Hamuto led the group into the transit station. She was accompanied by two Doran warriors, carrying the directed-energy weapons that they had used in their various raids. Hamuto did not bother introducing her two bodyguards, since she simply did not consider it to be important. All she had told them was to make sure that the aliens co-operate every step of the way. Stanislava and Kayaha had no intention of doing anything else, since this plan was actually part of their best hope of getting back home. They had to co-operate.
Hamuto did all the work. She started up one of the smaller vehicles, which had room for only a couple more than the five who got on board. She got behind the controls, and from memory alone, inserted the rods into the destination selector in the appropriate order and then pushed the central button that started the vessel moving. Stanislava just stood there and observed, knowing that no matter where on the planet this particular location was, it would take just a few minutes for the vehicle to arrive there. Sure enough, she observed the rings of light moving past her point of view ever faster-without the sensation of movement in the vehicle-until they were a blur. Then they slowed down and became distinct and more spread out. Finally, straight ahead, the hatches to the transit station opened, revealing an abandoned station with only a few lights on. They had barely enough light to see by, and had to move slowly and carefully through the station.
The first thing that Stanislava noticed was the amount of damage. She saw what looked like gouge marks in the walls, and all over, chunks of the ceiling and the walls had been blown out and were scattered on the floor, coated in dust and grit. "What happened here?" the human asked.
Hamuto answered, "I'm not sure. It was a battle of some kind."
"With the Salosians?"
"I don't know," the Doran woman admitted.
They came across a body. A shattered weapon was still in his hand, and the decaying clothing somehow held together the paper-like gray skin, which had receded from the mouth and the eyes and other orifices. A large section of the chest on the right side was gone, clearly burned away by some kind of weapon. Silently, the group moved further along, to the ramp that led up to the main level. They found more bodies, with the ones that were identified being Doran. The battle here had been furious, Stanislava realized, with large holes in the wall, cement and stone all over the floor, light fixtures destroyed, weapons and other electronics scattered about, wires and cabling dangling from the ceiling and quite clear evidence that fire had spread through parts of the complex.
"If this is just six Salosians, they put up a lot of resistance," Kayaha started.
"I realize that."
The Athena archaeologist continued, "Before we started this, Teklensho was giving us a different story, about how the battle was much more extensive, and how the Salosians had many more people here."
"I've heard that, but the version of just six of them, and they committed suicide when captured, was the story I had long been told, and which the documents support."
"When did all of this happen?"
"About five hundred years ago."
"Usually, history exaggerates things, turns this into more of a battle than it was, not less of one."
"I do not know. Maybe we reduce the impact of the battle because we were defeated."
They made it up to the level just below the exit. This level had large windows that allowed the sunlight in, as they had arrived at this location in the daytime. The sunlight came into a room that was shattered by warfare, as much of the destruction they had seen in the levels below was seen here too. Debris filled the floor, with many holes punched in the walls and many of the windows busted. This caused a great deal of grit and other debris to enter the area, covering everything in a fine layer of dust. Stanislava and Hamuto and the others saw something different. All along one of the walls were what looked like bodies. Despite the horror of the scene, Stanislava still approached. What she saw were bodies of humanoids, dozens of them, if not hundreds, all crumpled up and piled on top of each other. They were not Dorans. They were taller but slender, with small ears and big eyes, and a distinctive hairstyle that reminded her of the Manchu warriors in nineteenth-century China. They had dark hair that had the appearance of being shaved except for a patch in the back, which was allowed to grow very long and was braided. It was not clear whether or not the hair on the head had been shaved or if this was natural on these people. Stanislava also noticed that long tuffs of hair grew out of the chins of these aliens, which she presumed were Salosians.
Like the others, the bodies had partly mummified under the dry and cool conditions. The skin was fragile like tissue paper, and in many places, the skin had caved in. The clothing sometimes hid just skeletal remains. One thing Stanislava did notice, however, was that the burn marks were all in the backs. Very few of them had burn puncture marks anywhere else.
"This is awful," Kayaha said, as he tentatively approached the line of bodies. The Dorans stayed back.
