time to weigh the risks and determine a course of action that was most likely to produce results. T'Kor was right in a sense in that he should not let a disastrous Odonan mission colour his judgement on how to approach this-except that the Odonans were not known for being careless. If any race would follow proper procedure and regulation in a situation like this, it was the Odonans. What went wrong? If only he had that piece of information, he would feel much better about this.
      "Very well," he finally said. "The initial away teams will reconvene. However, you will not beam into the barren region, in case the transport process might activate the alien device. We have observed lifeforms moving into the region, and the device does not appear to do anything to them. Unless the device responds to lifeforms above a certain mass, it should not affect us. Nevertheless, there is some risk involved the closer you get to what Commander Johnson has called ground zero."
      "Sir," Matsubara spoke up, "that would imply a hike of at least eight kilometres."
      "You're not capable of that, commander?"
      The science officer blushed just a little, and answered, "No, of course that's not it. I just do not believe that is an effective use of our time. I also do not think we could complete an eight-kilometre hike before nightfall."
      "When is that?"
      "Less than two hours."
      "It might be possible to arrange transportation. Vorwoorts, I want you to contact the surface, and see if they can spare some ground vehicles."
      "Very well..."
      Moments later, the senior officers had dispersed, to continue with their assigned tasks. Thorpe, as he often did, stayed behind. He was not needed at this moment on the bridge, so he could just sit here and reflect on the situation. He leaned back in the chair, and just tried to figure out why this mission was bothering him so much. He felt anger, and tried to understand where that anger was coming from. Was it really because of the way the Odonans were treating this? He would have appreciated a full report from them, detailing what the Odonans had learned at Norg and how that could apply to the situation here. He was not getting that. This would not be the first time he had to suffer at the hands of bureaucracies that believed that information was the equivalent of gold-pressed latinum which could only be doled out with reluctance. He tried to think about what little information that he did know. One thing was the implication that the people of Adamsburg were alive but... somewhere. The Odonans might have had a way to rescue them, and they blew their chance. And now, he was sending down away teams to investigate and hoping that they would not blow their chance.
      The door to the conference lounge snapped open. Thorpe was momentarily startled by the sound, and looked, wondering why the person had not buzzed. This was, he quickly realized, not his ready room. T'Kor was standing in the doorway. "Is there a problem, sir?"
      "No, I don't believe so," he answered, "at least beyond the situation here, and the lack of forthcoming information from the Odonans."
      "I cannot explain why that is so," the intelligence officer continued, "but I presume they have a reasonable explanation. It is possible that their reluctance to transmit information may have something to do with the war."
      "Perhaps. I've been thinking about that, and not so much about the war, but then we haven't been in the active theatres for some time."
      "Sir, if I may say so, you also appear to be distracted."
      "Oh," Thorpe said, following T'Kor as she walked around the table to stand on the opposite side from where the captain was seated. He used those few seconds to ponder why she had come back.
      "Sir, if I may speak freely." T'Kor did not even give Thorpe the chance to agree to that before she continued, "It is not uncommon knowledge on board the Athena that you and Commander Matsubara have been in a romantic relationship."
      Thorpe felt a flash of anger, and wondered what brought this topic of conversation up. "I would not call it a 'romantic relationship'."
      "I do not profess to have an understanding of human mating and bonding rituals. Nevertheless, I know that this relationship exists on some level. I also know that you have gone to great lengths to make sure that it does not interfere with your command decisions. You have assigned Commander Matsubara to duties as would be appropriate for her position as science officer. You have expressed confidence in her abilities and your abilities to correct any mistakes that might happen."
      "I do owe her that. It would not be acceptable for me to do anything else. It would harm her career, and mine."
      "But you do think about it, the consequences, the potential risk that you could put her in."
      "Yes," Thorpe said, with a slight sense of irritation. "Your point?"
      "You know that the Odonans did something that turned the situation disastrous. You know that it cost the Prodakh members of its away team. You also know that the away team, and the inhabitants of Norg, may have in fact been transported to another location, one where they could not be recovered for whatever reason. Maybe the other location is too far away, or the location is unknown. By assigning the lieutenant commander on this mission, you are taking a risk, a risk that in your mind is greater than any you have put her at before."
