STAR TREK:

THE HEIRS OF PROTEUS

By Darrin Colbourne

It only took about a minute after take-off for the transport to reach the cave. Montoya felt every second pass. She spent most of the time just staring straight ahead, but she did glance over at Sgt. Rice a couple of times. The Lander simply sat in the passenger seat across the aisle from her, waiting patiently for the ship to get where they were going. He didn't look at her at all during the flight, and Montoya couldn't tell if it was a deliberate snub or if he simply saw no reason to look at her in transit. She hated not knowing, hated not being able to read the military mind after spending so many months among soldiers and pilots. The lack of empathy just made her job harder, because it made the Starfleeters unpredictable, and their unpredictability tended to lead to situations like what happened at Bajor, or over Shiva Three, and it was probably what led to Independence's destruction, regardless of what Captain Pike said in his official report…

Lt. Girardi's voice broke into Montoya's thoughts. "Sir, we're here!"

Montoya waited until the pilot brought the transport into a hover before getting out of her seat and poking her head into the flight deck. The cave was visible just beyond the cockpit glass. "Can you nose into the cave a little?"

"Sure," Girardi said. She hoped the deep breath she took before edging the ship into the cave entrance wasn't too obvious. Still, the entrance did look big enough for the ship to fit, but Girardi was still relieved when she didn't hear any scraping noises as they passed the threshold. "Mira, hit the floods," she said as she went into hover again.

"Got 'em," Kryczyk said. Lights in the transport's nose illuminated the interior of the cave. The three women spent a minute or two staring into it. "There's nothing there but cave."

"I see something," Girardi said. "Toward the back. See that glimmer? Looks like water."

Montoya stretched a little to see if she could spot what the pilot was talking about. She did see a glimmer, as if the floodlights were reflecting off a pool. After a moment she backed off a little, then checked her pants pockets to make sure she remembered to bring a flashlight. "Can you turn us around so the main hatch is on the inside?"

A minute later the loading ramp was down and Montoya and Rice were entering the cave. Rice had wanted to take point, but Montoya wouldn't hear of it. She insisted that there was no danger. "Look at this," she said, aiming her flashlight around the cave. "There's nothing here. There are no other tunnels or burrows, no other place for an animal to hide, and the back is taken up mostly by a pool of water." She aimed her flashlight that way. The light made the surface of the water sparkle as if it were a freshwater pond.

"Okay," Rice said as he aimed his own light around, "stupid question number one: what if the animal the others are afraid of lives in the water?"

"It would have to be amphibious to be a threat to the other animals, which means we would have seen it by now." With that, Montoya started heading for the water.

Rice didn't like it. All he could think about was that they were on an alien planet with nothing but their Work Colors and his Childress between them and whatever might be ready to pounce on them. Of course, Commander Montoya seemed confident that they were safe, but an NCO's job often involved protecting officers from themselves, so he kept trying. "Okay, stupid question number two: if there's nothing in the water to scare away the other animals…"

"…could they be afraid of the water itself?" Montoya finished for him. "Absolutely, if it were tainted or poisoned somehow. I think this cave is some kind of natural well, but the water is contaminated. The animals may sense the contaminates in the water in ways that we can't." A second later she was standing at the edge of the pool. It certainly looked like a freshwater pond. The water sparkled and was clear enough to see the sides of the well it was in for a few feet, before the rocky features gave way to total darkness. She aimed her light into the water. All it did was give her a view of more of the sides. She smiled. "See? There's nothing in here but water."

Rice, who was now standing beside her, aimed his light into the water. After a second, he said, "Okay, stupid question number three…"

Montoya cut him off with a raised hand and a groan. "Sergeant, could we possibly table this riveting discussion for the two seconds it will take me to gather a sample of the water so we can get back to camp?"

Rice raised his hands in surrender. "Yes, Sir. Not a problem," he said with a smile.

Montoya just shook her head and turned back to the pool. As she stared at it she felt around in her pockets until she found a small vial, then she crouched down and stretched the open vial out over the water and tried to scoop some of it out.

She was unsuccessful. The water under her hand sunk below surface of the pool just as the vial reached it.

Montoya blinked, then checked her hand and the vial, then stared at the water some more. She tried again. The water dodged the vial the same way.

Rice was utterly confused. "Did that water just…?"

Montoya put the vial away. "Do you have a stylus?" She asked Rice. Her eyes never left the water. She simply reached out her hand and waited until Rice put a stylus in it, then she got a firm grip on it, and with the swiftest motion she could manage she thrust it into the water. The stylus penetrated the surface, and Montoya slid the writing tool around for a second before removing it. It came out completely dry.

