DISCLAIMER: Star Trek and all related characters are the property of Paramount Pictures, Inc. No copyright infringement is intended. This work of fiction is for entertainment purposes only and no money has changed hands. The original characters and events are the sole property of the author and may not be used without permission.
STAR TREK:
THE GOD MACHINE
by Darrin Colbourne
The flight crew and Montoya stared wordlessly at the object for about a minute before the Science Officer turned to the Pilot and said: "Well, set us down!"
"You need to get strapped back in, Commander." The Pilot said calmly. Montoya complied as quickly as she could manage. As she did, the Pilot looked for a level patch of land in the valley to land on, locating one about sixty yards from the black pyramid.
Montoya had barely got her harness back on by the time the Pilot began his landing approach. Later, the ship had barely stopped moving when she removed it again. "Lower the boarding ramp!" She called out as she stood and got ready to go down to the cargo level.
"Belay that!" McDonald called out a second later. When Montoya turned to confront her, she said calmly, "You have a Landing Party to prepare, Commander."
Chastened, Montoya nodded to her and then said to the others. "Come with me, everyone."
On cue, the rest of the party stood and followed Montoya down to the cargo level. Montoya went immediately to the case the technicians had brought aboard at the last minute. "We'll start with these." She said as she knelt down and opened it. "We'll take preliminary readings on the object and the surrounding area, then break out the heavy survey equipment." She started handing out the bulky, palm-computer-sized objects in the case to the researchers.
"What are those?" Song asked Goren as the engineer took one.
"Triple-source Data Recorders." Goren said. "Modified civilian versions of the wrist-scanners the Special Forces guys wear."
"Mouthful of a name." Song said.
"We call 'em 'Tri-corders' for short." Goren said. "They're capable of scanning across the entire EM spectrum, plus they've got a significant SONAR capability, as well as good-ol'-fashioned digital cameras."
He handed the device to the Lander, who examined it curiously. The device was black and sported a small display screen, a smaller touch-pad control console and a few small "Billboard"-style scanning antennae. Song handed the thing back with a raise of his eyebrow and a nod.
Montoya broke out the radios next. They were small, silver, voice-controlled transceivers capable of real-time, line-of-sight communication out to a range of one light-second. Montoya took one for herself and gave one each to everyone else.
Then it was time for the weapons. "We have two types of weapons." She said as she opened the cases.
When she saw the Phasers, Flores said, "Flashlights? Flashlights are weapons?"
Song took the cue and explained what the Phasers could do, then Montoya instructed the Landing Party members to take the weapon of their choice. She wasn't surprised when Song and McDonald took Childress particle weapons and when most of the researchers, including herself, took Phasers. Her only surprise came when she saw Goren take a Childress.
"No offense, Boss," he said when she looked at him, "but if it comes to actually using these things, I don't want my target getting back up."
"Toldja." Song said to her. Montoya just shook her head as she opened the ammunition cases. Everyone loaded their weapons with power packs and Song gave everyone a quick and dirty refresher course on the weapons' operation. Once that was done Song passed out holsters. Each Childress came with a standard holster that clipped to the uniform belt, while the Phasers came with sheathe holsters that strapped to the leg.
The last thing to do was break out the jackets and caps. Montoya was surprised how plain the jackets were. They were simple black, lined windbreakers with "Starfleet" stenciled in bold white letters on the back. The caps were more elaborate, sporting Enterprise's name, registry number and silhouette in gold on black.
Finally, after everyone was equipped, Montoya held out her arms and presented herself to McDonald for inspection. McDonald smirked and reached for the comm panel. "Lower the boarding ramp." she said when she keyed the cockpit circuit.
"Thank you." Montoya said to her as the ramp started to come down, then she set herself to disembark as soon as it touched the ground. Seconds later she was walking on alien soil and taking her first close look at the landing zone.
Except for the slight carbon smell to the air, the valley might have been taken as a piece from any mountain region in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. The ground was sparsely covered with patches of grass, while bare trees dotted the surrounding mountains. There was a slight snow cover on the peaks, but none that she could see on the ground nearby. McDonald had been right about the weather. There was a persistent breeze that blew loose strands of her hair and kissed her cheek with the cool temperature. The purplish twilight sky lent an unreal air to the view.