      Thorpe took the longest time to answer. He finally said, "There is something about Vulcans simply stating what is on their mind, to bring the matter to a point."
      "That is the most logical approach. Letting these thoughts fester in your mind is counterproductive."
      "There is one point that you neglected, T'Kor. Yes, I am concerned about Damiko, and the rest of the away teams too. I am concerned that some mistake I make, or some mistake that they make-without even being aware it was a mistake-could condemn them to the same fate. What's worse is that the information to help avoid that mistake is out there, and we're not being given it."
      "The solution then would be to simply wait until the Odonan ship arrives."
      "Which increases the risk to the Adamsburg people. I hate to just sit here, almost brooding if you will."
      "Then you should simply let the crew do their jobs..."
      The broad rift valley where the Federation colony on Charamand was located had a network of roads connecting the towns, including a transportation corridor that contained a paved road and mag-lev train tracks. After the accident, Charamandian authorities closed the road north of Jonesborough, the first town to the south of Adamsburg. It was at the closure that Matsubara and her away team beamed down. Since there was no need for a biologist with no biology to study, Matsubara had replaced Combes in the away team with Lieutenant Raymond Guerrero, a geologist, in case his knowledge of the rocks underlying the town might help them seek out the alien device. Richeleu was coming along, and the fourth member of the away team was Hakamura. He was not only the security officer, but also their driver.
      It was approaching dusk when the four members of the away team beamed down to the road blockade. Barriers had been placed across the road, with the standard symbol of a yellow disk with a red bar across it to indicate the road was closed. A couple of wheeled vehicles were parked alongside the road, with the drivers of each standing beside them, discussing the matter.
      One of the two men, both members of the Charamandian police, walked forward and picked out the officer with the most rank pins. "Officer Dooley," he said, holding out his hand and accepting Matsubara's handshake. "Welcome to Charamand. It's not often that we get Starfleet people here."
      "We'd rather be here under different circumstances."
      Dooley just laughed, saying, "The war?"
      "You never know."
      "This place is so out of the way I don't think a Dominion ship has come within twenty light years. We're well back of all the fronts, and we're counting on Starfleet to keep the fronts well away. Anyway, my buddy there has come with your request for transportation. He does have a problem, though."
      "What?" Matsubara asked.
      The other man stepped forward himself, saying, "Officer Randals, ma'am. I don't know what happened back there in Adamsburg, but there's no way I'm taking the chance of driving in there."
      "I'm not asking you to."
      "Can any of you handle these vehicles?"
      Hakamura stepped forward, saying, "I've had experience driving these."
      "Then the keys are yours."
      "Keys?" the security officer asked.
      Randals just laughed, saying, "Just a figure of speech, man. I'm just asking that you bring it back in one piece."
      "That's my intention."
      The four Athena officers got into the vehicle. It was powered by an on-board fuel-cell generator, which produced the electricity that drove the wheels and operated the various on-board systems, including such things as the lights, the sensor displays, the navigation, the brakes and so on. Similar vehicles on Earth were often operated automatically, while on the frontier worlds like this one, they were operated manually. The controls were very simple; step on one pedal to make the vehicle go forward, and step on another to make it slow down. A wheel could be turned by hand to change the direction of the vehicle. Hakamura had extensive practice with this sort of transportation on Philentrophia as he grew up.
      Matsubara, sitting in the front seat beside Hakamuara, said, "You are sure you can operate this?"
      The man just laughed, saying, "You people on Earth are so spoiled by your automated vehicles and hovercars, that you don't understand real transportation. Trucks have served mankind well for almost four hundred years now."
      "The twentieth century?" Guerrero asked. He and Richeleu sat in the back seat, where he found the surroundings somewhat more comfortable than the typical hovercar. "They didn't have this kind of engine technology back then."
      "They used other methods," Hakamura said. He pushed the button that started the power, causing the control panel to light up and show various pieces of information, including their location, fuel level and current speed. Headlights and taillights came on automatically, illuminating the road in front of him. Posts spaced intermittently along the side of the road provided a little illumination in the deepening gloom, to at least guide them.
      "Lets get going," Matsubara finally said. She was a little nervous about Hakamura's ability to handle this vehicle, but he pulled it onto the main section of the road and accelerated to a standard driving speed without a problem. As far as she could tell, he could drive the truck.
