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AN INDETERMINATE AMOUNT OF TIME BEFORE…
The three officers were rushing through the deserted town. The shrill alarm of the curfew had already rang and not a soul could be seen through the streets, which would have made their progress fast and easy even if the town had not for all intents and purposes been abandoned. Phlox was leading the way in the dark night, T'Pol behind him and Hoshi last. T'Pol was guided by the echoes of their footsteps, eyesight dimmed by the night.
If everything went well, they would get to the shuttle in time and report their findings to the Verklaevs who would then in turn bring the report to the Overarching Council sitting on Verklaev. The Greater Kingdom of Nint was a reluctant participant on the Council but economic necessities dictated that they at least pretend to play nice with others. As a result they paid lip allegiance to the Council, showing through body language and dress their self-believed superiority and marked disdain for the other races of Dalgorts. Not that the racial differences among the Dalgorts were exactly obvious. To the Humans, one Denobulan and one Vulcan, the differences were skin-deep. Or more accurately hair deep. The three races were all humanoid, all were barrel-chested with shaggy manes of hair extending down their shoulders, but the Nint had bicolor black and yellow manes while those of the Verklaev were yellow and the Namkarfeh's were uniformly dark. That apparently was a profoundly meaningful difference for the Nints.
Single-mindedly obsessed with racial purity, the Nint viewed their bi-color manes as the expression of superior genetic make-up and abilities. In a desperate bid to preserve the purity of their blood lines, they followed a strictly isolationist policy, minimizing any contacts between their citizens and the other races, and refusing to use any technology that might take them offworld. Unless said technology was helpful in furthering their isolationist objectives. Such as a defensive web of highly sophisticated satellites in a geostationary position, preventing direct access to – or departure from - their soil.
The Verklaevs were slightly better disposed towards contacts with other species, though only slightly, it seemed Dalgorts' isolationist tendencies had a genetic component. The Verklaevs willingness to at least encounter and more commonly trade with other species made them the dominant race on Dalgort. Which in turn convinced them of their moral superiority and disposed them towards intervening in the internal affairs of their Nint and Narmkafehr neighbors. The Verklaevs were the ones who had reached out to Starfleet through unofficial channels, requesting the intervention of expert scientists for a preliminary inquiry that needed to remain of the utmost secrecy. A native people who occupied part of the Nint world, the Arumids, were disappearing. They seemed to have gone missing from the area where they had traditionally resided and their numbers had declined beyond any reasonable expectation.
This was a matter of interest to the Verklaevs, who saw themselves as the enlightened seer of Planet Dalgort, though their Nint and Narmkafehr neighbors would have more readily said they were busybodies who should mind their own business. The Nints vehemently denied any knowledge of or involvement in what happened to the native people within their shores. Given the differences in facts or opinions, only the Overarching Council could launch an investigation, but the Council refused to take such a step without proof that the decline in the Arumid numbers was not genetic or medical in nature.
So in a bid to influence the Council, the Verklaev has asked Starfleet to very discreetly, extremely discreetly, send a small research team down to the area occupied by the Arumid and report on their findings. If there were findings, the report of completely neutral external observers, which happened to be a Denobulan doctor for medical or genetic findings, a communication expert for spoken and unspoken communication with the Arumid, and a Vulcan science officer for all the rest, would allow the Verklaevs to turn the issue into an official matter with the Overarching Council and push the Council to act.
But due to the Nints racial and isolationist sensitivities, the preliminary investigation had to be done in the utmost secrecy. There would be no uniforms, no communicators, and scanners would be provided by the Verklaev, who had already prepared a back-up story of errant alien scientists who had foolishly followed up on an interest in obscure forms of fauna in spite of warnings not to venture into Nint territory. As a result, the three officers also had to make sure to capture a sufficient number of fairly uninteresting scans of humdrum animal life in order to establish a believable cover.
Their twelve hours on the Nint world had already given them plenty of data which they needed to review and analyze so that they could prepare a final report. The city they were traversing, a densely packed township of a few thousand units bordered by well-tended farmland slowly going fallow, was pretty much deserted. Their discrete examinations from afar during daytime had revealed no sign of life, as if the whole village had gone to a protracted sleep from the heat of the midday sun, and was not waking up. They had seen no children, no domestic animals, no activity, no hovercrafts rumbling by, spreading billowing clouds of dust as they passed. A whole village could not dematerialize out of the blue. Their foray through the countryside had shown further signs of abandonment, items and equipment that talked to activity suddenly interrupted. In the absence of humanoid life presence and under the thorough guidance of T'Pol, they had started an extensive inventory and analysis of the soil, climate, ground, vegetation, animal life, microbial life, geological transformations, radiation, and any and everything that could explain the disappearance of a village. Or a species.