And in the center of it all, off to the left of the ship, was the strange black pyramid. It sat near the center of the valley, tall, silent and foreboding.
Montoya headed off in that direction, barely registering the others as they followed her out of the ship. "What do you want us to do?" Flores called after her.
"I want you, Ben and Jim to help me study the pyramid." Montoya called back. "Have Parminder and Cole study the surrounding area for signs of intelligent life, recent or otherwise."
As Goren and Greenfield trotted off to join her and Flores got the research technicians working, McDonald called out to Montoya: "Shouldn't we establish some kind of defensive perimeter?"
"That's all right, Number One." Song said. "We can handle that."
McDonald looked at him, then shook her head and sighed. "There was a time when my opinion counted for something."
"It still counts," Song said, watching Montoya's receding back. "I just don't think she's hearing you right now." With that he drew his weapon, removed the safety and headed off toward the far end of the valley. McDonald, for want of a better course of action, followed the scientists.
Montoya was halfway to the pyramid by the time the others caught up with her. She was taking in the detail of the object with every step. It was indeed twenty feet tall, and colored a such a deep black that it almost looked like a hole in reality. Now that she was close enough she could tell that the gold markings were some sort of glyphs. There were three on the side she could see, stacked top to bottom. "Jim," She said, "can you make any of those out?"
Greenfield strained to get a better look. "I'd have to get closer to be sure…but honestly, Isabel, from here they look like somebody with aphasia tried to write something in Japanese. It doesn't correspond to anything I'd recognize. It's gibberish to me."
"They look like they're being projected onto the surface," Flores said as they got closer still, "but I don't see any obvious projection sources."
"Think they're being lit up from under the surface?" Montoya asked Goren.
"Could be." Goren said. "We should be able to tell for sure once we're closer, but let me just take a quick scan." He turned on his tri-corder and pointed it at the pyramid. After a few seconds of scanning, he muttered: "Okay…wow."
"What's up?" Flores said.
"I'm not detecting anything."
"You mean you can't find a projection source?" Montoya said.
"I mean I can't find anything. Or the tri-corder can't find anything, at any rate. I'm detecting the magnetic distortion it's causing, strong as ever, but nothing involving the source itself. Materials scan, infrared scan…everything comes back 'Not Enough Data'. Even the camera image shows a triangle-shaped blur where the object's supposed to be."
That made the others take out their tri-corders and begin scanning. The other tri-corders yielded the same results. The four scientists stopped short for a moment and just stared at their respective displays, then they looked at each other, and then back at the pyramid before resuming their approach. They stopped for good around a meter from the base of the construct, then began scanning anew. As they tried to make sense of the scans they spread out around the pyramid, each person taking a side. Then, as if on instinct, they all began to circle the construct in a clockwise direction.
It was this sight that greeted McDonald as she finally caught up with the group. She stopped short a few meters away, just taking it all in. She stifled a small chuckle, then forced a serious look onto her face. Still, she couldn't help but poke fun. "Have we discovered a sort of Cosmic Maypole then?" She called out, then resumed her approach. As she got closer she could see Flores glaring at her and muttering under her breath just a moment before turning her attention back to her tri-corder.
"We're not sure what we've discovered." Montoya answered as she rounded a corner and came into view. "These scanners are apparently not up to the task of working that out." She turned off the tri-corder in frustration, crossed her arms and just stared at the first set of glyphs. When McDonald was standing next to her, Montoya said: "Symbols like these are on each side of the pyramid. There's no way to tell what they stand for, or even if they stand for anything at all. They could be graffiti for all we know. We'll just have to set up some of the dedicated scanning equipment we brought with us and hope to have better luck."
"And should that dedicated equipment also fail?" McDonald asked as the others gathered around.
Montoya shrugged. "We could always just turn all of Enterprise's sensors on it…"
"I see. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we are assuming that this device represents - what did you call them? - The 'Warp-Futzers', yes?"
"We are."