"They were shot in the back," Stanislava replied. "I'm no historian or pathologist, but I'd say that after an intense battle, the Salosians surrendered, and the Dorans lined them up-and shot them all in the back."
"So much for the need for slaves," the Odonan replied.
The chamber was so eerily silent that even in their low voices, the two could be heard by Hamuto. "I don't know what happened here. There's no record of this."
"Maybe because it is so shameful that the Dorans would like to forget this."
"That's possible."
Stanislava added, "It seems increasingly implausible that the Salosians landed on the wrong planet and came through in small numbers. They must've had some kind of presence there."
"I'm not sure what to say."
"Do we still go ahead with this?"
Hamuto thought about it for a moment, and answered, "I say that we do. We need to know the truth, what really happened here. It is possible that this might've been a second group to come through, trying to find out what happened to the first one."
"But your records would indicate that, or your stories would imply it."
"Maybe the talk of the suicide of the first six and a big battle later were merged into a single account. Since that time, nothing has occurred here. Lets proceed."
The group reached the top level, and this level was unscarred by battle, and they saw no bodies or any other sign of occupation. The same was true in the large open area between the two halves of the structure. It was as if nobody had ever come here for the longest time. As they stepped outside, they saw that the sun was high in the sky and the temperature was pleasant at around fifteen degrees. "What now?" asked Hamuto.
"We wait for the lander to find us," Stanislava remarked. "They're scanning the planet, looking for lifesigns, and since we're five lifesigns standing out among so few others, they should be able to find us without too much difficulty."
"How long?"
"I really don't know..."
* * *
Teklensho had the assignment of guarding Matsubara, although he was not really sure what he was supposed to do. The Dorans had no prisons in the common sense of the word, as their captives were simply contained in the section of the structure where they lived. That section was a series of smoldering ruins now, however, so Teklensho could think of nothing more than to invite Matsubara over to where he lived. She was just thinking of getting some sleep. Right now, she felt tired and hungry and thirsty, and really wanted to simply stand in the shower and let that hot water roll over her-a sonic shower would not do now-and wash away the dirt and the grit and the soot, and everything else that had covered her here.
The Dorans lived in the operating half of the structure. For whatever reason, they avoided the residential section, perhaps because it was the first line of defense from any attack through the transit station. In the operating section, the Dorans had made a lot of modifications to the rooms, and made them into adequate living quarters. Teklensho led Matsubara through the corridors to the doorway that led to his residence. He held out the bracelet, which caused the door to open. Inside, Matsubara could see a relatively small room. In the centre was an unknown device, which looked like a table surrounding a rather thick pipe which several holes in it. To her, it looked like some kind of electronic cooking device. Along one of the walls were a series of built-in cabinets, which contained, she assumed a wide variety of foods and other tools and necessities. A couple of doorways led away from the central room, likely to the bedrooms. One thing Matsubara noticed right away was the lack of windows in the room.
"Is this where you live?" Matsubara asked.
"It is," the man replied.
He heard voices from one of the other rooms. Seconds later, another Doran, a somewhat smaller and more slender female, appeared at the head of one of the corridors. She had pale skin, and almost white hair, and she seemed genuinely frightened of the alien in her residence. "Who... who is that?"
Teklensho explained, "I've been asked to guard her."
"But here?" asked Teknin. "Why here?"
"What other place is there?"
"The captive areas were burned down by their own choice, so they should suffer there too."
"Yes, perhaps they should," Teklensho replied, "but that location is not very secure and it would take too many guards to hold them."
"So each guard brings one home to guard them?"
"I do not know," Teklensho explained. "I just follow the orders."
"We have no spare food."
"I'm not hungry," Matsubara remarked. That was not strictly true, of course, but she was not hungry for what the Dorans called food.
"You've been away from your ship for some time, so you must be hungry. I understand that we arrived late from our work on the extraction unit, and you missed the meal."
That seemed like such a long time ago, and yet, it was not. That was after dusk, and the nighttime had not come to an end yet. Matsubara suspected that Teknin had woken up. "Yes, but Doran food doesn't work so well for me. It lacks things I need, and includes things that I do not."
"I see."
