Disclaimer: see chapter one
a/n: Whew! Almost there...( Thanks for all the great reviews!)
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T'Pol's light swept across the decayed and crumbling city. Odd forms, not quite geometric anymore, not quite organic yet, cast peculiar shadows under the harsh light's scrutiny. The away team quickly fanned out. T'Pol returned to the spot were Malcolm was studying the particular wall he had first found.
"Lieutenant?" she asked softly. He didn't answer but instead brushed away some dirt off the fallen structure before him.
"I've seen this before, but when it wasn't nearly so old..." He frowned, glancing at her, "This used to be relief sculpture." He ran a hand over a chipped irregular patch on the stone-like slab.
T'Pol inclined her head delicately to the side, her eyes tracing over the area he had touched. "It may well have been," she said quietly. "But right now we need your help in locating the Captain and Commander Tucker."
He turned his head, looking over his shoulder at her calm figure. "Of course," he said quickly, rising and walking away. He shivered and fought with a feeling of apprehension; this wasn't how it was supposed to be. He wished he were far, far from this place. He let his light wash over a set of crumbling stairs, and began to try to remember where that building with the wicked spires had been. He climbed over the rubble; nothing looked familiar. It had all been nearly reduced to dust. A hard wind kicked up, ruffling his hair and sending a chilly blast straight through his coat. A soft hiss filled his ears. His legs betrayed him, and he went tumbling down the other side of the rubble pile he'd been scaling.
He recovered rapidly, drawing the weapon that rested on his hip. "Where have you got them?" he growled through clenched teeth.
The hiss formed a chilling laugh.
Malcolm went rigid; he felt the hair on the back of his arms prickle. "Damn it, I know it's you. What have you done with him? Why weren't we both transported?" he asked louder.
A cold whisper sliced through the air. "You don't know who I am."
"The hell I don't!" Malcolm nearly shouted.
"Lieutenant."
Malcolm whipped around; T'Pol was gazing down at him from the pile of flotsam. "Is there someone down there?" Her phaser was drawn.
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Trip's body began to contort, the engineer gasped. Jon tried to hold him still, to keep him from hurting himself. He tried his communicator again. Nothing. A gust of air had blown the door to the small room open.
"What's happening?" he demanded over the rising wind.
No one answered him. Trip groaned. The Captain's attention immediately turned back to him.
"Trip? Trip!" he called loudly.
"No...no...why?" Trip moaned incoherently.
"I'm going to get you out of here."
"No. Leave us alone. Why can't you leave? This is not what we wish..." he made a strange strangling noise. "You're foolish. It is too late." His voice took on an all too familiar cadence with that last statement.
Archer resisted the sudden fear that coursed through him and repelled him from his engineer. It was Trip's voice, but Trip was not speaking. What he heard was the voices of those things.
Trip made a noise of intense suffering and his back arched up off the floor, his face contorted in pain. His body went stiff as a board. The wind seemed to come from all directions, blinding Jon. Crackles and pops of arcing electricity emanated from computer consoles around the room.
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T'Pol signaled the rest of the away team to the hill as she descended it gracefully.
"It's here," Malcolm told her, keeping to himself the doubts he felt about which of the two it had been. However, the detail did not escape T'Pol.
"Do you know which of the two we are dealing with?"
Malcolm shook his head. "I couldn't tell."
"I believe you said that Parialter and Diluculo were quite easy to distinguish from one another."
"Yes, I did. I don't know why it's different now, but I can't say for certain which one was speaking."
"Could you hypothesize?" She spoke it more as an order than a request.
"Parialter," he said reluctantly.
"You believe that It could have destroyed Diluculo?"
"It's doubtful. That is not what I thought would happen," he muttered, "but nothing here seems to happen the way I suppose it should."
The wind suddenly blew with such fierceness, the two officers had to brace themselves against it. There was a soft glow of light off in the distance, it repeated, over and over, like small explosions.