Montoya and Rice stared at the stylus. "That's impossible, right?" Rice said.

"It is if this just water," Montoya said.

So intent were they on the stylus that neither Commander nor Sergeant noticed the thin pillar of water rising from the surface of the water until it struck with the speed of a cobra! It took on the shape of lance just microseconds before it speared Montoya through the midsection! Montoya could only gasp as the watery lance withdrew, leaving her to spurt blood on the ground of the cave.

"Commander!" Rice called out as he drew his sidearm. He tracked the pillar of water as it backed off, then started firing as it seemed to notice him and form another lance. The lightning-crack sound of the Childress filled the cave four times before the particle weapon met with any success. The last shot rattled the pillar, causing it to break down into droplets and collapse back into the pool.

With the threat down, Rice turned his attention back to Montoya. "We gotta go now, Commander!" He cursed when he saw that Montoya had collapsed. She was still conscious, but she was losing blood fast and he could tell she was in excruciating pain. Rice holstered his weapon and moved to carry her back to the transport.

The pillar of water reappeared as he turned and struck again. Rice screamed and cursed as the spear went through his right shoulder, rendering his right arm useless. He used his left arm to get out his radio and activate it. "Rice to Hauler! Mayday! Mayday! We're under attack! The Commander is down and I'm wounded!" As he said that more pillars emerged from the water. "We need assistance, ASAP!" He put the communicator away and started to try and drag Montoya away from the pool with his good arm. He only got a few steps before another watery spear went through his right leg.

Ensign Kryczyk came running up then, sidearm drawn. She gasped when she saw the tendrils reaching out of the water, then gulped as she took aim.

"No!" Rice called out. "Help me get Montoya back to the ship!"

Kryczyk hesitated, then holstered her weapon and ran over to help Rice get Montoya to her feet. Rice could barely move on his own, but he fought through the pain, knowing the diminutive pilot couldn't possibly carry them both back to the transport. Every step was its own endurance test, so Rice was secretly glad when he set foot on the end of the loading ramp.

His joy was short-lived. Just as he stepped aboard another watery spear went through his midsection from behind. It wasn't until after he and Montoya collapsed in a heap on the cargo deck that he noticed Kryczyk had been speared as well, only the attack had gone through her heart.

"Mira!!" Someone screamed. Rice looked forward. It was Girardi.

"Just go!" Rice screamed at her. "Just button up and freakin' go!"

Girardi didn't wait for an explanation. She turned and headed back into the cockpit as Rice did his best to get Montoya clear of the closing hatch. He was in agony every second, but he made it. He started to fade as he turned back for Kryczyk, but before he could reach her more water tendrils wrapped around her and pulled her out of the departing craft, then as Rice finally collapsed he felt impacts on the hull, as if the water were trying to stab it to death before it got away.

Back in the cave, the tendrils drew Ensign Mira Kryczyk's body with them as they receded back into the pool. She sank immediately once she was beneath the surface, falling deeper and deeper into the water until she was lost in the darkness below.
The trip back to camp took even less time than the trip to the cave. Girardi radioed back to camp as she flew, telling them to be ready to receive wounded. It was all she had time to say before it was time to land. Flores, Goren and two Landers trained in first aid were waiting in the landing zone. They rushed up as the ship settled and the loading ramp came down.

Flores rushed up the ramp. "What's happening?" She said to no one in particular, then her eyes went wide when she saw the people laying in the pool of blood on the deck. "Oh my god…Belle!" She went to her friend immediately and checked her vitals, then she checked Sgt. Rice. She went back to Montoya as the Landers with her broke out their med kits. "They're both still alive, but they're out from blood loss. We don't have much time. Let's get to work."

Ben Goren knew he'd be useless while the others worked on Rice and Montoya, so he stayed outside and waited patiently until they were done. As he waited he did a quick walkaround. He was surprised to find the transport had taken real damage. There were punctures in the outer hull toward the rear of the craft. He wanted to know if the pilot had gotten any warning in the cockpit, but asking her now would require going back into the transport and trying to get past Flores and the others, so he held his questions for the moment, deciding instead to try to work out what might have been damaged from what he knew about Workhorses.