Teklensho asked, "Is Tekdaeo still sleeping?"
"Yes," the wife remarked.
"He saw nothing of what happened?"
"No. What did happen?"
"The captives had an uprising."
"Where were the others?"
"They were at a raid, at the same place she came from," Teklensho said, gesturing in the direction of Matsubara. "The raid was a failure. Apparently, a ship came through."
"A ship from the galaxy!" Teknin remarked, her face seemingly lighting up. She was one who wanted to go home, Matsubara suspected.
"Yes, and they strengthened the defenses at their location. The raid was a disaster."
Teknin returned to the fixture in the centre of the room. She prepared a pan with some kind of chopped vegetables or something similar in it. She further cut the vegetables and put some kind of herbs or other seasoning in the vegetables. The woman continued, "This whole thing is foolishness. We can't seem to do anything for ourselves anymore. We have to raid these other locations, and force these people to be our captives. Every day we do this, we run the risk of an uprising, of a disaster. Now, maybe that day has come."
"We've battled through this before."
"But each time, it gets worse. We're gradually losing, and that fool on the throne, Vekharis, and the empty-minded individuals that bow to her, thinks everything will just be fine if we continue to do what we've always done. How stupid. Sometimes, I believe that we need our own uprising, to remove that corrupt and self-serving leadership."
"We've actually taken the first step," Teklensho finally said. Matsubara sat down on a bench along the far wall, and simply listened. It looked like Teknin was doing most of the talking. She was content to observe. "Vekharis has finally agreed to conduct an exploratory mission at one of the sites that some people had come through a long time ago. The aliens, her people, are even willing to help us."
"In exchange for what?"
"For us to activate the outbound function and let them return to their planets."
Teknin turned to Matsubara with sad-looking eyes. "At least they have planets to return to. I often dream of the day we can return home. Even after many years, after many generations, this is not home."
"Apparently, according to her, we really can't go home. The races that banished us here have been destroyed by another race, this 'board,' 'borne.'"
"Borg," Matsubara remarked.
Teknin, still looking at the human, asked, "Is this true?"
"I strongly believe it to be, yes."
"That's sad. We can't go home, and we can't make our home here. That doesn't leave much for us, does it?"
"There is that planet that they're checking out."
"We had squandered so many chances..."
* * *
All they could do was wait. Hamuto was worried that Captain Thorpe and the Athena lander was up to something, and might actually be planning some kind of trick or surprise. Because of that, she did not want to go ahead and enter the other half of the Salosian complex without the human. She was prepared to wait. She had brought along some food, a small pouch of some kind of preserved vegetable balls. She did not offer the other two any, and the guards dare not ask.
"How long, do you figure?" Kayaha asked Stanislava.
"It's hard to say. They have to scan the planet looking for us."
"It's too bad that we didn't have something with us that could attract their attention."
Stanislava looked down, and saw that her commbadge was still there. She had not used it, and saw no need to use it, since essentially she had nobody to communicate with since they arrived at this planet. Although it had not been programmed to access the lander, she knew that if she tapped it, it would default to a setting that would contact the ship. She tapped it, and got nothing.
"Is that your communications device?" the Odonan asked.
"Yes."
"It's small. How powerful is it?"
"Fairly powerful." She tapped it again, but got no response. "But not powerful enough."
* * *
Orbiting the planet in the distant Small Magellanic Cloud, the Athena lander continued to search for the lifesigns. One orbital pass of the planet had not revealed results, except that they had located both the human and the Odonan settlements. The planet had no other besides the ones that they knew about. On the other hand, the planet had a lot of artifacts that interfered with sensors, and it made the search go slowly.
A strange signal was picked up by the sensor console. "Captain," Bayanhong remarked, as she suppressed a yawn. This shift, she realized, had gone on way too long, and the ability of coffee to keep her awake was fading. "Sensors are picking up something."
"What?" asked Thorpe. He was as tired as the rest of them.
"I'm not sure," the acting science officer said.
"Can you locate it?"
"It appears to be beyond the horizon, and is very weak and distorted. I'd say approximately latitude twelve degrees south, about eighty degrees of longitude away from our current position."