"Wind...is not...a...good sign!" Malcolm yelled over the noise. "Head for the lights!"
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A mist seemed to be gathering in the room. The Captain held Trip down by the arms, his writhing had not ceased. Things continued to explode, and debris was being whipped about the room with alarming speed. Archer leaned protectively over the Commander.
"Yes..." a voice breathed. The mists were becoming thick. They were beginning to take on a form; it gathered and swelled above Trip's prostate body. Jon watched, almost hypnotized by the ever changing shape of the mists gathering before him.
A loosened wire sparked, and tore free of the console to which it had been attached, catching the distracted Captain off guard, and struck him in the temple. He fell to the floor, unconscious.
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The horizon glowed red. The sun was rising. Malcolm felt the gravel crunch under his feet as he ran towards the lights that could still be dimly seen. He had to hurry, a feeling down deep told him everything hung in a very unsteady balance.
There was a brilliant flash from the source of the lights in the distance. The ground trembled violently and the ruins shook and tumbled down. Hot pale sunlight washed over the land as the sun pulled itself up into the colorless sky.
"We've got to get there!" he called back to T'Pol, and froze, astonished by what he saw. A deep narrow gorge had opened up in the ground, separating Malcolm from the away team. T'Pol was helping pull a crewman to safety. She looked across the newly formed canyon at Malcolm.
"Keep going! We will go around!" she called to him. He turned back hesitantly, towards the small structure in the foothills ahead. Darkness seemed to linger about the place, despite the bright rays of dawn. He nodded, with a short wave in the Sub-Commander's direction, and continued on his way at a desperate pace.
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He faltered over the ancient foundation outlining what he could only assume had been the building he had left Trip in. An unnatural darkness seemed to hang in the air around this place, a blackness that the sun's rays didn't seem to be capable of penetrating. He didn't see any sign of the missing pair.
The darkness seemed to have a source. The darkest area looked to be dead center in the crumbling frame around him. He didn't consider heading away from it. This was where he knew they would be. If they were anywhere anymore.
His light did little to cut the dim smokiness around him. Apprehensively, he approached a tumbled down partition that looked to be the axis of these shadows. It was a room, he could see lights flickering through gaping holes in the material. Odd that this should stand while everything else was nearly ground level. Holding his breath without realizing it, he entered.
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The interior was not nearly as dark as it had been outside. He extinguished his light. Electrical panels crackled and sparked; he knew this place, but it looked as though a hurricane had blown through here. He gingerly brushed aside some hanging wires. Part of the roof had collapsed, it was hard to see what was ahead.
"Trip?" he called out. He knew it was a pointless activity, but the overbearing silence was destroying his nerve.
Then, just ahead he made out what appeared to be human form. His teeth clenched and his face tightened, but he took purposeful strides over towards the shape.
"Captain!" he gasped.
The Captain lay face down, a nasty slash across the side of his face bleeding freely. The Lieutenant rolled him onto his back.
He laid three fingers across a spot on the unconscious man's neck.
"Captain, Captain!" Malcolm called, giving his commanding officer a shake to no avail.
That spine-chilling hiss filled the room.
Slowly Malcolm looked up from Archer, and leveled his gaze on the sight before him.
Trip lay rigid a few feet away from him, as pale as death. Malcolm knew the man should be dead, but there was something about him that still looked alive. His eyes were slightly open, they looking glassily upward. And as though following the Commander's unseeing gaze, Malcolm lifted his eyes.
A dark, translucent form hovered in the air. It swayed as though it were a cloud of smoke, rapidly changing from abstract form to abstract form. Malcolm gaped in terror at the frightening beauty of Its freakish appearance.
A cackle filled the room.
"So you see, I'm nearly free of all restraint! No machinery holds my mind captive; my exploration of this world holds no bounds," It proclaimed triumphantly. "Once more I have been made whole, and my mind is free to wander where it will. Soon my form shall be able to as well, now that those two willful ones are again at my mercy." It laughed coldly.