      "How far?"
      "Twelve kilometres to the edge of the barren zone."
      "I'd better get going then, so that we have at least some light left to look around."
      Guerrero spoke up, saying, "I'm surprised they couldn't wait until local morning."
      "That would be the middle of our night," Matsubara said.
      By maintaining a speed of around a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour, with the vehicle hardly making a sound or even imparting much of a sense of motion on the people inside, Hakamura arrived at the edge of the barren zone in just six minutes. "Slow down as we enter the zone," Matsubara ordered.
      "Worried about something?"
      "I try not to be, but you know that it is possible something could happen."
      "Could it react to the vehicle?" Richeleu asked.
      "I don't know."
      "Commander," Hakamura spoke up, "We can try this. First of all, someone should walk across the edge of the barren zone first to see if there's a reaction, and then I'll drive the truck across, and see if the device reacts as well. If we're both still here, then the other two can join us."
      "Very well," Matsubara replied. She was the commander of this away mission, so she was the one who was giving the orders. She would not be asking for volunteers to be the first one across. "I'll do the walking at first. Raymond and Helene can join us afterwards." She was expecting that the two in the back seat might object, and might not want Matsubara to take the risk. However, they were strangely silent.
      In no time at all, Hakamura brought the vehicle to a stop, and said, "Damiko, we're here." The road continued without alteration, along with its light posts, and some distance to their right, the mag-lev track, and its lights, continued. Power was still on in Adamsburg, but Matsubara could see that the trees and the grass and all the other plants simply ended. Ahead, the road tracked across empty, dusty ground, as if a desert appeared instantly just beyond this grove of trees. It was one of the most unreal, almost surreal, things she had seen, especially in the fading twilight.
      She got out of the vehicle, which was about ten metres from the sharp edge of the barren zone. She felt a pit in her stomach, and a great deal of uncertainty in her mind. She had to admit to herself at least that she was scared, but she could not show it nor could she back out of this. She had to steel herself with the simple thought that this was not going to kill her. She was just going to go someplace, and then she could wait for the Odonan ship to arrive at Charamand, and then they could come after her. This was not risky at all, she thought. She stepped forward, a casual gait, as if she was out for a leisurely evening stroll. She covered that ten metres in no time, and then, closing her eyes just momentarily stepped across the frontier and into the barren zone.
      Nothing happened.
      She continued walking, ten, twenty metres into the barren zone. She took out her tricorder and started scanning. The instrument picked up nothing that it had not detected earlier. It simply detected that no significant life existed in this area. She stopped and turned to face the way she had come. Hakamura was still behind the wheel, while Richeleu and Guerrero were standing behind the vehicle. She gestured for the driver to come to her. Hakamura stepped lightly on the accelerator, and drove the truck across the frontier. Just like it had been with her, nothing happened. The truck pulled up alongside her, and Richeleu and Guerrero walked at a brisk pace to catch up.
      Once they were back in the truck, Matsubara continued with her readings. "It's the same as it was before. The device just operated once."
      "Of course, that could change as we get closer to ground zero," Richeleu added.
      "Yeah, that's possible. We must continue to monitor continuously."
      Hakamura drove along the road until it entered Adamsburg. The fusion reactor outside of the barren zone was still running, so the street lights were lit, and some lights in houses still were shining. The road was free of wheeled vehicles and hovercars, although they did see one turned over along the side of the road. Matsubara, almost instinctively, wanted to examine it, thinking that somebody might be in it, but a tricorder scan revealed that it was empty. Seeing it, Guerrero commented, "It was probably in motion when the event happened. The driver was taken, and the unoccupied vehicle did crash. I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this."
      "It happened very early in the morning, when traffic was light."
      Most of the downtown was dark, except for signs and the street lights. A thin layer of grit and dust did cover the vehicles and the building fronts, which was not surprising since the surrounding area had turned to desert and the top layer of soil could easily blow away. No wind stirred now, however. They did drive by one business that was brightly lit. The sign identified it as "Joe's Downtown Stop." A changeable sign below that said "Breakfast served until ten thirty." The lights were on, and from their vantage point in the truck, the four could see meals on the tables. The pancakes and the bacon and eggs and the cereal and the other breakfast foods were all at room temperature, as were the juices and the teas and coffees. They could even see what looked like a spilled tray and shattered dishes. A waiter or waitress was carrying that, Matsubara surmised, when the event happened. Life suddenly stopped here.