Flores poked her head out of the ship after what seemed like a short time. "Can you give us a hand?" She called out. Goren trotted back in and saw that the Landers had stretchers laid out. "Help me with Belle," Flores said as she grabbed Montoya under the shoulders. Goren grabbed Montoya's feet. "On three," Flores said, "gently. One, two, three!" They got Montoya onto one of the stretchers. At the same time the Landers got their sergeant onto the other one, then everyone worked to get the stretchers into their proper recesses in the walls of the ship. Flores checked their work, then said a quick prayer over Montoya before she spoke again to Goren. "Their wounds are serious, but not necessarily life-threatening. We've done what we can to patch them up and stop the bleeding, but they're both in trouble until we can get them to Sick Bay. They both need transfusions and organ regeneration treatments that we don't have the resources to do here."

"We gotta call Enterprise," Goren said, stating the obvious.

"We can't," Flores said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know 'why not'. That's all she would say." Flores pointed to the stairs as she said that. Girardi was standing there, looking on the whole scene in horror.

Goren turned to the pilot. "Do you know how much damage you took out there?"

Girardi nodded. "It attacked us. It attacked the ship."

"What attacked the ship?" Flores asked.

"The water," Girardi said. "The water attacked the ship."

Flores frowned. "What do you mean 'the water attacked the ship'? What water?"

Girardi's voice became slightly more frantic. "The water in the cave! The water attacked the others and attacked the ship! And it killed Mira!"

Flores and Goren glanced at each other, then turned back to Girardi. "You mean Ensign Kryczyk? Where is she?" Goren asked.

"Was she in the cockpit with you?" Flores asked.

"No…"Girardi said, voice shaking, "I thought you'd be working on her when I came down, but she's not here…and that thing went through her heart…it must have taken her…the water must have taken her…" She began to break down into sobs.

Flores went over to her. "Hey, easy," she said, "take it easy. Look, I understand how you feel…"

"No you don't!" Girardi yelled. "You just saved your best friend! Mine didn't have a chance!"

Flores and Goren could only stare wide-eyed for a moment, then Goren said "Okay…I'm gonna go get Connie." He turned and rushed out of the transport right after.

Flores turned back to Girardi. "All right, listen to me…I haven't saved my best friend or Sgt. Rice yet. They both need to get back to the ship, right now, or they are going to die anyway. That means we have to call the Enterprise. You said we can't. Why can't we?"

Girardi stared, then it looked like she was fighting to regain control of herself, "Can't…we can't…" She closed her eyes. "There were warning lights…one of them was the transceiver…something knocked out the subspace radio…"

"We need subspace radio to talk to a ship in another system," Flores prompted.

Girardi nodded. "That's right…we only have short-range communication right now…"

"Okay, what about our field radios and datapads?"

Girardi shook her head. "They can receive subspace signals, but they're not powerful enough to transmit to another system without a dedicated relay."

Flores lowered her head and cursed. When she straightened up: "Fine. Forget calling Enterprise. That just means you'll have to fly us to the ship yourself. Can you do that?"

Girardi opened her eyes and nodded. "Yes. Yes I can."

"One of those warning lights wasn't for the Warp engines, was it?"

Girardi closed her eyes again. "I…don't think so." She opened her eyes. "I'll do a walkaround before I take off, just to be sure."

"Okay, why don't you take care of that right now?"

Girardi nodded and stepped into the cargo area. She tried not to look at Montoya and Rice as she stepped past them and headed for the loading ramp. There she was intercepted by Goren and a dark-skinned female lieutenant in Work Blue. This was Constance Price, researcher and resident psychologist. "Where are you going?" Goren asked.

"I'm going to do a walkaround," Girardi said. Her voice still sounded shaky despite her best efforts. "I have to fly the others back to the ship."

Price offered Girardi her friendliest smile as she said. "Why don't you let me come with you? We can talk while you look, okay?"

Girardi gave her a confused look, then glanced back at Flores before answering. "Okay, but we have to hurry."

"Sure," Price said. The two women left the ship together.

Goren approached Flores after they left. "What did she mean? Did you manage to call the ship?"

Flores shook her head. "She said the subspace radio was knocked out."

Goren did a quick mental inventory of the damage he saw. "Damn! She's right! The ship is hulled near the main processing system, so maybe…wait, so Enterprise isn't going to be in orbit soon? So how is she going to fly anybody to her?"

Flores shrugged. "How else? The shuttle's warp-capable."

Goren thought a moment, then grimaced. "Not right now, it isn't."

He turned and ran out of the transport. Flores, unsure of what else to do, followed him. Soon they found themselves standing next to Girardi and Price as they stared at a huge dent in the left side of the spacecraft. Girardi seemed more distraught than ever.

