Milen Rask blinked slowly, moving nothing but his eyes as he scanned his tiny escape pod. He held his breath for a moment, listening for anything out of the ordinary, straining his sensitive Cardassian hearing. When he heard only the wind outside and the faint hum of a dying environmental back up, he pushed himself carefully from his seat, gripping the edge of the chair to keep himself sitting up. The pod was at an angle, making it difficult not to fall against the back of the seat. With a quiet grunt, he hauled himself from the seat and crouched on the floor, hands splayed against the cold metal floor. He pulled them up, blowing on them, and looked around.
"Computer," he whispered, hoping for a response. There was a slow, muted response and Milen shook his head. The computer was failing and wouldn't help him.
Slowly, he stood up, gauging his condition. He was cold, but not too bad. He had been preparing to head to the cold lab to help Kelde Moset with some data entry. He was wearing some thermal clothing, but didn't have gloves or head gear. He shifted across the slanted floor to the emergency compartment, hoping it had been properly stocked. If it wasn't, someone was going to answer, eventually, on Cardassia Prime. And the ship's quartermaster, if he'd survived.
There were gloves, and a scarf and toque. Milen took them out, putting them on, grateful for the extra protection. He found his tricorder, which was still working, and he gave a sigh of relief.
The aliens had been in his pod and had dismissed him as being too close to death to bother taking. At least, that's what Milen had gathered when they checked his pulse, argued amongst themselves, and then left him. He had no idea what they were saying. His computer system was too badly damaged to translate for him.
He was lucky.
The Bajoran blood that flowed in his veins made him more tolerant to the cold that seeped into the escape pod than any full blooded Cardassian would be. And he'd had the benefit of living on Bajor for his adolescent years. His parents had moved from Cardassia Two to Bajor when his father had been offered a job in the Bajoran ministry. They had lived near a monastery and Milen had been schooled there, learning from the monks and vedeks. A life of meditation and spiritual counseling had not appealed to him, but he had learned his lessons well. He had slowed his heartbeat almost to a stop. His breathing had followed suit. He had even lowered his body temperature enough to convince the aliens that he was well on his way to dying. It would be too much of a tax on their resources to rescue and revive him.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the faint Bajoran ridges he'd inherited from his father. Then Milen shook his head. He had no idea where he was or how many of his shipmates had survived. Maybe some of them had landed on this planet. If so, he had to find them, if they hadn't been captured already. Milen pulled toque down over his ears and tied the scarf around his nose and mouth. He found a phaser and the stash of emergency rations, secreting them in the pockets of his jacket. He forced the hatch open and shoved his tricorder into a pocket. Then he pulled himself from the pod, gasping at the coldness of the air. He half tumbled, half slid down the pod's exterior, landing on the hard, rocky and icy surface with a grunt. Milen sat up, cursing under his breath, and looked around.
The barrenness of the landscape made his heart ache. He had never seen anything so bleak. Cardassian Two had been beautiful in its own right, in a stark, Cardassian way. Bajor had been stunning, so lush and verdant, with artful water features and gardens everywhere. The monastery where he had gone to school had been carefully tended by the vedeks who took pride and joy in the beauty they created.
This was nothing. An icy plain, the snow blowing over it contrasted by sharp black rocks. There was nothing to give him any sense of direction. It seemed to be just him and his tiny, broken pod.
Milen pulled his tricorder from his pocket and flipped it open, scanning the area. He picked up himself, the dying computer from the escape pod and nothing else.
Wait.
An extremely faint signal appeared on his tricorder then vanished. Milen pushed himself to his knees, scanning again. The tricorder determined the cardinal directions for him and picked up the signal coming from the south-southeast. Milen clambered to his feet, almost losing his footing on the icy. Gritting his teeth, he steadied himself and boosted the tricorder's sensitivity. The signal came in a bit stronger and Milen set off in the direction from which it was coming.
It was difficult going. If the ice wasn't impeding him, the rocks slowed him down. Milen set the tricorder to alert him if he deviated from the course to the signal and put it back in his pocket. With both hands free, he could scramble over the rocks more easily and keep his balance on the snowy ice.
After more than half an hour, he saw another of the Glain's escape pods. Milen picked up his pace, breathing hard in the freezing air. He could feel the ice on his eyelids and brushed distractedly at them.
The pod was occupied by one dead woman and no one else. Milen's shoulders slumped in defeat when he found her. He sat inside the pod for a moment, closing his eyes. He pulled the scarf from his face and pushed the toque up off of his right ear, fingering his Bajoran earring.
Prophets guide me, he thought, closing his eyes.
The wind whistled outside and Milen felt alone, as if he were the only person in the universe. Then, a small tugging sprung up inside of him. His eyes snapped open and he looked around hurriedly. There was a sudden impetus to keep going, to keep searching. Of course, he thought, there could be others. But the urgent nature surprised him.
The Prophets were guiding him.
Milen scrambled from the second disabled pod and stood outside, in the freezing wind, trying to figure out where to go. The pulled tugged him southward and Milen hurried over the rocks and ice, struggling to keep his footing. The tricorder was picking up nothing, but there had to be something here for the Prophets to reach to him, all this way from Bajor. He kept going, holding hard to the hope that he wasn't being led astray.
