Aeryn Alexander
Part Two:
~
Information is power. It was a tired old
truism the day before yesterday. No one would deny it, but the importance
of knowledge was often sadly understated. If nothing else has come of the
mission to Gamma Alpha V, then we have all learned that information about
a situation is important. The lesson was taught to us at too great of a
cost. The people of Gamma Alpha V were not all at war. It was mere chance
that took the away team to a battle field. They could have landed in a
thousand peaceful places on that planet. But they did not. It is tempting
to place the blame on the human tendency to leap and then look, or worse,
upon faulty reconnaissance. It was both, and it was neither.
Our sensors did not register the artillery
fire because it was so sporadic and so small, so light in the early morning
hours. It was not a war of global destruction or planetary conquest. It
was a very small war into which these officers unwittingly walked. It was
vaguely comparable to the Franco-Prussian War on Earth. It was a regional
conflict, not a world war. In any case, if only we had known.
The away team had ducked into an abandoned
house with two rooms: a bedroom and a common room. It was shabbily decorated
and dusty, but the windows were boarded up and they felt safe there. The
crash of artillery shells seemed to growing closer, but at least the sound
of fleeing and fearful people had grown quieter. Their screams were many
times more disquieting than the falling shells, although Hoshi closed her
eyes every time one passed over head and exploded somewhere closer to the
city center. Malcolm sat crouched near the front door that led to the street.
Trip was maintaining a guard at the rear exit, which led to a small and
untidy alley. Hoshi and Phlox sat behind a couch, which reduced some of
the noise.
Hoshi clutched a communicator as she sat on
the dusty floor with her knees drawn up. The artillery shells were interfering
with communications. She couldn't get through to the Enterprise. The bombing
was too consistent by then to be able to find a window of opportunity,
but she was waiting for one, just in case. But even so, what would she
tell Captain Archer? She went over the words in her mind, but they were
too incredible to contemplate saying aloud.
"Captain, we're pinned down. We need reinforcements."
"Pinned down by what, sir? By artillery fire!" It was all too incredible,
almost inconceivable, but then she opened her eyes and there they were.
Malcolm was studying a tricorder, perhaps
attempting to discern the pattern of the bombing as he guarded the doorway.
He squinted at the readings and felt a shiver.
"Troops." he muttered, watching blimps of
bio-signs moving in formation through the city. They were not faraway,
but they were coming from the northwest. The away team had been lucky.
The troops could have easily overtaken them outside the city. "At least
we have cover here. Maybe we can wait this thing out." he thought grimly
to himself.
"Do you hear that?" Hoshi asked no one in
particular a few minutes later.
"What is it, ensign?" asked Phlox when neither
Tucker nor Reed answered.
"Marching." she said quietly.
It was the sound of hundreds of marching feet
upon the main thoroughfare of the city. A conquering army of soldiers was
moving through the cobbled streets. Their feet, their boots made a heavy,
rhythmic sound upon the stones. It was unsettling and drawing nearer.
Malcolm peered through a crack in the wooden
door and watched the first few ranks pass, motioning to his companions
for silence. They were humanoid and unremarkable. They marched as troops
march upon many worlds, as troops once marched upon Lieutenant Reed's own
world. They were arrayed in splendid uniforms of dark green. A few were
soot streaked or splotched with blood, but they all held their heads high
as they marched in rank and file, unaccompanied by any music, save the
sound of their own feet. Each soldier carried a rifle, or an analogous
weapon, against his shoulder.
Malcolm studied their proud, stern faces and
felt a feeling of militaristic kinship rise in his blood. He shook his
head, reminding himself that the days of marching and conquering humans
were behind him, behind his species. Those days were gone and for the best.
Humans had no cause to march to war any longer. And with any luck and a
few centuries, these people would find war unnecessary and distasteful
too.
Then, after many rows of soldiers had passed
by their hiding place, a loud voice called out upon the wind and the marching
ceased. The soldiers just stood there, waiting. Malcolm backed away from
the doorway, suddenly worried that they would be discovered.
Hoshi looked very afraid as she pulled out
her universal translator and sat near the door with Malcolm. A distant
voice could be heard speaking, giving out orders to his soldiers. Hoshi
knew it was very important to understand what was being said. It was all
a jumble for several minutes, but then something made sense.
"I want every house, business, and building
in this sector searched. I won't have an ambush from behind ever again.
If you find anyone, shoot them in the head and then shoot them again. Is
that clear?" yelled the voice.
The reply was a loud and brazen, "Yes, sir!"
and nothing more.