Goren pointed at the dent. "That," he said to Flores, "is where the number one engine's electromagnetic attractor is, and judging by how far in the dent goes I'd say it's split in half right now. And on the other side of the ship there's a nice big hole where number two's number one Casimir Drive used to be."

Flores glared at him. "Ben, pick a language I understand."

Goren glared back. "If you try to take this thing to Warp as is the CasDrives in engine one will have no place to channel the necessary energy properly, so the engine will explode and take the ship with it. If you shut engine one down and try to run on just engine two the ship won't have anywhere near enough power to reach Enterprise in just one jump."

"Fine, so it takes a few jumps. What's the difference?"

"Time. Given the number of jumps and the number of times the engine will have to cool and reset…look, it'd just be a lot faster if we could call Enterprise now and get them to come back."

Flores gave him an incredulous look, then she looked livid as she turned to Girardi. "You said there was nothing wrong with the Warp engines!"

Girardi crouched down and began to sob. "I'm sorry! I didn't know…didn't think…"

"Okay," Price said as she got real close to Flores. "Wendy, look, the stuff about the warp engines doesn't matter right now. I don't know all the details, but I do know that she just lost her best friend and colleague and she is not dealing with it well right now. The last thing she should be doing for a while is getting back in the cockpit, intact ship or not."

"My best friend needs her to, Connie!" Flores hissed through her teeth.

Price put a hand on her shoulder. "Then give me a chance to settle her down, and you and I will talk." With that, Price moved off to comfort Girardi.

Goren got close to Flores. "Look, Wendy, bottom line is this thing's not going anywhere but orbit and near space in this condition. If we can't contact the ship we're stuck here until she returns."

"Yeah, I got that," Flores said. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well, we gotta do something. You said yourself that Isabel and Rice don't have a lot of time…"

"Ben, why do you insist on telling me stuff I already know?"

"So you can tell me what you want to do about it."

"Why does what I want matter?"

"Because you're in charge."

Flores shook her head. "Excuse me?"

"With Isabel out of commission you're the ranking officer. You're in charge."

Flores threw up her hands in exasperation. "I don't want to be in charge! I just want to get Belle to Doctor Boyce so he can finish what I started! You be in charge!"

Goren shook his head. "Doesn't work that way. This is a Science mission and you're the department XO, and we're facing a very real threat. You can't just decide not to be in charge."

"Well, if it's a military threat, shouldn't one of the Starfleeters be in charge anyway?"

Goren crossed his arms. "You really want to go there? Okay, fine. Right now there isn't a single Starfleet officer on this planet with a rank higher than lieutenant, and the Starfleeter with the most seniority is Girardi. Do you really want her making the decisions right now?"

Flores's defiant stance melted as she thought about that, then she turned away from Goren and closed her eyes. "Can you fix the warp engines on this thing?"

"Not without tools and replacement parts I can only get aboard Enterprise."

"And you're sure it couldn't reach Enterprise without the repairs?"

Goren thought about it. "They're supposed to be searching for Independence at her last known coordinates, right? What was it…the Woden system?"

Flores turned to him. "Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, from here to Woden on one engine less one CasDrive…it would take about sixteen jumps…"

"Sixteen?!"

"That's the optimum number. The real number will depend on how far it actually manages to get with each jump and whether or not the rest of the engine burns out before it gets there. And it's a moot point if Enterprise isn't there."

"Why wouldn't it be there?"

Goren shrugged. "If they didn't find anything in Woden they'd move on, probably to a system that the transport couldn't reach before its engine burned out. Have we heard anything from them since last night?"

He wasn't sure, but Goren could swear he'd never seen Flores blanche as quickly as she did when he asked her that. She just stared at him in what looked like shock, then she managed to regain part of her composure after a few seconds. "Can you fix the subspace radio?"

Goren looked at the transport. "Don't know yet, but it's almost guaranteed I'll have better luck with the radio than I will with the engines. I need to get into its guts and see exactly what's wrong."

"Get started. We'll talk while you work. Enterprise isn't in Woden anymore."

Ten minutes later, everyone in the shore party was gathered around the transport as Flores laid out the situation. "That's what's happening," she concluded. "Now we need options. We have to get Isabel and Sergeant Rice back to the Enterprise and we have to figure out what did all this damage in the first place, and whether this was a one time thing or if it will be a continuing threat. Any ideas?"

Jim Greenfield raised his hand first. "You're saying there's absolutely no way we can reach Enterprise via subspace?"