"Helm," Thorpe ordered, "close in on those co-ordinates. Maybe it is something."
"Aye," Ochi replied, after a delay. It was difficult to talk and yawn at the same time.
Moments later, with the lander approaching the co-ordinates, Bayanhong detected the signal again. "There it is... wait, the computer recognizes it."
"What?"
Bayanhong ran the analysis again, and said, "It's like a commbadge signal, but weak and distorted. I can't confirm the location, but this looks like the right direction."
Hakamura remarked, "Commander Matsubara and the others might've been attempting to signal with their commbadges, and though we're out of range for communications, we're picking up enough of the signal."
"Take us in that direction."
Within a minute, Bayanhong reported, "I've got them, sir, one human, one Odonan, three Dorans."
"One human?"
"One might've stayed behind," the security officer remarked.
"Ochi, take us to a position near the location. I'm still worried about possible threats, so I'll be going in with one of the shuttlepods."
"Is that wise, sir?" Bayanhong asked.
She was not the first officer, but was actually beginning to sound like one, the captain thought. They had this thing to make sure that the captain does not head out on risky missions. "No, but nothing here is wise. Right now, I'm more interested in things that work. I'll need one of the forcefield belts, and I'll need a tricorder equipped with the Preserver language translation matrix, just in case."
"Sir, somebody should accompany you," Hakamura remarked.
"Yes, I know that, Sal. That's why you're coming along. You're flying the shuttlepod, but you're going to stay on board unless I tell you otherwise..."
* * *
Little was spoken on the shuttlepod as it approached the location where the three lifesigns had been detected. Thorpe had on a field jacket, since conditions on this planet were not exactly warm, and underneath was a forcefield belt, one of the few left on the lander. He also had a spare powerpack for the one human who was in the group, a human that Thorpe was hoping was Matsubara. That was what he was thinking about as the security officer piloted the shuttlepod from the lander, which was kept out of view of those on the ground, to the open area between the main parts of the structure. Thorpe was thinking about the science officer, and his friend, and he was reflecting on how he had acted through all of this. He wondered if the others could see something in him, something about his command style that might not have seemed right. He was always consciously balancing what was right for everybody involved, and what was right for him and Matsubara. Right now, however, if that person was Matsubara, then this moment would be strictly his. She would be safe now. Together, they could work on the next stage of the operation and get themselves and everybody else home. It was just that he found it difficult to focus on the big picture until he knew that Matsubara was safe.
"Do you think that this will work?" Hakamura said, to finally break the silence.
"We will have to do our best."
"I hope it does, since I don't see that we have many options left if it does not."
"We could always take the long way home."
"How long would it take?"
"Two hundred thousand light years, at warp nine point nine five, I'd say about a hundred and twenty years."
"Zhi Len and the Odonan troopers-and our children and grandchildren-will be the only survivors. We'd better teach them how to operate the lander."
Moments later, Hakamura piloted the shuttlepod over the low curved connecting structures, and located the five individuals. From a distance, it looked like Matsubara was the human in the group, but Thorpe also realized that Stanislava was roughly the height of the science officer and had shoulder length, dark hair as well. However, as the shuttlepod came in for a landing, it was clear that the person was Stanislava and not the person that he wanted to see. Hakamura, he was sure, could sense his disappointment. This was not the moment, he realized. He was going to have to press on, and do what was necessary here. He just wondered why Stanislava was here and not Matsubara. Whose decision was that?
"Remember, lieutenant, to wait here until I contact you. Hopefully, this won't be long."
"Understood, sir."
The only exit from the pod was at the rear. Hakamura opened the irising door, and Thorpe had to climb over the docking rings and onto a narrow landing at the rear. From there, he jumped down to the ground and made his way over to the three. Stanislava took the lead, and approached, "Welcome to the surface, captain. This is the Salosian location."
"I see," Thorpe remarked. He was resisting asking about Matsubara, but that was hard.
Referring to the Odonan, the archaeologist continued, "This is Shad Kayaha."
"You were on the Prodakh at Norg?"
"Yes, sir," the Odonan lieutenant replied.