      "It's almost creepy," Richeleu remarked.
      Matsubara asked, "What do you mean?"
      "It's like the whole world is like this, so silent, so still, almost totally stopped. It's easy to imagine that there's no life here at all, just the desert, and we're the only people around."
      "Yeah, I guess I can see that."
      When Hakamura turned off the main road, they had travelled through the heart of the town. They passed under a rail line that connected the processing plant with the spaceport in Charamand City, and as they did, they were just under a kilometre from ground zero. Matsubara continued to scan, and said, "Still nothing. Maybe the device doesn't scan, but only reacts to being scanned."
      "Perhaps," Guerrero said.
      The mining complex was surrounded by a fence. The gate at the roadway was open. Beyond was the processing plant, with its own dedicated power system and its waste product reclamation facility. Beside it was the mine itself, consisting of an equipment shed, a preliminary storage facility, covered conveyer belts and the elevator shafts that led into the mine. With the power system still running, it was all brightly lit, with light from within shining through windows, and open doors revealing work areas. Vehicles were parked in the open area in front of the mine office building. Matsubara looked over the scene, and could sense that the miners and the others were simply at work, doing their jobs, except that it was completely silent, and nothing stirred.
      "Do we get out here?" Hakamura asked, as he brought the truck to a stop near the other parked vehicles.
      Matsubara continued to scan, saying, "I don't think it'll hurt. I don't think we can enter the mine without the approval of the captain, and I'm not sure that he will grant that. We can look around the surface areas, though."
      "Another possibility would be to check the mine control room," Guerrero said. "We might be able to see exactly where they were, and what reports that they might have filed."
      "You know where that is?"
      "It's probably in the office building. It would be the standard setup for a Federation mining operation. I don't see anything abnormal here."
      "Very well, lets go."
      The four got out of the vehicle and walked to the one-story building that was at the far side of the parking area. Like the other buildings, this one still had its lights on. Matsubara led the way, and as they approached, the panel doors opened for them. She jumped a little, and the others did likewise-and yet, they had to expect the familiar like that. Inside, the place looked like it was recently occupied. The front had the administration and sales offices, but Matsubara and the rest were not interested in those. Instead, they approached the rear of the building. The doors were already open. Inside was the control centre. The back wall was a large display showing the layout of the mine, with various symbols indicating who was down there, what they were mining and how their output was moving through the system. Around that were a number of consoles, all of which were still active, showing various screens. Half-consumed cups of coffee and other beverages sat on the tables beside the controls. Matsubara even found a half-consumed bun sandwich.
      Only one console showed that something had happened. "Commander, look at this," Guerrero spoke up. He was at the master console, and the others soon joined him. It displayed a number of flashing red icons, and various warning messages. "In essence, it indicates that the safety systems had detected that nobody was in the tunnels and as a result, all equipment was shut down."
      "Is there any way to call up which parts of the mine were active when the automatic shut down happened?"
      "I'll see," Guerrero said, as he sat down and began to access the system. He entered commands and requested information, but it was not obvious on how to get the desired information. While he worked, Matsubara walked around, studying the consoles, which also monitored the processing plant and the rest of the operation. Hakamura was keeping an eye on the tricorder, in case the alien device started to show any sign that it was going to snatch the away team. "Commander, I've got something."
      "What?"
      "Two mine faces were active." He transferred the information to the main display screen. Two squares appeared, each located at the ends of tunnels, and they were surrounded by data. "According to this, on the day this happened, these two mine faces were being worked on. The first one produces palladium-bearing ores, and the other one had rhodium ores. Wait... there's more. According to this, the computer detected the fault-nobody in the mines-at six fourteen. The night before, the workers in the first mine, the palladium tunnel, reported that they had hit 'hard rock,' and they needed to investigate it."
      "The alien artifact," Matsubara said.
      "Seems likely. However, the report of the hard rock was filed shortly after the end of the shift the previous day. A request went out for the head geologist from Charamand City to check out the unusual rock, and the report indicated he would be there first thing in the morning. The equipment and the life support system inside the mine was powered up right at six o'clock in the morning."