"What do we do now?" asked Hoshi very softly.
~
The crewman at the communications station
realized that the Enterprise had lost contact with the away team just a
few minutes after eleven in the morning. He attributed it to 'atmospheric
disturbances' and no one checked to see what these disturbances were. If
we had known that the away team was in danger, we could not have done anything
meaningful to help them, but at least we would have known. In a worst case
scenario we could have tried to lock onto them and beam them up and out
one at a time. It may not have worked, but it would have been an option.
It is always best to have options.
It should be perhaps pointed out that these
officers were and are some of the most capable on the ship and in all of
Star Fleet. They were the most likely to make the best of a bad situation,
but I cannot help but to wonder what they were thinking as they sat in
that two room shack, knowing that they were no longer safe and having nowhere
they could go where their safety was guaranteed. Of course, there are never
any guarantees, not even aboard a star ship or back home. But their best
bet for safety was a shuttlepod that laid almost seven kilometers behind
enemy lines. It was a clearly unenviable position, even for good officers.
"Out the back way. It's now or never." said
Malcolm, his face turning hard like stone. He tucked the tricorder away
and they moved into the back room as quietly as they could.
They slipped into the alley and took their
best guess at the best way out of the city and back to their shuttlepod
in the forest. Suddenly the air was alive with propulsion weapons fire,
with gun fire. Malcolm drew his phase pistol and glanced behind him as
he fired at a group of soldiers who were giving chase. Tucker, who had
been in the lead, fell back as they continued to run. He discharged his
pistol as well, hoping to drive back the opposition and ensure their escape.
The soldiers, and there were almost a dozen
of them on their tail by the time they had gone five blocks from their
hiding place, were light on their feet and undaunted by the technological
disadvantage they faced. If they had been bred to be soldiers, Malcolm
Reed would not have been surprised. In the course of the action, Trip was
nicked in the shoulder by a round of fire.
"Son of a ...!" yelled Commander Tucker as
they continued to run. Their opponents were falling back slightly, but
giving no sign that they were ready to give up the chase.
"I think they are trying to flank us." announced
Malcolm as they took momentary shelter behind a small building.
"Someone has to draw them off then, or they'll
surround us." said Trip, understanding the point that Malcolm was making.
"It's my job, so I'll do it, commander, but
can you get the shuttle into orbit and back to the Enterprise?"
"You've got to be kidding me!" said Tucker.
"I'm already wounded. I'll do it. You've got to get Hoshi and the doc back
home."
"There is no use arguing. You are both right.
Give me your weapon, commander. You won't be able to use it soon anyway."
said Phlox.
Both men turned and looked at him. He was
serious. He had never looked so serious before. He held out his hand to
Trip, indicating that he wanted the phase pistol.
"But, doc ..." began Tucker.
"You three have your careers ahead of you.
You have long lives to live. I can draw them off just as well as either
of you."
Tucker handed him the phase pistol and said,
"Good luck, doc." He resisted the urge to clap the Denobulan on the shoulder
and told Malcolm and Hoshi, "If we want to get out of here alive, we'd
best go now."
Hoshi's cheeks were wet with tears as they
ran through the maze of alleys toward the outskirts of the city. The sound
of gun fire had faded from their hearing, but it had gone on for a long
time. Malcolm and Trip, who clutched his bleeding shoulder, looked haunted
and grim as they ran, throwing one foot in front of the other and trying
only to think about what was in front of them and not behind. All they
could do was run swiftly and surely over the hills and into the forest
to the safety of the shuttlepod that would take them back to the Enterprise
with one less passenger.
~
"He's dead." said Ensign Cutler aloud to herself
as she laid the data pad on her bunk and held her head in her hands. Her
shoulders shook with silent sobs for several minutes.
She had made many friends aboard the Enterprise,
but none were so dear to her as Dr. Phlox. She wanted to tell herself that
he had died bravely in an unrivaled act of self-sacrifice, but she couldn't
formulate the thought. The grief was too great for that. It was too soon.
Someday she would appreciate what Phlox had done, she would understand
the necessity, and she would be proud to have known him. She would even
come to appreciate the generosity of the captain allowing her read the
report before anyone but the away team knew what had happened. She had
been treated almost as a next-of-kin or as his best friend. But that night
the pain of loss was too great for any other thought or emotion to find
its way in.
"Why you?" she asked, sobbing, and knowing
the answer.
~
When the time came, someone had to make
the sacrifice. The choice had been his choice. Phlox had died to save three
of his fellow crew members. The sacrifice was not in vain.