"Of all the places you could have brought us," pants Jones, careening through the thick underbrush with all the grace of a drunken rhinoceros, "it just had to be the planet of giant, robotic, naked RATS!"
"They're not rats!" O'Neil huffs, her own boots slipping in the grey mud as she dodges between the trees, tricorder banging painfully against her hip. Now isn't really the time for scientific indignation, but if they're about to be killed horrifically by unknown alien adversaries then she owes it to Starfleet to call out such blatant xenophobia. "That kind of Terra-centric thinking is exactly why you're still stuck in security! If you just tried—"
"I'M NOT STUCK IN SECURITY!" Jones rages, sparing half a step to fire his phaser blindly over his shoulder.
There's a sharp cry in the grey jungle behind them, a crash as a body stumbles and falls. There's no noticeable decrease in the general level of menacing rumble made by their pursuers. O'Neil can only hope that, for the sake of any eventual diplomacy, Jones hasn't bumped it too far off of the stun setting.
"I love my job! I love the replicated food, I love the tin can accommodations, I love having my survival left to the whims of whatever unfathomable cosmic entity we trip over every week... Heck, I even love beaming down blind onto far-flung planets with nothing but a piddly hand-phaser and the knowledge that somehow, and nobody ever really explains to me how, science and humanity are marching on, infinite diversity in infinite combinations, yadda yadda ya—duck!"
She obeys instinctively, and good thing, too. She never sees the projectiles, only hears them whistling inches overhead before they bury themselves thunk thunk thunk in the trunk of a slate-colored palm.
Jones may be a pain in the ass, but there's a reason O'Neil requested him for this mission.
He yanks her up out of the mud half a moment before the second volley arrives. His dark hair is wild, long strands slipping loose out of his regulation updo, and there's a long rip along the shoulder seam of his uniform. He swears colorfully as they slip and stumble through the waist-high tangle of alien flora, but deep in his eyes glitters unmistakable delight.
If she doesn't nip this in the bud soon, he's going to be absolutely insufferable if they both make it out of this alive.
"Even if they were rats, you'd still be wrong! All readings indicate that they're predominantly organic beings surgically modified to incorporate artificial neural and sensory enhancements, which technically makes them—"
"Giant rats!" he reiterates. His next blind shot goes wide, bursting bright and harmless against a tall jut of rocks. "Giant, evil cyborg rats! With no goddamn clothes on!"
Speak of the devil, a pale, pointed face with metal grafts obscuring most of its left side thrusts itself through two silver-edged ferns, expression blank but one clawed hand outstretched threateningly. O'Neil doesn't even think. She clocks it hard as she can with her tricorder and keeps running.
"Yeah," she says, ignoring the ominous rattling inside of the highly-delicate and seriously-abused equipment. "More or less."
"I don't know about you, but I'm feeling kind of exposed right now." Jones plucks fretfully at his crisp red uniform shirt, eyes scanning the muted grays and browns of the vegetation around them with experienced wariness. There are no distinct shadows despite the bright midday sunlight, the solid white sky overhead glowing with the uniform intensity of a lightbox. "You'd think Starfleet would issue us camouflage for missions like this."
O'Neil frowns down at the tricorder in her hands, but no matter how much she fusses with the settings, the data it offers up might as well be scrambled nonsense. If only Irma were here to work xier mechanical magic. "Camouflage implies secrecy, and secrecy is easily mistaken for malice. If we run into any native inhabitants, we don't want them to think that there's some sort of military component to our mission."
The look Jones shoots her falls somewhere between incredulous and amused. The hand resting on his phaser clenches slightly as his gaze drifts pointedly to the thin gold band encircling each wrist of her yellow tunic and the phaser clipped at easy reach on her side. "That's a rich position for a tactical officer to take."
This is a debate they've had before, and not one she's enthusiastic about having again. "Ours is a mission of peace," she says decisively, chin high as she scans the jungle around her and sets off in a promising looking direction. "So step lightly, Ensign."
Their objective is a relatively simple one. With the ship's sensors unable to penetrate the dense, nearly-opaque atmosphere, there's only one way to get the kind of comprehensive scans they need to complete this planet's biome survey. Tantum-1 is remarkable in many ways, the apparent sole surviving planet of a system ripped to rocky pieces by the pull of a neighboring, nearly-evaporated black hole. Its distance from the white-blue sun would normally place it well outside of the habitability zone, but the thick, pearlescent atmosphere wrapped around it like a cocoon appears to have served as a greenhouse, allowing life—however drab and monochrome—to flourish.