"The very same beings who tossed Enterprise across space not once but three times, and then slapped her on the wrist for daring to interfere in these people's Mutual Assured Destruction?"
"The very same."
"Ah. And just what do you suppose they'll do if we park Enterprise in synchronous orbit over it and use her to start picking it apart electromagnetically?"
"I have no idea," Montoya said, frustration in her voice, "and I'm tired of having no idea."
McDonald regarded her for a moment, then looked back at the pyramid. "Ah-hum." She said, then looked back at Montoya. "Very Well. I will be over there." She pointed to a spot past the pyramid. "You just let me know if you need anything." Then she walked away, shaking her head.
Flores put a hand on Montoya's shoulder. "Don't let her get to you, Belle."
"And don't let this get to you either." Greenfield said, gesturing to the pyramid. "There's always an answer. We just have to find it."
Montoya found little comfort in her colleagues' words. What was it that the Captain said? Sometimes answers can be wrong. What if all their work yielded nothing more than the wrong answer?
Still, they had to try. "Let's get the rest of our stuff set up." Montoya said. Goren nodded and then headed back to the transport.
With the Executive Officer and Science Officer both down on the planet, Captain Pike had assumed the Evening Watch and Commander Adams had opted to join him. The Captain sat comfortably in the command chair - at least, he looked comfortable. There was actually a storm brewing behind his steely gaze as he stared at the planet on the main viewer. He'd come to a point where he wanted to know what was going on as much as Montoya, so much so that he was tempted to bring the Enterprise over the target area and start pinging away with the Main Sensor on his own initiative. He restrained himself for several reasons, not the least of which was that the energy of the scans would parboil any unprotected members of the Landing Party.
"New Contacts!" The Sensor Officer called out. "Two small airborne contacts ascending from the base we designated Four Charlie."
"Looks like somebody's got their Air Force up and running again." Pike grumbled. It had only been a matter of time. "Course and speed?"
"They're accelerating through transonic speeds now, heading…Sir, they're inbound the Landing Party's position."
Pike blanched, letting his mask of calm slip for just a second. He recovered quickly and turned to the Comm Officer. "Send Rider One! I want a close-up ID of what those things are!"
"Rider One, Prize." Silas heard in her ear. "VID Bogeys One and Two, bearing Due South your position, heading Due North, Angels 30 and climbing, speed One-Four-Eight-Zero knots."
"Copy that, Prize." Silas said as she turned her ship South and accelerated. "VID Bogey One and Bogey Two. Moving to identify. Out." Then to her WSO: "Ready to take some pictures, Pete?"
"Optical system is up and running." Pete said. "I just need some birds to watch."
"Coming right up." Silas said. The "birds" in question were currently climbing through 30,000 feet and doing Mach 2, but it wouldn't be hard for Silas to intercept them. The Cavalier's top speed would make it seem as if the "Bogeys" were standing still, and since the optical system was engineered to operate at the Cavalier's pace, the extreme velocities involved in the fly-by wouldn't distort the image. It was only a matter of seconds before the paths of the three flying objects intersected, then Silas simply continued on around the globe, returning to her patrol area from the opposite direction.
"Okay," Pete said, "we got a couple of local Fast-Movers, low-observable airframes, vectored thrust engines, probably running balls-to-the-wall, speed-wise."
"Loadout?" Silas asked.
"No visible armament, but that could just mean they carry it internally."
"Could be. And they're headed for the LZ?"
"Right for it. At their current course and speed they'll pass over the Western end of the valley in about forty-eight minutes."
"Okay, Best Case Scenario, somebody just wants a looksee at the LZ. Worst Case Scenario…"
"Uh, CAG? A couple of hours ago these people were lobbing nukes at each other. Which do you think is the safer bet?"
No one could see Silas grimace under her breathing mask. "Good point." She said, then switched to external comms. "Prize, Rider One, VID Bogeys One and Two as Hostile Air inbound the LZ, loadout unknown. Request permission to intercept." It would be a short fight. The Cavalier had an outlandish speed advantage and its laser would incinerate the targets in microseconds.
