Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
Charles de Gaulle
His head pounding as it never had before and his vision blurred, Captain Kirk rose shakily to his feet. Around him, the rest of the landing party was doing much the same thing—at least, Kirk corrected himself with alarm, those of them that were still there.
Scowling, Kirk did a quick headcount of his fellow officers, then counted again. Six, including himself. All but one of the security officers were simply gone.
"Um, is everyone okay?" he asked weakly, all too aware that this was something of a stupid question when a dozen people had just vanished into thin air.
"Jim, what's going on?" demanded Doctor McCoy. "Something go wrong with the transporter?"
Kirk shrugged helplessly, then dug his communicator out of his pocket and flipped it open. "Let's see if the other end knows anything. Scotty?"
From the device came nothing but a flat buzzing tone. Biting back a curse, Kirk snapped it shut.
"What…what is this place?" said Sulu in a tone of quiet awe, staring dumbfoundedly up into the sky.
He had good reason to wonder, Kirk conceded as he began to survey their surroundings. The six of them were standing in an expansive metallic courtyard of some kind beneath an exquisitely fiery sunset sky, the clouds mixing in combinations of blue, orange, and gold that could never have occurred on Earth. Hundreds of small, dark darts—aircraft of some sort—swept back and forth across that sky, and the looming shapes of massive towers stretched to the horizon all around them.
"I can confirm that we are not on the planet to which we had intended to travel," said Spock drily, not looking up from his tricorder. "However, even in light of that fact, I'm finding the readings to be somewhat…confusing."
That was never good news coming from Spock. Kirk let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand absently through his hair and gazing off at the distant hive of towers. "Well, at least we won't need to worry about the Prime Directive—I think we're probably the 'more primitive civilization' right now, if those towers are half as big as I think they are.
"This isn't exactly what you'd call an ideal first contact," he continued, turning to face the assembled officers. "Half of our team is gone, we have no idea where we are, and we're out of reach of communications with the Enterprise. That limits our options, but our objective is still clear: We need to get in touch with some sort of authority here, and see if they can tell us something about what's going on."
"I believe 'take me to your leader' is the commonly accepted phrase in this situation, Captain," Spock suggested, deliberately enunciating the phrase in a whiny, robotic monotone. Next to him, Uhura slapped a hand to her mouth, obviously trying to conceal a tremendous fit of laughter.
"Shut up, Mr. Spock. Let's move out, shall we? Keep your phasers handy—remember, we have no idea what we might run into."
They began to stride forward as one, their footsteps echoing in joined cacophony against the metal floor of the courtyard. "Jim Kirk telling people to be cautious," Dr. McCoy could be heard muttering under his breath. "This is a new world."
A few moments later, Kirk felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. It was Uhura, who had fallen into step next to him. "Captain," she said sotto voce, nodding towards the sole remaining red-shirt, who was trudging slowly along at the back of the group. "Maybe you should say something to her?"
A stricken look crossed Kirk's face. He'd been so completely preoccupied with the mission and their new surroundings that he'd almost completely forgotten about the poor woman who had just watched a dozen of her co-workers vanish into thin air. A good Captain, he ruefully admitted to himself, would have paid better attention to his fellow officers.
"You're absolutely right, Nyota, I'm sorry," Kirk told Uhura. "I'll go talk to her now…"
He departed, his footsteps clanging brashly against the metal. Uhura watched him go, torn between grudging respect for his apology and irritation that he still insisted on using that name.
The security officer was an athletically-built young woman with fairly short, stylishly cut coppery hair. She was looking rather overwhelmed by recent turns of events—we all probably do, Kirk reminded himself—but fixed him with an intense, blue-eyed stare as he approached.
"Sorry, I don't know your name…" Kirk ventured awkwardly.
"Adalyn Foster, Captain." She saluted him formally. "I don't suppose you know anything about what happened to the rest of the team?"
He shook his head. "All I know is that something very strange happened," he admitted. "We're going to have to find things out for ourselves. There's no reason to assume that they're dead, though—transporters can do some pretty weird things when they malfunction. They could be anywhere…"
They both ducked as a hovercraft screamed by a few feet overhead—Kirk noticed curious-looking faces, both humanlike and distinctly alien, staring down at them from the craft's windows. Adalyn Foster watched the ship soar off into the distance, taking a deep, shaky breath. "Well, whatever happened, Captain, I think I can be useful on this mission," she said after a few moments had passed in silence. "My specialty at Starfleet was diplomacy; it might come in handy if we find some authorities eventually."