But before they could present their report on the disappearance of the Arumid, the neutral external observers needed to get off Nint. Transporting directly to Enterprise was not an option given the defensive web system over Nint. The Verklaevs knew that the system that powered the Nint satellites was down for nineteen minutes every twelve hours and had developed an algorithm that could exactly predict those breaks. Which meant that a shuttle could slide in through the defense network once every 12 hours, pick up whoever they needed to in a hurry and high-tail it out, so long as they made the round-trip in less than nineteen minutes.
They needed to get to the shuttle before the rendezvous time or they would have to hide for another twelve hours while waiting for the next pick-up. More time for scans, but also more time for their presence to be discovered by the Nint. And even though they had a back-up story, and as per the agreement with the Verklaevs, no communication equipment and nothing that could be traced back to Starfleet, there remained the possibility of an interplanetary incident which would damage Stafleet's reputation along with that of the Verklaevs. And of having to explain to an irate Archer how his First Officer and his Chief Medical Officer and his Communications Officer all managed to be late for a planetside lift. There would be reports to be filed, possible reprimands, and the chances that Archer would ever let them down on another planet without a full contingent of armed guards would dwindle to that of a snowball in hell.
This was going through the mind of the trio as they walked at a brisk pace, intent on covering the remaining three miles in the minimum amount of time. They should have been rendered at the pick-up destination with plenty of time to spare, but Phlox had had to try and capture an exotic breed of fire-breathing lizard, and failed, and Hoshi had gotten engrossed into deciphering the language engraved on an old well, which was neither Nint nor current Arumid, and their Commanding Officer had been single-mindedly engrossed into scanning the workings of an entire planet on a hand-held scanner in a half-day. So now the three of them were rushing straight through the town, not bothering to hide.
Phlox took a diagonal through the large square plaza that seemed to mark the heart of the village. The dim light from the moon was just enough for him to notice the line of a dozen or so bodies barring the way before he plopped right into them. He stopped, T'Pol and Hoshi a step behind him. Phlox turned back to look at T'Pol, who silently stared back at him. From what they could see in the shallow light of the moon the men in front of them were Arumids. Phlox nonchalantly put a hand in his pocket and surreptitiously turned his scanner on. The range was not optimal, but even at a few feet distance he would be able to get some readings.
The Arumids crowded closer to the Starfleet officers, starting to surround them. The leader of the pack spoke first "Who are you?"
"We are friends" Phlox replied "Are you Arumid? We have been looking for you. What happened to the village?"
"The Nints happened" the leader replied, as if this meant everything in the world. "Do you have food? Anything?" he went on, carefully letting his eyes roam over the tool belts and bulging pockets of the scientists.
The Starfleet trio crowded tighter together, knowing an attempted shakedown when they saw one. "We do not have anything of value" T'Pol spoke. "Now please step aside, we wish you no harm." She felt Phlox and Hoshi get into a defense position in her back so that the three of them were facing off the would-be thieves.
The alien sneered. "That is very funny. You can give us everything you have or we can take it, what do you prefer?"
Before he had even finished his question, his men attacked. Within seconds, four of the assailants had been dispatched by karate kicks, nerve pinches, and punches straight to places doctors knew would incapacitate them. There were still eight left, circling the three officers cautiously, now aware their prey had nails and teeth and a willingness to fight. Some of the attackers pulled out dagger-like weapons, obviously home-made but still lethal-looking. The Arumids attacked again. T'Pol turned in time to make out four of them converging on Hoshi, visibly the smallest in the group. Phlox was busy with two attackers. T'Pol dispatched one of her attackers, kicked the other off, grabbed one of Hoshi's assailant by the shoulder, rendering him unconscious. Before she had time to turn back, the assailant she had kicked off plunged a foot-long dagger into her shoulder. She screamed in pain as she fell to her knees while the blade kept going and came out on the other side. Everyone froze. The remaining Arumids took to their heels, obviously not used to carrying out their threats of bodily harm. The one with the dagger tore it out of T'Pol's shoulder and ran after them.
Phlox was already kneeling at T'Pol's side. The top of her civil unisuit was quickly becoming drenched with blood. "Can you walk?" he asked. She nodded in the dark, spoke through gritted teeth "I can." Phlox was looking at his scanner, shook his head. "You're losing a lot of blood" he said, "we have to hurry".
They took off at a run, which quickly slowed to a walk when it became obvious T'Pol was in no shape to run.