"Captain, Rider One has identified the aircraft as hostile and is requesting permission to engage." The Communications Officer reported.
Pike hesitated. He found himself fighting his gut instinct, which was to give that permission. The problem was that every action the Enterprise had taken since coming to this system had been responded to in kind. While trying to Warp in, she was thrown away at Warp. After stopping a War with an EMP, she was disabled with an EMP. Rider One might easily dispatch the two aircraft, but the object the Landing Party was currently investigating might retaliate by splashing the Cavalier and/or blasting Enterprise out of space, doing no one any good. Still, without knowing exactly what the aircraft were going to do it would be foolish to let them get near the Landing Party, but what could he do if he couldn't just shoot them down?
As soon as he asked himself the question, the answer had become obvious. "Tell Rider One to hold fire and stay on station, then patch me through to the Landing Party."
Montoya had been going over the data provided by the research technicians as Goren supervised the setting up of the heavy equipment. It turned out that the valley had only been scarcely visited until about a month or two before, and then had been heavily trampled on, especially near the pyramid. The information actually answered several of her questions, but the most important ones remained unanswered, and Montoya was sure that would remain the case until they cracked the mystery of the pyramid.
She was contemplating the object when a voice sounded from the radio in her pocket: "Enterprise to Commander Montoya."
Montoya pulled out the radio, found and pressed the push-to-talk contact and spoke into the mike. "This is Montoya. Go ahead."
Captain Pike came on next. "Commander, your deadline just got pushed up. You've got twenty minutes to do whatever you need to do and then get back up here."
"But, Captain, we just started setting up our scanning instruments around the pyramid…"
"Pyramid?"
"It's the thing that has been causing us so many problems, and we've run into a snag trying to figure it out. We need more time. It will take at least ten minutes to set up our equipment and get everything running, and I doubt seriously that we'll find out what we need to know…"
"Commander, right now there are two tactical aircraft headed right for you. We don't know what their purpose is, but it's a safe bet that they're not coming in peace. We expect them to be over the landing zone in a little over forty-five minutes, so I want you out of there and underway long before they arrive."
"Well, can't you stop them somehow?"
"I can shoot them down. How do you think your new friends would take that, given what we've seen them do already?"
"I honestly don't know…"
"And neither do I, which is why, in this case, discretion is most definitely the better part of valor."
"But you said they wouldn't be here for forty-five minutes! Surely, you can give us forty to…"
"Montoya, I don't want them to see you at all when they arrive, not prepping for lift-off, not lifting off…I want them to reach that area and see nothing that has to do with us, understand? So you will be 'wheels up' in twenty minutes, even if I have to order Major Song to cold-cock you and toss you into the loading bay. Are we clear?"
Montoya frowned. "Perfectly, Sir."
"I'll be seeing you soon, then. Pike out."
Montoya resisted the urge to toss the radio away in anger. How did I let myself get talked into this? She wondered. Then she remembered: Dr. Narain had convinced her that she would have some autonomy, that the scientific part of the mission was hers to control and that the Captain would defer to her on such matters, yet it seemed that Pike was determined to treat this project as just another war patrol and make decisions accordingly. And here she was obeying him like a good little Able Crewman, under threat of the lash. It was suddenly very clear to her. She couldn't do this for five whole years, couldn't have every attempt to study something disrupted on some martial whim. She'd have to resign her commission and go home, and just admit to Dr. Narain that she couldn't handle it.
But that task was for later. Right now she had an alien object that defied analysis and less than twenty minutes to figure it out. She expected never to get another chance at it, so whatever she came up with had to yield a wealth of information in a short amount of time, and as she came to that conclusion she realized that even if all the heavy scanners were up and running right now, they wouldn't tell her what she wanted to know. Powerful as they were, they worked on the same principles as the tri-corders, which had seen nothing. It was apparent that while electronic devices could see the effect the object was having on the rest of the universe, they wouldn't see the pyramid itself. But Montoya and the others could see it clearly…and maybe that was the point.
She walked toward the pyramid, passing through the perimeter being formed with the scanners. Goren's eye followed her as she came to within about arm's length of the object. She stood there for a moment, just staring, then she started to reach out to it.
