Episode 3 – The Angels of Stone
The Doctor nearly fell over Cardassians lying on the ground when he was carrying the heavy water bucket to the marge of the camp. The mining area had been a few hundred meters outside the city. The city had grown during the centuries to come closer to the ore sources, and the camp next to the mines where lunch for the workers was being prepared by Cardassian mothers, had also been a preferred playground for young children, whose parents did not want to leave them unattended at their homes. Hence, when the accident and the explosion had occurred, many children had been injured by the subsequent shift of the Earth and the soil which had suddenly been sucked into the mining corridors. Of course, treating the children had been a priority, but most of their parents were dead or unconscious or they had lost contact, and there were worse injuries to be treated now.
When being told about the children's fate, The Doctor could not help but come over to the handful youngsters who were not older than twelve or thirteen years. These children had grown up during the war, they knew what it meant to suffer and to hide, and they all seemed to have seen a lot in the past months. The Doctor put the water bucket in the middle of the children who had gathered in the shadow of a building. The sun had risen higher and was burning mercilessly down on the desert soil.
As soon as the bucket touched the ground, the children rushed towards it. "Remember what I told you," The Doctor urged, "one after another." The children, driven by thirst, but still reminded on one of the basic principles, sat down again and one after another drank and splashed some water in their faces. All their bleeding had been stopped, their wounds were starting to heal. Not all children had been this lucky. There were still too many of them in the nearby hospital, and the youngest playing friend of theirs had not been found in the rubble at the accident site yet.
The Doctor turned around when two Cardassian soldiers who had also decided to help the wounded, walked over.
"You're the one calling himself 'The Doctor', aren't you?" the taller one of them said.
The Doctor nodded.
"You are living up to your name. But you have also mentioned medical supply by the Federation, right?"
"Yes. There has a ship landed outside the city. Actually, they should be here already," The Doctor explained. "A friend of mine went to welcome them because…because of the situation at the governmental buildings…"
"We understand," the other Cardassian said. "Shall we go and take a look at what has happened? Maybe they have problems because of the shield that is protecting the city. It's an instalment the Dominion had made and as much as we hated them, it seemed too useful to dismantle it."
"Yes, that would be great. The ship is supposed to have landed just outside the city. The shield just protects from phasers?"
"From slight phaser fire and beaming. They won't be able to beam the cargo inside the city."
"All right, it's better to get going then, isn't it?" The Doctor said.
"Yes…yes, it definitely moved," the Ardanan Ensign replied frightened when the light came back on again.
The Captain pressed the communications button. "Cargo ship Holzflamme calling for anyone who can hear me." He repeated it twice until the comm system suddenly started giving out a thrilling noise. He turned it lower.
"Something is jamming our signal, sir," the Ensign stated. "…and draining our power systems."
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "The automatic door system must be damaged," the young Ensign muttered. In response, the captain grabbed something under his Captain's chair and charged a weapon. The door opened with a loud noise, but it were two Ardanans to enter the bridge.
"There's something on this ship," one of them stated. They looked scared, but did not seem to have any physical injuries. "We heard Maso scream, but when we came to see what happened on cargo bay, we could not find him. And nothing else…"
"Any sort of statue, perhaps?" Aleja proposed.
"Yes, a stone statue, but I thought it was our freight," the other officer, who was quite tall, answered.
"We saw it on the surveillance video before we lost the signal," Aleja explained. Why would The Doctor put her in a situation like that? Did he know about these 'things', or did he just not care whether she encountered the dangers of the universe?
"Whatever," the Captain decided and looked at his weapon. "We need to get into cargo bay or wherever this 'statue' is hiding and neutralise it. I don't want any more of my crewmembers go missing."
"Wait…," Aleja said. "Are all of your crewmembers Ardanans?"
"Yes," the tall officer replied.
"I've been talking to the Gul in charge here of this city and he said that during the past few months, several Ardanans had turned up in the city, feeling lost, and not knowing what had happened to them. Can there be a relation?"
"I don't know," the Captain said. "And I don't care. The only important thing is to get this 'statue' out of my ship, find out where my crewmen are hiding and then continue to Bajor. I don't like delays." Deciding to have said enough, he walked out of the door. "Grab a gun and follow me, that's an order," he added.
The officers shrugged their shoulders and did as they were told. The Ensign handed Aleja a phaser gun. "It's a standard Federation phaser. Have you worked with those before?"
She shook her head.
"It has ten settings. This one is the lightest stun, and number 10 is 'pulverise'. Never use it. I'll put it on level 3 for you. It would stun an enemy for roughly an hour."
"I…," she muttered. She didn't want to use a gun. Even if there was an alien, shouldn't they try to talk to it at first? But the Captain didn't seem to be much of the negotiator-type. She simply nodded and hoped that she would not get into a situation where she would need this weapon.
The three officers and Aleja went out of the door as well and noticed that the Captain was trying to open the following door of the corridor manually. The light flickered again before the main lightening went out and the emergency lamps were switched on, turning the corridor into a dark-red colour. Aleja suddenly felt like at the Keel Miller Research Facility. There was this bad feeling in her stomach, making her feel as if she had to vomit, a pulsatile headache made thinking painful, and her heart seem to beat as if in competition for its life.
They opened doors and followed down corridors. Aleja felt lost again.
"We should get to the transporter and beam all life signs out of the ship," an officer proposed.
"I agree," the Ensign said quickly.