He nearly fell into the small, rocky depression in which Kelde was huddled. They both screamed, pulling away from each other, then stopped, staring at one another. Milen steadied the beat of his heart and crouched down, almost sobbing with relief.
"Kelde," he said. "Are you all right?"
"Rask!" she replied, struggling from her hiding place. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," they both said at the same time and then laughed because the only other option was to cry. Milen helped her from her hollow and bundled her into a hug. She clung to him as well, then pulled away, bouncing gently from one foot to another.
"How did you find me?" she demanded.
"Prophets," he replied and he could see the incredulous look on her mostly hidden face. "Really. I felt like I should head south. I think tripping over you was luck, too."
"Luck," she replied, looking around. The howl of the wind reinforced the loneliness of the ice plain.
"Well, as lucky as we'd be down here," he admitted.
"Have you found anyone else?" she asked.
"Just Myran, dead in an escape pod."
Kelde nodded.
"She was in the pod with me," she replied. "Did you see the aliens?"
"They came into my pod," he replied. "I had enough training at Moussan to make them think I was dying. I didn't see them. Did you?"
Kelde nodded.
"They look like Vulcans, but they weren't. They looked angry, militaristic."
"Trisepat?" Milen asked.
"I don't think so, but I'm not sure."
"Angry, militaristic Vulcans. I doubt the Trisepat would tolerate any of their members attacking Federation citizens in Federation space."
"In their space, either," Kelde said and Milen nodded.
They stood in the silence for a moment.
"We have to find shelter," she said, breaking the silence.
"I agree. But the systems on my pod are failing, if they haven't already."
"Mine are shot," Kelde replied, nodding. She looked around and Milen followed her gaze. There was nothing around them, only the blankness of the plain and the sky.
"Which way do your Prophets tell you to go?" she asked.
Milen shook his head.
"I don't know," he replied, chewing on his lower lip beneath the thick fabric of his scarf. "North of here is your shuttle and mine. Let's keep going south."
"Have any weapons?" Kelde asked.
"Yes. You?"
"Just a hand phaser. I hope we don't run into those aliens."
"Me, too," Milen replied with feeling. "Let's go."
They fell into step, hunched over against the chill of the wind, heading south for lack of any better direction in which to walk.
They walked for over half an hour before finding another pod, which Kelde considered immensely lucky. She had no idea how large this frigid planet was, but it amazed her that at least three of the pods had landed within several kilometers of one other on this icy plain. But perhaps the aliens had been herding them here. The thought made her shudder and Milen mistook it as a shiver from the cold.
"Come on, let's get out of the wind, at least," he said.
She didn't bother correcting him and helped him get the hatch open, scrambling inside. It was noticeably warmer, which came as a shock. It was also completely empty. No sign of its occupants remained and Kelde tried not to think of what may have become of them.
The computer seemed to be working, which surprised her. Kelde hadn't held out any hope of finding a pod in such good shape. She and Milen forced the hatch shut again and then set themselves to finding what systems were functioning.
"Life support and environmental systems," Milen reported.
"I think I can get the communications array working again, too," Kelde replied from her side of the tiny space. "But thrusters and engines are off line."
"I doubt we could get this thing out of the ice anyway," Milen commented. The shuttle had hit hard enough to lodge itself in its own crater. Kelde nodded her agreement.
"I'll send out a distress call," she said.
"No!" Milen said, surprising her. She turned quickly, her black hair obscuring her vision for a moment before she raked it aside. The temperature in the pod had allowed them to remove most of their thermal clothing, making movement easier. And made her feel more Cardassian again.
"Why not?" she asked.
"If those aliens are still out there, they'll intercept it. I don't want to be captured."
Kelde shook her head once, emphatically.
"Neither do I," she replied, her voice firm. She hadn't survived huddled in that damn hollow and the trek across the ice to be snagged by their pursuers. "I can put a message out on a Starfleet Emergency channel and encode it so nothing but a Starfleet receiver can pick it up."
Milen gave her a wide-eyed, incredulous look.
"One of my brothers is a Starfleet Intelligence operative," she said and saw the heightened surprise that flashed across Milen's face. Kelde had never told anyone about Trintar's official status in Starfleet. Starfleet Intelligence protected the identities of its operatives by giving them cover commissions and imposing confidentiality agreements on their families. Kelde had never been bothered by this; it protected her brother and he worked to protect the Federation. It was only fair. Now, however, she knew she had to level with Milen or he'd never agree to sending the message. She didn't want to argue with him and she had no intentions of being stuck in this ice for the rest of her life.
"He showed me how to do this," she continued. "It won't get us caught. It will get us some help."
For a moment, Milen looked as if he might disagree and Kelde was ready to send the message without his cooperation. Then he relented, nodding.
"Good," Kelde said, turning back to her console. She heard Milen shift behind her, going back to whatever work he had. She focused her attention on the controls. She'd never had to do this in a real emergency, but Trintar had taught her well. He'd taught all of his siblings the skills he'd acquired that he hoped they would never need.
"Done," she said after a few minutes. Milen looked back at her and nodded. There was a guarded expression on his face. Kelde understood; she wasn't sure what, if anything, to hope for, either.