"WhoaWhoaWhoa!" Goren said as he rushed over to her, startling her into pulling her hand back. "Not a good idea, Boss!"
Flores came over when she heard Goren. "What's wrong?" She said.
"I was just about to touch it." Montoya said.
"Have we learned nothing from 2001?" Goren said.
Montoya and Flores traded a confused look, then looked at Goren. "What about 2001?" Montoya said.
"Yeah, what happened back then?" Flores asked.
"Not the year 2001," Goren said, "I mean 2001: A Space Odyssey." He got blank stares in response. "Classic sci-fi story? Book by Arthur Clarke, Movie by Stanley Kubrik?" More blank stares. "Whatever…the moral of the story is human beings touching big, black, alien objects can only lead to no good."
Flores and Montoya traded exasperated looks, then turned back to Goren. "Ben, we're not going to learn anything with the scanning equipment." Montoya said. "All it's going to see is the environment around the pyramid. Obviously, one of its functions is to hide itself from electronic sensing systems, but we can see it, plain as day, so it's not hiding itself from our natural senses. Now, it's not making any noise and it's not giving off any odors, so that leaves two, and the most logical one to try next is Touch." And with that Montoya turned back to the pyramid and reached out, placing a palm flat against the surface.
And the next moment, everything was gone.
Montoya found herself standing at one corner of a flat black square about the size of the base of the pyramid. The square was surrounded on all sides by what looked like high-energy plasma, though it wasn't giving off any kind of heat. In fact, it felt cooler wherever she was at the moment than it had been in the valley on Indira Four. She started to pace, trying to get her bearings, but found as she walked that her footfalls made no sound against the surface of the square. She stopped in the center, unnerved at the lack of noise and wondering if Goren had been right to worry. She was sure he was right when she suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and felt like she was being watched. She spun around and came face to face with…herself.
At first glance the figure standing before her seemed to be a perfect replica, same face, same build, same clothing, but closer inspection revealed that the doppelganger was an imperfect one. The most immediate sign of this was the way the clothes fit. The Work Blue shirt and slacks and boots and jacket and cap all seemed to blend together with each other and the doppelganger's body, as if whoever created it didn't know which parts were Montoya and which were simply coverings. The most disturbing difference was that there were shiny black orbs where her bright, hazel eyes should have been.
Slowly, deliberately, Montoya pulled out her tri-corder and pointed it at the doppelganger, who regarded the device curiously. Montoya turned it on, scanned for a moment and looked at the display. She was only mildly surprised when all that she could see was a true reflection of herself.
"Okay," she muttered, "I should have seen that coming." She only barely registered how detached her voice sounded as she put the tri-corder away. Then she looked back at the doppelganger and thought aloud: "All right, so only with my natural senses."
She reached out tentatively, moving to touch the doppelganger's face. Her fingers brushed lightly against the construct's cheek. What Montoya felt wasn't skin. It wasn't anything. It felt to her as if her fingertips were pressing against sheer force, with no recognizable pattern to it other than its shape. Montoya ran her hand along the jawbone all the way to the chin and used that to lift the doppelganger's head slightly, then examined its features closely. She smiled a little, marveling at how close the doppelganger's creators got to replicating her. Satisfied, Montoya slowly withdrew her hand and the doppelganger went back to looking her in the eye. A moment later the doppelganger's hand came up, and Montoya was prepared for it to examine her the way she had examined it. The doppelganger's fingertips came all the way up to Montoya's forehead, and Montoya had the brief sensation of that same unrecognizable force brushing against the skin above her eyebrows…
…then there was nothing but pain as that same force slashed into her mind, and she screamed as it filled her head with thousands of images of destruction! The assault was brutal and unrelenting, and it felt as if time had stopped as she succumbed to it! Ultimately her mind couldn't take anymore and she began to black out. Her last sensation was that of her knees buckling under her…
"Belle!" Wendy Flores's voice called out, and then Montoya felt arms grabbing her from both sides, keeping her from collapsing on the ground. Instead they helped her to her knees and kept her propped up as she shook off the effects of the contact. She moaned as residual images and pain coursed through her skull.