"Alright, alright," the Captain said. Then we'll have to go left at the next corner. Said and done, Aleja nearly shrieked loudly when she turned. There it was, the shadow they had seen on the video screen, and it indeed was a statue. It was an angel statue, tall and with huge wings, covering its face with its hands.
"It's just a damn statue," the Captain noticed and laughed. He walked towards it.
"Don't touch it," one of his men warned.
"How did it get up here?" another one wanted to know. They all turned and had looks around.
When the Aleja turned back to the statue, she did scream. The Captain was gone and the statue was not covering its face anymore but one hand was reaching out for them. "What the hell has happened?" she asked and moved backwards.
They heard someone shouting and when Aleja turned she saw another crewman standing at the end of a corridor that was crossing theirs. When she turned back again, the angel had moved closer again.
"Was everyone turning?" the Ensign asked.
The crewman who shouted walked over to them, "what is this?"
"Where's Saklo?" the tall officer asked. And he was right, his friend was gone.
"I think it moves when we're not looking," Aleja said and dared to take a few steps forward. She quickly touched the angel's hand. "It is stone," she determined.
"But if we're not allowed to turn away, are we not allowed to blink either?" the Ensign asked and Aleja walked backwards again.
"I don't know how fast it can be," Aleja muttered. Aliens that turned into stone once they were being looked at? And when they weren't, they killed people just by touching them? It seemed like a mad horror story that was broadcasted late at night, and not like something that actually happened in real life.
"We're three people. I doubt that we'll blink at the same time," the crewman said.
"We should still get to the transporter room," the Ensign added.
"Okay, and we should not blink." Although easier said than done, Aleja was the first to move forwards. "I think we don't die if it touches us," she explained. She wasn't sure, but she felt calmer with the slightest chance of hope. "I mentioned that people appeared within the last months throughout this city. Can't it be that the touch of this angel just teleports you to another place, in another time?"
"But why can it only happen if you don't look at it?" the Ensign asked.
"I don't know. I just needed a reasonable sounding explanation." Aleja had passed the angel, but didn't not look away from it. The two crewmen also passed. Very slowly, touching the walls of the corridor, they walked backwards.
"What way?" Aleja whispered. She knew the Angel could probably neither hear nor understand her, but she couldn't speak any louder. Her throat was dry and she had problems swallowing. She was thinking too much. During the crisis in the Research Facility she did not think at all, she just did. But this situation was entirely different. Here, moving fast could become your doom.
"To the left…right," the Ensign said. They turned around the corner and sighed all together when the angel did not follow them.
"How does the Angel know when we don't look?" the crewman wondered aloud.
"I don't know, but I am not very keen on finding out right now," the Ensign admitted and they passed the automatic door to the transporter room. He then locked the door manually so that the Angel could not come in.
"I'm reading five life signs on board," the crewman said. "Plus us. I'm beaming those five out but you'll have to stand on the transporter platform," he said to Aleja, "because you don't wear a badge." He pointed to the small metal badge on his shirt.
They heard someone knocking on the door.
"The Angel?" Aleja asked.
"Probably," the crewman said.
Aleja and the Ensign walked onto the platform and the crewman initialised a delayed transporter beam which gave him enough time to get onto the platform as well. Aleja and the Ensign looked at each other to nod whether they were prepared, and when Aleja looked back to the door, the Angel was standing two meters in front of her.
"How long is the beaming delay?" the Ensign asked.
"We should have been beamed off," the crewman rushed from the platform to the computer consoles. "Automatic beaming has been turned off. I'll beam you down manually."
"But what about you?" Aleja screamed when she noticed the certain look on the crewman's face when he initialised the beaming signal. The next thing Aleja saw was the endless desert she had walked through in order to reach the ship. They were outside, but the crewman was missing. Aleja turned around. Five other people had been beamed down, chatting about what might have happened to the ship and crew. The Ensign walked over to them and Aleja followed, to listen to his explanation as well.
"Oh my God," one of the Ardanans suddenly said and they all turned around. Four Angel statues had left the ship, making their way towards the peripheral wall of Lakertia City.
"We cannot allow them to reach the city," Aleja exclaimed and walked towards the immobile statues. The other Ardanans followed her and also stared at the aliens. Aleja herself felt ridiculous, just staring at something to prevent destruction and invasion. But then she spotted something behind the Angels, something that was walking towards them. It was the Doctor! It had to be. He was the only one wearing a long brown coat in a heat like this. And he was accompanied by two Cardassian men in military uniform. Aleja had never been so happy to see uniformed people.
"What happened?" the Doctor asked when he arrived and his companion briefed him quickly about what she had experienced in the past hours.
"I've heard about these creatures," The Doctor explained. "But on my planet they are a myth. They're called Weeping Angels and they are quantum-locked. It means that they can only move if no one is looking at them. If you do, they are as solid as stone. The story goes that they feed on the energy of the life that you would have lived. They do so by sending you into the past, to a different spot in time and space."
"This would be the reason why Ardanans have appeared on this planet throughout the past few months," Aleja said.
"Exactly. These Angels must be weak, or they would have sent the crewmen further into the past and perhaps even onto different planets."
There was a silence following in which all Cardassians, Ardanans and The Doctor and Aleja together were staring at the Angels which did not move further towards the city.
"What now, Doctor?" One of the Cardassians voiced.
The Doctor sighed. He needed to think. He needed time.
"And how long exactly are we now supposed to stand here and watch these Weeping Angels?" Aleja asked The Doctor.