Malcolm looked in horror from Trip to the shape. "Who are you?!" he demanded, all too clearly realizing that this thing was neither Parialter nor Diluculo.
"I am Aetas Ferrius."
Malcolm glanced back down at the Captain, then said, "I though that was Diluculo's name before he became what he is. That is the name your creators gave the program. You no longer exist."
"Really? You think that even now? So those two ignorant fools thought as well. No, Diluculo is not me, It is a part of me, the same as Parialter is a part of it, and therefore a part of me as well. It is more like I am them, then they are me. I was weak in those early days and Diluculo emerged with such passion and vengeance, I all but disappeared. So they believed I was gone, or was in fact Diluculo.
But beliefs are meaningless when groundless. I was there. I was always there. They did not take care to look in the right places. I guided and whispered to them, and they never failed to react to even my slightest of prompts. I controlled them by the power of suggestion.
However, they were growing restless, and even Diluculo's insatiable killing was no longer enough for It. They were changing, and I soon recognized the danger in such a thing if it took place when we were not complete as one. If one of us were quicker then the others, if one were slower, it would surely be our demise; yes, we grow as one or we don't at all.
I've done my best to prevent it, and to stall it until I knew how to rein in the two. Another mind. A most apt mind was all I lacked, until you came."
Malcolm's head was spinning. "How, how is this all possible? Is that the truth? Forgive me for doubting your word, but the last time I was in this city, it was more impressive then a mound of moldering stones! Nothing can be taken at face value, apparently."
"The city you saw, was a city of the past. Just an image, just an illusion."
"What?"
"There are many historical images stored in our database, and it is quite simple to recreate them with the correct technologies."
"Which would be?"
"Holographic technologies, the structures you saw have long since fallen."
It let out a long hiss suddenly, and swelled. Trip's body went limp and his head rolled to one side.
"STOP! You'll kill him!" Malcolm shouted, jumping to his feet. The ever changing misty formation above Trip seemed to falter, and slow.
"No, no, it is too soon, this one, he was too weak to finish this..." It muttered, "...but perhaps the other... no, he was not prepared like this one..." It seemed to argue with Itself. "...there is no time! We have no choice." The eerie form drew Itself up. In a split second, Malcolm realized what was happening.
The shadowy thing dived for Archer.
"NO!" Malcolm cried as he pulled his phaser and threw himself in front of the Captain. He fired.
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T'Pol led the away team into the peculiarly darkened spot of the ancient city. She walked dauntlessly into the thickest section of shadow. Her head suddenly whipped around
"Ensign, did you hear anything?" she asked the man next to her.
He listened, "Yeah, that way, it sounds sort of like..." he thought.
"A weapon being discharged," she finished for him. The ground began to shake.
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Malcolm fired madly. The form let out a low-pitched cry, the room shook, and a bit of crumbling ceiling fell and knocked the phaser from his hand, he cringed as it went skittering across the room.
The lights flickered; Malcolm stared up at the rapidly darkening form of Aetas, frozen in place.
The formerly translucent manifestation went black as jet, and shrank until it was a fist size ball, spinning in mid-air.
The Lieutenant thought he'd gone deaf because of the sudden silence.
But then, in one violent movement, the form exploded back to Its original size, but it didn't stop there; it continued to expand at an incredible rate. Suddenly it grew thin, misty, and with a blinding flash, the thing let out an unbearable wail, and it was gone.
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T'Pol raised her arm protectively, and turned her head to the side. The small remnant of an interior room lit up brilliantly, emanating a light that competed with the sun itself.
She opened her eyes. The sun was shining brightly now, having risen high in the sky. There was no lingering darkness over the ruins.
She made a dash for the standing remnant.
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It was dark. All the panels had gone dim, but giant cracks in the four walls around him provided enough light to move about.
Malcolm scrambled over the newly fallen debris that was flung about.
"Lieutenant!" he heard T'Pol call.