"Miss Foster took an advanced course in the Vulcan language and culture under my direction at the Academy," Spock put in. "She is a capable and quick-witted woman, and could, indeed, prove invaluable on this expedition."
Something Spock had said stuck oddly in Kirk's mind, but he couldn't quite place the thought. For the moment, he tried to brush the concern aside, and shook Adalyn's hand. "Well, for what it's worth, welcome to the away team.
"Now, then"—this to the entire assembled group—"Are we ready? Let's move out, then."
The away team set off, casting the occasional bemused glance at the alien sky and cityscape around them. James T. Kirk was in the lead—so it was he who, a few minutes later, stumbled and toppled out of sight, falling from the edge of what was clearly not a courtyard, but a roof.
The same lightning-quick reflexes that had kept Kirk alive aboard the Narada three months ago were barely enough to save him now. Twisting around as he fell, he scrabbled for a hold on the smooth metal of the roof, his fingers finally clamping into place at the absolute edge. He dangled there helplessly, not daring to look down, the buried rational part of his mind feeling absurdly grateful that at least this time, there were no bloodthirsty Romulans trying to loosen his purchase.
A terrified-looking Sulu and a neutral-looking Spock grabbed his arms and carefully hauled him back up. Kirk stumbled back a few paces from the edge, barely managing to stay on his feet.
"Okay, let's not do that again," he suggested, peering cautiously down from the edge. He couldn't see the ground at all—the matrix of skyscrapers and hovercraft simply continued down, straight out of his line of vision.
"It would seem that our prior analysis of the situation was…incomplete," Spock conceded, his mouth twitching slightly.
"Darn right it was," said Dr. McCoy fervently. "We were on a roof this whole time?" He squinted incredulously at the tallest of the distant towers. "If we're that high up, then how far away are those?"
Adalyn Foster shook her head, looking bewildered. "We were outside of Federation space before we beamed down, sure, but not that far out. A civilization this huge—we should have known about it long before now."
"What did you get us into this time?" Uhura demanded of Kirk, a kind of confused awe in her voice.
That was a question that James T. Kirk desperately wanted the answer to himself, but it seemed increasingly unlikely that he would be enlightened anytime soon. He straightened his gold Captain's uniform, ensured that his phaser was set on "Stun," and turned back to the expectant faces of his away team. "Let's look for another way down."
It didn't take them long to find a door leading down into the building. To everyone's surprise, it was open, and they filed in nervously, thoroughly uncertain what to expect.
The room was empty, and had clearly been abandoned for some time. The architecture was distinctly alien, reminding Kirk of an amphitheater—they'd come in at the top row of an arrangement of descending tiers of benches, circling a raised dais in the center. An enormous, dusty screen filled the majority of the dais, text still flickering blue-green beneath its surface.
Kirk shot a glance at Uhura. "You're our xenolinguistics expert…"
"Right." Without losing a moment, she vaulted over the nearest bench and began expertly maneuvering her way down to the central dais. Spock is one lucky Vulcan, Kirk couldn't help thinking as he watched the athletic display.
A tense silence followed as Uhura stared quizzically at the screen, the eyes of the entire landing party on her.
"Captain." Her voice sounded odd. "It's…it's in English."
"What?" He sprinted down to join her at the dais, nearly tripping over several benches on his way. There it was, undeniable: Cumulative Imports for Central Coruscant Sector, 348972.22. , followed by an extensive chart of numbers.
Kirk blinked a few times, half-expecting the words to vanish every time he did. "You have got to be kidding me," he mumbled, his mind racing to no avail.
"Chorus-can't?" mused Adalyn, pronouncing the word deliberately. "I've never even heard of it…"
"If we're so far away from Federation space on an unknown planet, how can they be familiar enough with English to use it casually?" Uhura wondered, dusting off more of the screen. Further familiar words and phrases steadily appeared as she did—notes on shipping contracts, something about Galactic Senate trade regulations, and so on.
Kirk raised his eyebrows. "Galactic Senate?"
Spock was beginning to look unusually perturbed. "At this point, barring the notion that this is all some immensely complex practical joke, we should begin to consider what other possibilities remain. We may have somehow found our way far into the future, into some extremely distant part of the universe, or"—he paused momentarily—"We may very well not be in the same version of reality from which we departed."