Commander McDonald and Jim Greenfield came running up and saw Flores and Ben Goren supporting Montoya. "What happened?" Greenfield said.
"I don't know! She just touched that thing and screamed and then went down!" Flores said.
"That's one 'I told you so' I owe you, Boss." Goren said to Montoya.
"Ben, would you shut up!" Flores said.
"All right, all right," Number One said, trying to keep everyone calm. She reached out and lifted Montoya's head by the chin and looked her over. "Can you hear me, Commander?" She asked.
McDonald's voice helped her to clear her head, but not enough to answer coherently. Her response was a low mumble.
"It's like she's been shot with a Phaser. You say this happened when she touched the pyramid?"
"Just after." Goren said.
"Well, what made her do it in the first place?"
"She said the scanners wouldn't work and figured she had to try that."
"Maybe the thing is booby-trapped somehow. Flores, where exactly did she touch it?"
"Right there!" Flores said, turning to point, then her hand dropped slowly as her eyes went wide.
McDonald saw the look on her face. "What is it?" She said as she turned to look where Flores was looking.
"Jim," Flores said, her voice low, "did those symbols change?"
Hearing that brought Montoya almost all the way back to alertness. She fought hard through the fuzziness so she could hear Greenfield's answer.
"They did." He said, then he walked around the pyramid. When he came back, he said: "They've all changed!"
That did it for Montoya. "We need to go…"
Everyone turned to her at the sound of the weak voice. "Relax, Boss." Goren said. "We've got plenty of time."
Montoya ignored him and turned to McDonald, then she mustered as much strength as she could. "We…must get off this planet…!" Her voice cracked.
McDonald looked into her eyes for a moment, then began giving orders. "Mister Goren, Mister Flores, help her back into the transport. There should be a First Aid kit in the loading bay. Mister Greenfield, I want you and your people to start getting your equipment back inside! Don't waste energy being neat! Anything that's not back aboard in three minutes gets left behind!" She stood as the researchers moved to carry out her orders and pulled out her radio. "McDonald to Song."
"Song here." The Major responded from his post.
"Come in. We're leaving"
"Copy that. Out." Song said, then double-timed it back to the transport.
With the Landing Party in hand, McDonald switched frequencies. "McDonald to Enterprise. Landing Party is Returning to Base. Repeat: Landing Party Returning to Base."
"Sir, Landing Party is returning to base." The Communications Officer said.
"I guess they found something." Adams said.
"If Montoya found something," Pike said as he checked his watch, "why are they coming back?"
"Maybe she's eager to show it to you?"
"Riiight." Pike said as he glanced back at the Engineer, then he turned back to the main viewer. "Battle Stations!"
The lights in control went red and the alert klaxon sounded. "Load tubes with Mark 24s!" Pike called out. This time he intended to be ready in case the pyramid-whatever had any other tricks up its sleeve. The Mark 24 torpedo was a multi-megaton nuke mated to a smallcraft Space Warp Engine. Five seconds after it left the tube, it would enter Warp and reenter normal space in the center of the target. No defense in normal space could stop it. There was no need to maneuver or overwhelm the target with weapons. It was a relatively new weapon in Starfleet's arsenal, but Jellico had managed to acquire enough of them to equip each of his ships with ten. Pike was ready to use two of his most powerful weapons against the device, regardless of the potential consequences.
McDonald stood by the loading ramp and watched as Greenfield and the research assistants ran all of their equipment back into the transport, sparing a glance every now and again at the pyramid, which seemed to do nothing but sit idly and display its symbols. She couldn't understand what about it had spooked Montoya enough to want to rush their departure, but she was secretly glad of it. Few things in her career had made her jumpier than this system had and she wanted to move on. She would have preferred to go back home and take on a saner mission - like facing Klingons in hand-to-hand combat - but she would settle for the next system.
Greenfield stopped in front of her to report. "That's the last of it. We've got everything inside."