"No way," Goren said. "Not only was the transceiver antennae damaged, the signal processing system was ripped apart. Until that's repaired, even if we had a functioning subspace antennae all we'd be able to send is gibberish."

"Well, then there are no options. We have to stay here until the ship gets back."

"We have to stay in the system," someone else said, "but do we have to stay here? Can't we just all pile in to the shuttle and go somewhere else?"

"Where would we go?" Flores asked.

"Another continent, one of the moons…who cares, as long as it's someplace that whatever's in the cave can't reach us."

"It would be a tight fit," Goren said. "The transport's designed to carry 22 people total under the best conditions. There's more of us now, and with the stretchers mounted and the ship damaged it becomes more 'iffy.' We wouldn't be able to take all that much in the way of supplies with us."

"We don't need to take everything. Just enough emergency rations to keep us going until the ship gets back from Menos Corva."

"But when will that be?" Price asked. "A day? Two? How will we know how much to take with us if we don't know how long they'll be?"

"It depends on the hospital ships," a weak voice said. It was Girardi. "They have to recover the bodies of Independence's crew and arrange to take them home. For that they need a dedicated hospital ship, so how long they'll be depends on when one of the hospital ships is available."

Flores shook her head. "It's probably not a good idea to leave camp anyway. When Enterprise comes looking for us, this will be where they'll expect to find us. We have sufficient food and water for another couple of days, and there are natural food and water sources all around us. We're better off staying here than we are tearing off in a damaged, over-packed shuttle."

"Not by much," someone else said. "What if the thing in the cave decides it's tired of hiding and comes down to finish what it started?"

"Look, this isn't a horror movie," Flores said. "The life-form in the cave, whatever it is, is just some kind of animal. Its home was invaded, so it defended itself. Let's not assume there's some kind of vengeful intelligence motivating it. Chances are if we leave it alone from now on, it will leave us alone."

One of the Landers spoke up then. "How can we be sure of that, Lieutenant?"

Flores shrugged. "Everything else in this region gives it a wide berth, and we haven't seen it go out of its way to attack the other animals since we've been here. Look, we did a typically human thing. We stuck our noses where they didn't belong and got them bloodied. Okay, so we learn the lesson and stay out of the thing's way. Maybe it accepts that and stays home. If it doesn't, well, we have a better chance of defending ourselves in our camp than anywhere else, right?" The Lander nodded. "All right. Our priority should be Isabel and Sergeant Rice. I want to keep watch on them round-the-clock, so I need the help of everybody here who's had any kind of medical training. I want everybody else to start packing up the camp. Start with the most essential equipment. We should be ready to leave as soon as Enterprise hits orbit. Ben, can the transport broadcast some kind of distress signal?"

"Sure," Goren said, "but it won't make it out of the system in time to matter."

"It won't have to. Enterprise will pick it up as soon as she warps in and will know she has to find us and get us out fast."

Goren nodded. "I'll get on that right away."

"Good. The rest of us better get to work as well." The gathering broke up then. Price and the two Landers that helped her before approached Flores to talk about how they would take care of Montoya and Rice, while Goren and Girardi went into the transport to activate the ship's distress beacon and the rest of the shore party returned to the main part of the camp to prepare for departure.

Meanwhile, the water in the cave surged out of its well and began to flow toward the cave opening. Once there it continued on until it started to cascade to the valley below in thin rivers. The water pooled wherever it touched the ground. In seconds, the pools began to swell into different shapes and change color. One of them turned into a brightly colored bird of a species common to the area. Two more turned into canine-like six-legged animals with jet black fur. Another turned into a long, sinewy serpent, with colors and markings that would allow it to blend into the surrounding environment.

The last pool, the largest, swelled more and more until it began to take the shape of an animal that had only recently entered the region. It stood on two legs, had a slim, slight musculature, claws and teeth wholly unsuited for life in the wild, and hair only in certain regions of its body. When it was fully formed it looked down at itself in wonder, marveling at the strange, pink coloration of its skin, the smallish mammary glands that adorned its chest, the seemingly useless patch of black hair by its genitalia, and just the general oddness of the primate it had become. It decided that a creature like this couldn't possibly last very long in a world as harsh as the one they were in…but it didn't have to. It only had to last long enough to allow the other, similar creatures, The Invaders, to be observed in secret.

And, if necessary, to be dealt with once and for all.

The water stopped flowing from the cave as the bird, the canines, the serpent and the life-form in the guise of Ensign Mira Kryczyk started off for the Invaders' camp.