To O'Neil's surprise, it was chief astrophysics officer Honeycutt, not anyone from the geophysics or botany divisions, who'd been the most insistent on the need for additional data, theorizing in his usual over-excited manner that there was something unique to the planet's structure that made it impervious to the black hole's weakening but incessant pull, perhaps some unique mineral that imbued it with stronger-than-usual local gravity.
"Just look at those rings!" he'd said, gesturing with one hand at the thick, dark bands encircling the planet, black then silver then black again, almost invisible against the void of space. "They're almost as broad as the ones orbiting your Saturn, and this planet is barely one seven hundredths its size!"
Captain Hamato's expression had been as inscrutable as always, but he'd tucked his hands behind his back in a gesture O'Neil recognized as genuine interest. "Are there no possible artificial explanations for the phenomenon?"
Irma's slim, metal-cored fingers flashed across the panel before xier, blue biogel skin pulsing faintly as xie poured over the readouts. Xier humanoid droid suit was capable of emulating basic facial expressions, but long friendship with the alien had taught O'Neil to direct her gaze towards the small window in xier abdomen. Irma's pink ridge frills furled and unfurled as xie read, yellow eyes closed and faintly furrowed in concentration.
"Scanning for life forms... Data incomplete. Scanning for elements associated with technologically advanced societies... Data incomplete. Atmospheric probes report surface temperatures and atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen levels capable of supporting those crew members originating from Sol-III. No prominent structures or agricultural terraforming observed. Possible remnants of surface-level infrastructure observable along southern mountainous region. No residual warp signatures detected within system. Conclusion: intelligent life if present is not warp-capable. Possible prior extinction of all intelligent life."
"Still," O'Neil had said, considering the roughly-rendered topographical survey on the monitor "Absence of proof is by no means proof of absence. If there is a force of some sort holding the planet together, it's just as possible that it's technological in origin. At least some of the away teams should have experience with a broad range of shield frequencies, just in case."
"Agreed," said Captain Hamato. When he turned back to the central command comm, his left pinky twitched mischievously. "Thank you for volunteering, Lieutenant."
However solid Honeycutt's theorizing had seemed on the bridge, having hiked through the alien jungle for two hours and found it no more straining than Vulcan's 1.4G O'Neil is starting to have her doubts. With a sigh, she flicks open her communicator and sends out a general hail to the other paired landing parties scattered across the continent. "O'Neil to all parties, anything interesting in your neck of the woods? I'm getting nothing but static with my tricorder, but I can't tell if it's an equipment malfunction or possible planetary interference."
"You think the Professor is actually on to something this time?" Jones asks, gaze drifting disinterestedly over the deep ravine before them.
"I think Lieutenant Commander Honeycutt knows more about theoretical inter-system dynamics than everyone at the Academy astrophysics department combined, and any theory he has is well worth exploring." She frowns down at her silent communicator, checks that it's on, and gives it a little shake.
"Uh-huh." Jones kicks idly at a nearby rock, sending it sailing into the ravine. It makes a surprisingly loud noise as it bounces off the stone of the far edge. He winks at her, mouth curled in a sly grin. "That your way of saying this is a wild goose chase."
O'Neil ignores him. After running her communicator through its test sequence, she re-inputs the all-hail code and tries again. "O'Neil to all landing parties, report."
Silence. Not even the faint hiss of an open but un-answered comm. Her stomach does a slow, icy somersault, the firs coy tendrils of fear creeping up her spine, but this isn't her first time running into trouble out on the far edge of known space. As a green officer fresh out of the Academy she might have momentarily given in to panic, but this is by no means her first five year mission. With a deep, steadying breath, O'Neil sets aside the feeling for now, ready to pick up again if she needs it.
She tries hailing the ship, then Irma's direct frequency. There's snatches of sound, but nothing intelligible. They expected atmospheric interference, but nothing this bad. Maybe if she...
A hand brushes lightly at her elbow. She looks up, finds Jones still staring down into the ravine, his brow furrowed and phaser low at the ready. The intensity of his focus instantly silences her question. She follows the direction of his gaze, down, down into the deep crack running through the earth.
She can still hear the rock Jones kicked falling, she realizes with a start. What else could be making the low, repeated knocking echoing up from below? Like the tumblers turning inside of a giant lock, or the gears of some ancient machine grinding back to life. Or...
Jones tenses beside her. "Sir..."
"I see it," she whispers, eyes fixed on a pale, pointed head emerging from a hollow low in the rocks. Its skin is faintly mottled, slick and sickly looking even from a distance. It worms itself out into the open with stiff, robotic movements, revealing a thin, four-legged body with a long, bone-white tail. The only contrast between the alien and the grey stone is a line of dark markings trailing the length of its spine.