"And this is Hamuto, who works with the Doran leadership." The two Doran guards remained in the background.
"And you can operate the outbound function at this location?"
"No," the Doran replied, but before Thorpe could react, she said, "I will inform the control centre that we are here and ready to proceed. Then they'll turn on the outbound function?"
"All of them, or just this one?"
"Just this one."
"Oh," Thorpe thought, and he could sense he was sharing the disappointment with Stanislava and Kayaha. "Lets proceed. Once we see what's here, and what we're up against, we can decide on the next move."
Hamuto led the way, with Stanislava and Thorpe trailing, and the two guards bringing up the rear. Now he was giving in to the urge to find out the piece of information that he really wanted to know. In a softer tone of voice, he asked, "Why did Lieutenant Commander Matsubara not make the journey here?"
Stansilava answered, "Vekharis, the Doran leader, would not allow it. I guess she wanted to keep somebody behind, almost as insurance that we would not do something... stupid."
"I see."
"Afterall, something stupid was done here."
"What do you mean?"
"Back there, in the residential half of the structure was the sign of a battle, lots of dried-out, dead bodies back there, some of them Doran, many of them Salosian-and many were lined up and shot in the back. This wasn't the story we were told, though. Who knows what we'll see at the other side."
Thorpe removed a small, flat black object from his field jacket, and said, "This might come in handy, then."
"What's that?"
"A fresh power pack for the forcefield belt. You still have yours on?"
"Of course, but you're right, I don't know how much power is left in it."
The four approached the operations half of the structure. As far as Thorpe could tell, this looked identical to the one that the Adamsburg citizens had emerged in. Some minor, perhaps decorative differences, might have been present, but he was not aware of those, and in truth was not interested. He found the corresponding entrance to the structure, and when Hamuto opened it, and they walked in. This part of the structure looked identical, right down to the layout of the controls, the step up to the cavern and the rest. They even saw the gateway door, which was closed and silent.
"How are we going?" Thorpe asked.
"Through the gateway door. On the other side, it opens to a level below the cavern, and a control centre on the other side." Hamuto withdrew a small device from the pocket of her jacket. It looked like a small padd-like device connected to a thin cable that ended in a rather bulky-looking and cumbersome jack. Yet, the Doran walked to one of the panels, flipped up an access hatch and plugged that ungainly looking connective into it. Some lights came on. Hamuto activated some kind of communications function, and waited for several seconds. Then she spoke, but she used the variant language that the universal translators were not programmed for.
"What's that?" Thorpe asked.
"An alternate language."
"Do you have any idea of what she's saying?"
"No."
Hamuto removed the device from the console and put it back in her pocket. Turning to face the others, she said, "We're ready." She walked over to the gateway hatch, and with Thorpe and Stanislava watching her every movement, she worked a few of the controls. Many lights and small displays came on, and finally, a bank of machinery around the frame of the hatch came on with a hum and a few flickers of light. "The system checks out. It still works."
"That's good," Thorpe remarked.
Silently, the doorway opened. It did not look like much, just another room with more control surfaces and monitors. The four crossed over to the other side, with Thorpe in particular having this strange feeling that somehow, through some marvel of technology, he was back in the Milky Way. He looked through the open hatch, and realized the other side was really two hundred thousand light years away. It was incredible. He also noticed something else. The original equipment was here, but he could see a lot of other equipment too, different consoles, monitors, and machinery that he could not identify, all with wires and conduits added on top of the original equipment.
Hamuto recognized the changes as well, and asked, "What are all of these devices?"
"This is not a good sign," Thorpe added. He had his tricorder out, and was scanning. Most of what he saw made no sense him. The original technology was all silent, but the added-on equipment was working, with changing readouts and displays. In the distance, they became aware of an alarm sounding.
Hamuto said, "Maybe we should leave this location."
Kayaha added, "It looks like someone was waiting for something."
Thorpe was coming around to the idea that proceeding further in this location was not a good idea. It was possible that they could always go to another location, and even pick one at random, and see what was happening. "Lets get out of here."
The six turned around-and saw that the way to the gateway was blocked by armed and menacing-looking humanoids.