At his words, a blizzard of images and sounds began to pulse through Kirk's memory. A lightning storm in space, and an enormous ship, bristling with strange insectoid spines, beginning to emerge from it. A gargantuan rusted-metal drill, flames spurting from its underbelly, boring into the crust of a mountainous planet. A voice much like the one he had just heard, but seasoned with age and wisdom, telling him to live long and prosper…
"Not again!" Sulu protested, summing up Kirk's thoughts on the subject nicely.
"We know it's possible," he responded grimly. "Let's look for a way down to the ground floor, shall we?"
"Elevator," Sulu pointed out, indicating a cylindrical door at the opposite end of the amphitheater from the door that had led to the roof.
It was no small endeavor to cram six people into the small elevator, but splitting up the landing party seemed to be an even worse option. Eventually they began to descend, and later—much later (Kirk's thoughts spent several minutes alternating between How tall is this building, anyway? and Sulu's standing on my foot), they reached the ground floor.
A moment later, the doors hissed open, and the landing party filed out into the building's lobby. Kirk had been tense, preparing to defend his life if necessary, but the only sound that greeted him was the echoing of his and his companions' footsteps on the shiny, jet-black floor.
"No one?" Dr. McCoy wondered in hushed tones. "Is this whole building abandoned?"
"I think it is," Kirk answered him, in a much louder tone than his friend had used. Immediately, he had the attention of the entire landing party.
"Mr. Spock," he continued, "Something you said back on the roof caught my attention. You were talking about Miss Foster, here, and you said that she could be invaluable on this expedition."
Spock inclined an eyebrow. "I fail to see the relevance to our present situation, Captain."
Kirk held up a hand. "I'm getting to that. Miss Foster was part of a security detail of twelve officers, but she was the only one who remained when we woke up here. Now, why is that? What made her different?
"She wasn't the only human female on the team. There were humans of various races and genders, a few aliens—even a Vulcan like you, Spock."
"I am not an alien, Captain," Spock protested.
Kirk ignored him, not wanting to get into what would undoubtedly be a long and unwinnable argument. "Like you said, Miss Foster is exactly what this team needed—a trained diplomat, someone who can help us communicate with whoever lives on this planet.
"So, why was the only security officer who stayed with us the one who could help the team most? Could be a coincidence, but think about this: we landed on an abandoned building, and that gave us time to get our bearings and recover. It all seems a little too convenient to be accidental."
McCoy frowned skeptically. "You're saying we were sent here on purpose? Who could do something like that?"
Kirk shrugged. "No idea, Bones. Practically speaking, it doesn't change our objective, but we should keep it in mind."
"Maybe that's why that chart we saw was in English," Uhura added thoughtfully. "Something could be automatically translating for us. I have to agree with the Doctor, though—I don't know of any being that would be powerful enough to do all of that."
"The more I think about all this, the less I like it," Kirk grumbled. "Come on, let's find a way out of here."
In the darkness, the members of the landing party could barely see each other's faces a few feet away, so finding the door seemed to be a daunting proposition. Reluctant to leave the security of each other's' company, they slowly fanned out to the shrouded edges of the room. For a few moments, the silence was broken only by their footsteps; then there was a hissing noise and a sudden flood of sunset light. Spock stood silhouetted in the newly revealed doorway, and the others hastened to join him.
"I assume we're headed for those, Captain?" inquired Sulu, indicating the most massive group of towers in the distance.
Kirk nodded, scanning the street ahead of them. "Right. I think if we head northeast…"
"Captain." An unfamiliar voice to him—Adalyn's. She spoke softly, but he recognized the urgency in her voice: the sound of someone who has seen impending danger.
Following her gaze, Kirk saw a dark figure emerging from another doorway about twenty feet away, heading purposefully towards the landing party. "Good eyes," he told her. "Stick around—I'll need you as a diplomat."
As the figure drew closer, the rest of the landing party adopted subtly defensive stances. About as tall as Spock, the newcomer was obscured by some sort of hooded robe.
"Uh, greetings," Kirk plunged in. The figure stopped its advance, tilting its head to take in the entire party. "My name is James Kirk; I'm captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise. I represent the United Federation of Planets. Could you tell me anything about this world? Where to find some sort of local authority?"
There was a momentary pause. And then the figure pulled a gun of some sort from beneath its robes and fired it directly at Kirk.
Adrenaline took over. Kirk flung himself out of the way, hearing an explosion behind him as he did, and collapsed hard onto the street.
"Scatter and return fire!" he barked with what little air he had left, reaching for his own phaser as he scrambled back to his feet.