Two rounded ears unfurl themselves from the back of the alien's head, lifted upward now vaguely in their direction as it rears itself back on its two hind legs. Another pointed snout emerges from the ravine face, this one with dark markings along its the bald ridge of its skull, down its throat, and encasing one forelimb. Another head, black wholly encircling one eye, and another, and another. One by one, a dozen alien faces swivel upwards to meet them, ears perked, eyes unblinking despite the dazzling white glow of the sky above.
Something about the way the light glints off of the dark markings, the shape of them seeming to bulge outwards instead of lying flush against the skin, trips alarm bells in her head. Slowly, careful not to startle, she raises the tricorder and initiates a short range scan. The computer still can't make sense out of everything it's picking up, but on one thing it is absolutely clear.
These beings are not 100% organic.
Jones licks his lips, muscles stiff with anticipation. "You think they're friendly, sir?
The alien with what she can see now is a crude spinal implant starts climbing up the wall. O'Neil takes one step closer to the rim of the ravine, jaw firm and hands low, empty palms out.
"Only one way to find out."
"I don't want... to order you... around, sir!" Jones's breath is almost as ragged as her own. They won't be able to keep up this pace for much longer. "But now would... be a damn good time... to beam outta here!"
"I'm... aware of that... ensign!" She jams the emergency transport button for what feels like the hundredth time, not that she has high hopes for this signal to punch through after so many others have failed. "But I think... we're on... our own."
"Great!" Jones barks, half a laugh, half a grunt of pain as a projectile grazes along his side. She's not sure if they're shooting darts or some sort of pulsing photon rifles. Whatever it is, it moves too quick to see. "Super great! What's the... plan, then?"
"I'm... working... on it!" She thumbs the wheel of her phaser to its highest power setting, then yanks at the beam emitter until the tip comes off in her hands. Without the focusing nozzle the beam won't be vaporizing anything soon, but that's okay. Spinning on one heel, she fires three short bursts in a wide sweep. Some of the unfocused phaser energy blows back, badly singing her arm, but the rest scatters out through the jungle like a wall of red static. The closest alien collapses, spasming as the circuits encircling its ribs spark and smoke. The one two steps behind keeps its footing but runs blindly into a tree, artificial eyes no longer functioning. The next one back and off to the left lets out a shriek of pain as the wave of energy burns through its limbs and circuits, but the rapidly dissipating blast isn't enough to bring it down.
Three more shots fells two more pursuers at the cost of the last of the phaser's energy stores. She fumbles for her spare charge pack, but the moment she has it in her hands white hot pain flashes up the length of her arm, a thousand times worse than the phaser backfire.
"Lieutenant!" She doesn't realized she's tripped again until she crashes into Jones. "April, are you—?"
Instinctively, she lifts her palm to her face, stares unblinking at the dark shape piercing the soft flesh. It is, unmistakably, a dart. An oozing, wickedly-barbed, guaranteed-poisoned dart.
O'Neil does something she does her best to avoid while in uniform. She swears. Violently.
Then, something very, very strange happens.
Her feet leave the jungle floor through no volition of their own. Her first thought is that the poison must be some sort of hallucinogen, and a fast-acting one, at that. The sky and the ground swap places, tall tree trunks racing by in a nauseating blur as she moves upside-down through the branches. Something has a hold of her by the legs, is swinging her up and over a muscular shoulder as it climbs, higher and higher into the treetops. Jones screams out her name, and a red phaser blast slices through the leaves above them, missing her abductor by inches.
Idiot! Whatever her captor's intentions, O'Neil definitely doesn't want to fall from this height. She scrabbles desperately for purchase, but between the dart and the blood slicking her right palm it's difficult to find any sort of grip point on this alien body. Everywhere she touches feels smooth and hard as stone, like an ancient boulder battered round by an ever-raging surf.
"Hey!" Jones's voice is closer now. Odd, since the alien carrying her hasn't slowed in the slightest, bouncing and swinging from one tree to another with pinpoint precision. "Hey, put me down, you overgrown, mutated—!"
O'Neil doesn't hear the rest of his rant, too busy trying not to barf as she's flipped through the air. The alien lets out a long, chittering cry that almost sounds like delight as it tumbles alongside her. She catches the briefest glimpse of a filthy, roughly-masked faced, beaked mouth open wide to reveal row after row of pale pink spines leading all the way down its throat, before they both slam into the ground with a bone-jarring thud. The alien tucks its long limbs around her, absorbing most of the blow, but it's too little, too late.
She faints.