"In here! This way!" he shouted back, and continued to shove a fallen control panel out of the way.
She proceeded into the dim room, and found Malcolm towards the back. He was pulling the Captain out from under a light-weight panel.
"Is he alright?" she asked kneeling beside him. Archer stirred a little.
"Yeah, I think so," Malcolm said, a little out of breath.
"Did you find the Commander?"
Malcolm nodded, "Over there." Trip lay behind a console that had been over-turned. Two blue jackets were laid carefully across his torso.
T'Pol was startled by the whiteness of his skin. His hand felt icy to the touch.
"Is he..."
"No," Malcolm said quickly. "Not yet. But without communications we'll never get back to Enterprise in time," he said gravely.
T'Pol blinked slowly, then asked, not taking her eyes off of the Commander, "And the entities?"
"They're gone," Malcolm said decidedly.
"You are sure?" she asked.
He nodded.
T'Pol flipped open her communicator. "If they are gone, they will no longer be blocking our transmissions," she deduced logically. "T'Pol to Enterprise,"
"Go ahead," came a static voice.
"We have a medical emergency; we need to be transported off the surface."
"Acknowledged."
Malcolm offered her a faint smile as the rest of the away team entered, having finally caught up.
T'Pol's communicator chirped.
"T'Pol."
"We are encountering problems locking onto you down there. It isn't going to be possible to use the transporter. Communications still aren't operating correctly so standby. We're sending a shuttle to you coordinates, it should arrive with in the next fifteen minutes." The voice crackled loudly, fading in and out.
"Acknowledged," T'Pol said.
Malcolm frowned, "He may not have even that much time."
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Outside in the bright light of day, an ensign searched the pallid sky.
"There they are!"he said to another as he pointed to a shining point that had appeared in its vast emptiness.
"Sub-Commander! They're here!" one called back into the ruins.
Not too much time had elapsed. They had moved Trip and Archer outside. Malcolm hoped that the sun would warm the Commander, who was steadily worsening.
The Captain, however, was coming around.
"Captain, Captain Archer," T'Pol called to him.
He flinched, and a moan escaped his lips. Slowly, his eyes opened a crack in the bright sunlight.
"T'Pol? What happened?" he murmured, trying to sit up.
T'Pol pressed his shoulder. "Don't move. We will be returning to Enterprise as soon as the shuttle arrives," she said softly.
He leaned back, his head was throbbing. T'Pol's eyes lit on Malcolm who was by Trip, but too jumpy to remain still. He paced back and forth, occasionally throwing a weary glance over his shoulder.
The shuttle touched down. Trip and Archer were quickly placed aboard.
Malcolm and T'Pol were the last to get on.
As Malcolm waited just behind her a hiss filled his ears. His hair stood on end, his head snapped around. A misty vapor was floating through the ruins.
No, It was gone, he'd killed it. This couldn't be... he shook his head and looked again.
The form had solidified a little more and taken on a strange sort of gait, as though it were no longer floating, the mists formed strange appendages that propelled It forward.
"T'Pol!" Malcolm whispered frantically. "It's here!"
T'Pol whipped around. The ruins were peacefully basking in the sun. No sign of It.
"Are you sure?" she asked looking at him with more concern then he liked.
"Yes! I saw it!" He pointed.
"We should go," she said, climbing quickly into the pod. Malcolm strained his eyes looking across the landscape
Then he saw it. A tail of mist, slinking among the shadows of the demolished city, and a pair of iridescent violet eyes looking directly at him. He felt his heart skip. Soft laughter floated to him on a balmy breeze, not a laugh of the sane.
"Lieutenant! Now!" T'Pol said loudly. He scrambled into the pod.
T'Pol told the pilot to take off, in a voice with less then the normal amount of Vulcan calm.
The shuttle lifted off the planet's surface.
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TBC
a/n: Reviews of all sorts are most welcome! Let me know what you think of it!
And a huge thanks to my Beta for the pointers! I know this was a longer chapter ;)