McDonald gestured inside the transport. "Let's go. Secure everything as best you can before we lift-off." With that they both boarded the transport and McDonald got on the comm. "We're aboard. Button up and get airborne." She waited a second until the boarding ramp started to come up, then made her way to the passenger area. There she found Flores, Goren and Song clustered around Montoya, who was strapped into a seat and resting with her head back and eyes closed.
Flores had broken out the First Aid kit and was using the scanners inside to monitor Montoya's vitals. "She'll be fine." Flores said as McDonald came over. "It's like you said. Whatever happened stunned her, but there's no sign of external trauma."
McDonald nodded and then addressed Montoya. "How are you doing, Commander?"
Montoya didn't open her eyes, but her voice was stronger when she answered: "Better. We have to get underway as soon as the smallcraft are back aboard."
McDonald's response was halted by the sensation of upward movement as the transport lifted off. She made her way to the cockpit and stuck her head in. "Better get everyone settled in back there, Number One." The pilot said. "I assume we're in a hurry, so we're gonna be standing on our tail in a couple seconds."
"Very Well." McDonald said. "When we're in orbit advise the ship to have a medical team standing by in the Flight Bay and that the Science Officer recommends we get underway as soon as all craft are recovered."
"Aye Aye, Sir." The pilot said as McDonald went back to get everyone organized.
"Sir," the Communications Officer said, "Hauler One is 'Feet Cold' and both Hauler One and Rider One are Returning to Base. Hauler One advises we need a med team standing by in the Flight Bay and that the Science Officer recommends we depart once all craft are recovered."
"Any indication why," Pike said, "or how fast we need to depart?"
"No word on that, Sir. Just that we need to depart."
"Well, let's hope a good run'll do it. Recall the tactical probe and get a med team to the bay. Helm, bring us up forty-five degrees and prepare for Flank Speed on my mark…"
Streaking above Indira Four, the pilots of the two fighters heading for Celestial Valley were informed that the unidentified craft they were sent to investigate had lifted off - or at least, had seemed to. The high-powered tracking systems that had been used to track it since it entered the atmosphere were still unreliable, thanks to lingering damage from the mysterious electromagnetic pulse that had struck the entire planet, so none of their operators could trust the data. That meant the pilots' mission had been altered, from identification of the object to confirmation of the sensor data. For the moment that didn't require changing the mission profile, so they were maintaining course and speed.
And in the valley, the symbols on the pyramid changed one more time…
Hauler One was the first through the airlock and into the Flight Deck, then Rider One, and finally the spare tactical probe that had been launched when the Landing Party was on the surface was drawn in on remote control. The second he got confirmation that the airlock hatches were shut, Pike gave the order: "Ahead Flank! Deflectors Full Intensity! Steady on this bearing!"
"Ahead Flank, Aye!" The helmsman said as he fire-walled the Sub-light throttle, driving the power output of the engines into the red and cueing the thrust vents to expand to accommodate the extra heat and force of the exhaust. Enterprise flashed out of orbit at a little over 100,000 kps, grazing the upper atmosphere of Indira Four on her way out of the ecliptic plane. "Answers Ahead Flank! Deflectors Full Intensity!"
"Departure angle!" Pike ordered. He wanted to see how quickly they put distance between themselves and Indira Four. The helmsman complied, switching the view on the main screen from forward to aft. The planet was already a small dot in the starfield and it was continuing to shrink to nothingness. Soon it was followed by Indira itself, and just as the star returned to being a slightly brighter point of light in a view full of bright points of light, Pike noticed a brief, bright flare of light where the fourth planet would have been.
"Sir," The Sensor Officer piped up, "Rackets on the gravimeter and magnetometer, bearing 180 by 185. Something on or around Indira Four just created a major distortion in the cosmic background."
Pike let that sink in a moment, then said, "Stop Engines, yaw left to one-eight-zero, Slow to Ahead Cruise. Bring the main sensors to bear on Indira Four."
The helmsman and Sensor Officer complied, and it was only a few seconds before the scans yielded results. "Data's coming up now, Captain." The Sensor Officer said.
Pike turned to look at the stations repeater screen and saw the images from the optical sensor. "My God…" he breathed.