      "Was the geologist there when it happened?"
      "I don't know. Records like that are usually made after the event was over."
      "I know. You file the mission report at the end, not during," the science officer continued.
      "One more thing, commander. The main boring machine was in position. It shut down when the system faulted, but I can bring up power and control to it. We can get a picture. Of course, doing that this close to the point where the alien artifact was accessed might cause it strike out again."
      "I know," Matsubara said, softly. She thought she could contact the ship and get approval from Captain Thorpe to activate the mining machinery to at least get a visual image. On the other hand, it would not do much for her reputation if she went back to the captain for approval for every little thing. She knew what her limits were, and she had not come up to them yet. "The image sensors are totally passive," Matsubara remarked. "It might be safe."
      "Do you want to activate the boring machine to the necessary level?"
      The decision had to be made now, so the woman said, "Yes, do it."
      Guerrero sent the necessary instructions to the device, which brought it out of the stand-by mode. He requested that only the imaging sensors be activated, and on fully passive mode only. To see anything, of course, they would need to have the lights on, so he sent the instructions to turn them on. "Okay," he said, releasing a breath that he did not know he was holding. "It's on as far as we can go."
      Matsubara had detected nothing on the tricorder and they were still here. "So far, so good."
      "Do you have an image?"
      "Now I do," the geologist said. He transferred the incoming image to one of the larger monitors in the room. They saw what looked like a rough wall of rock, with a rather sharply-defined disk-shaped cutting that was a bit deeper into the wall. It was where the boring machine was cutting through. The lights were bright enough and the resolution high enough that they had a clear and detailed image of the location in the wall where the boring machine was cutting into the rock. They saw nothing out of the ordinary.
      "There's nothing there," Hakamura said. All of them stood in a ring behind Guerrero, and many had their hands on the backrest of his chair for support. "It's just rock."
      "It's cloaked, to fool our sensors," Matsubara remarked.
      "True, but if it is buried, then all it needs to do is fool the sensors, but to visually mimic the rock as well seems a little extreme."
      "Maybe they thought that people would be mining in the area."
      "Which would just mean that their tunnels would get in the way and be violated."
      Guerrero worked the controls a little more, to magnify and enhance the image that they had. They were trying to find anything unusual, anything that should not be there. They saw not a hint of the alien artifact.
      "What do you make of that?" Matsubara asked.
      "I'm not sure. It's possible that they had not yet quite reached the device. The detection system might cause the device to operate like it did when something gets within, say, one metre of the device. It's also possible that in addition to the cloak, the device is generating a holographic representation of the rock so that we do not see it."
      "Which is silly because if they can't see it and can't detect it, they'll keep attempting to penetrate it. Even if they know that it is not gold or anything of immediate value, they'll still wonder about this new stuff is and keep on examining it."
      "Perhaps."
      Richeleu asked one question that Matsubara had hardly thought about, but which might be important. "What was the purpose of this buried device. What does it do? Why does it react like this."
      "I don't know. Maybe the Odonans know," Matsubara finally said. "We might have to wait for this."
      Guerrero spoke up, saying, "We're not going to get any good data looking at pictures. At some point, someone, or maybe all of us, will have to enter that tunnel and get better, up-close readings."
      "That's what I'm afraid of," Matsubara said, as she stood up straight and stretched.
      "It's either that or wait for the Odonans."
      "Why do I find that unappealing," Hakamura remarked.
      "Mostly because it implies that we can't deal with this ourselves."
      "Alternatively," Richeleu added, "it's not wrong to learn from the mistakes of others and not make the same mistakes."
      "Nevertheless," Matsubara continued, "the captain was quite clear on this. We're not to enter the mine without his permission. It might be best to return to the ship and update the others on what we had learned."
      "Which was not a lot," Guerrero said.
      "True, but this is moving rather slowly..."

Go to:
Next Chapter, Previous Chapter, or Novel Home Page
or jump to a chapter:
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20 and Chapter 21.

Copyright December 2002 by White Tornado Publishing. "Star Trek" is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures. No copyright infringement intended by this non-profit, hobby site. Characters and situations unique to this story are the property of White Tornado Publishing. All characters and situations in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to real individuals or situations is strictly unintentional. Do not publish any contet from this site to any other site without permission of the site creator.