Their assailant fired another shot at Kirk as he regained his feet—some sort of energy weapon, he noted, as the searing blast roared over his left shoulder and blew a hole in the wall behind him. Seconds later, the first phaser found its mark—Sulu's, he thought. The hooded figure staggered backward, robes billowing, but remained on its feet.
Kirk gritted his teeth, his stomach lurching unpleasantly. No humanoid species he knew of could remain conscious after a direct hit from a Starfleet-issue phaser. It looked like things were about to turn very dangerous…
More phaser blasts—Uhura's, Adalyn's, his own—struck the robed figure, but it remained standing, cracking off shot after shot from its ray gun. Then, suddenly, Spock was behind it, stretching out a hand. For a few seconds, he gripped the base of their attacker's neck in a motion that was all too familiar to Kirk, then let go.
The robed figure slumped to the ground, clearly unconscious. Next to it, some small object clattered onto the pavement.
There followed a few moments' silence, broken only by the gasping sounds of the landing party regaining their breath.
"Well, as first contacts go, I must say I've seen better," Uhura commented wryly, kneeling by their unconscious assailant and pushing back its hood.
Kirk stared. The creature at his feet was not, as he'd already begun to suspect, human. Its skull was hairless and blood-red, and long tendrils began on either side of its nose, reaching past its mouth. Though its eyes were almost completely closed, Kirk could just barely see the glimmer of golden irises staring blankly back at him.
He let out the long breath he'd been holding. "Anybody ever seen one of these guys before?"
"I must confess I have not, Captain," said Spock slowly, still sounding uneasy.
Sulu, meanwhile, had gingerly picked up the object that had fallen when Spock knocked out the alien. It was a silver cylinder about a foot long, covered with an odd pattern of buttons and designs.
"Some kind of weapon, do you think?" he mused, turning the cylinder over in his hands to examine it from another angle. "Impractical design for a gun—you wouldn't be able to grip it properly."
The rest of the landing party gathered around, intently surveying the curious little device. "Maybe it's explosive?" Dr. McCoy hazarded. "You'd press a button or something, then throw it…"
"That would not explain the hollow portion at this end of the device," Spock pointed out, tapping the region in question with a casually outstretched finger. "It seems as though it may have been designed to connect to something else."
Kirk cautiously took the cylinder from Sulu. "It might not be anything important, but since the person who was carrying it just tried to kill us all, I can't help but be a little suspicious. Let's hang on to it for now until we manage to make a more informative contact—if there are any on this planet."
Adalyn Foster's expression was clouded. "Something about that thing—I don't know—makes me feel strange."
Kirk raised an eyebrow. "Really? Well, we're going to be as careful as we can with it. After all, we have absolutely no idea what…"
Without warning, there was a sharp crackling sound, which soon gave way to a low, ominous hum. A ghostly green glow illuminated the faces of the landing party, which all suddenly bore horrified expressions.
Her eyes wide, her face pale, Adalyn Foster stared down at the solid beam of green light that had just erupted from the device and stabbed her in the chest. Moments later, she crumpled, hitting the pavement without a sound.
Welcome back to There Is Another, now with 121% less lens flare! Hope you enjoyed watching these new developments unfold. Things aren't looking too good for our resident red-shirt, I'm afraid, but the galaxy is full of surprises!
The next chapter might go back to the Enterprise, follow the missing security team (they're still out there!), or resolve the present cliffhanger. All three of those stories are coming up; it's merely the order that's in question. Stay tuned!
My usual Nerd Notes (fewer this time, as I'm keeping things a bit mysterious):
I wanted to include a date on the monitor of the Coruscant trade company to establish when in Star Wars canon this story takes place, but the system just doesn't work well in-universe. (And is confusing). Suffice it to say that it's 19 BBY, or, in other words, a few years after Return of the Sith. For all those who wanted to know whether it was the prequel or original trilogy, I, just like Captain Kirk, have taken a third option—it's between them!
The species of the alien that attacked the landing party will be important, and so will the fact that it was armed with both a blaster and a lightsaber. If you can figure the species out from my description, congratulations; you have earned a virtual cookie.
Confession time: I actually had not seen the Star Wars prequel trilogy at the time I started writing (I know, I know). I did see Gungans and Qui-Gons (as a certain webcomic once called it) in its recent 3-D rerelease, and suffice it to say it doesn't quite measure up to the originals. You knew that, though…
Oh, and as we speak, the second J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie is filming! REJOICE!
That's all for now, but again I urge you to stay tuned—things are getting interesting, and let's just say that the little shootout and lightsaber-swingin' from the end of this chapter have NOT gone unnoticed…
Maecenas out.
