Argentum Cygnus: Act I

To step onto the bridge of the Enterprise was to join a waltz in progress. Carefully choreographed movements between individuals, between the ship's systems and the gentle hum of the vessel beneath them led to a swell of movement. Diana had taken quite some time before she learned to enjoy the more modern forms of dancing, but ultimately, it was a skill she valued.

This artistry was much the same here, yet there was knowledge Diana did not have and desperately craved. Every time she stepped onto the bridge, she found herself wondering what secrets Chekov had divined from his screen. She had been voraciously reading, learning as much as she could about the advances in technology since her days on Earth. That didn't mean she understood quantum mechanics in the slightest, though.

"Ambassador, good morning." Jim was standing in the midst of his shipmates, arms crossed over his chest as he looked back at her. He and Spock had been in discussion before she caught his eye. She was, as always, amused when people dropped lines of thought upon seeing her. Jim Kirk was no exception. "I hope I didn't just disappoint you. You didn't need to come up here."

Diana beamed, both amused and mischievous to the last. "Nonsense. I have quite enjoyed the hospitality of your crew, but even they must grow tired of all the time I spend in the mess hall. I wanted to see what had caught your attention."

Within moments, he had closed the distance between them and motioned for her to come down to the bridge to talk. "You know, it could have just been space dust."

"You don't go to yellow alert over space dust." She fired back, still with an easy smile. It was tempting to fall into such a pattern. In the times she came up here, the crew welcomed her with open arms as she observed them at work. They remained professional, if not a bit more friendly than she imagined they would be if she had not worked to get to know them outside of their duty shifts.

This was part of the problem. This was the only time she saw the captain.

In many ways, that was a relief. To see him less reminded her less of the ghost in her closet. A ghost that had rattled far less over the centuries, but was still her ghost. And to see him in the captain's chair, in uniform, giving orders, thinking through problems that would have - sadly - escaped Steve's knowledge of any scientific subject - had helped ease her subconscious desire to project the late captain onto the current one.

But, whether by necessity or design, having the two of them only cross paths on the bridge meant she still knew next to nothing about him when he was not on duty. She knew he could ride horses from their first real conversation in the observation lounge the night she had accepted her ambassadorial position. She knew that he enjoyed the illusion that he was constantly one moment away from being caught off-guard, yet he was always prepared before he walked into a room. She knew he liked to be called Jim by his friends.

But, friends one does not see are often lost to the daily race in life. While she could not say for certain why she wished to know Jim Kirk, she knew that she would need to force time between them at this rate. If not, she would lose the only other person who had seen her planet and thereby understood what she had left behind.

"So, if it isn't space dust," Diana forced herself back to the situation at hand. "What has caught your attention?"

Kirk motioned to Spock. The Vulcan rose an eyebrow, then turned his attention back to her. "We have found debris of a unique, unknown vessel in the vicinity. It seemed prudent to assume that we should be on guard."

Diana chuckled softly. She liked Spock. He reminded her of Artemis. The still waters ran deep. Where Artemis was disciplined as a warrior, Spock was the most disciplined scholar she had ever met. "That sounds intriguing." She nearly purred, interest genuinely piqued.

Kirk cleared his throat beside her, as if he was slightly put out that her attention wasn't where he wanted it to be. She might have been reading into his expression, but he looked back at the view screen before she could determine that. "Onscreen, Mister Chekov. Let's see what we've got."

The screen blinked from empty space to a corner of the void with a notable and distinctly foreign feature. At first, Diana thought she was staring at a mass of black, rotted vines, coiled together. She had seen such things in rainforests, even in the dark caves of Themyscira. It wasn't until she drifted closer another step that she realized… that was no moss. It was an unnatural gordian knot of metal. Those vines were pipes, and the entire sphere unsettled her in a way she could not describe.

"Bozhe moi…"

Kirk laughed a bit. "Couldn't have said it better myself."

"Good God, what the hell is that rank mess?" Diana turned back to see Doctor McCoy standing where she'd indented the railing her first time here. It had since been repaired, much to the befuddlement of some crewman, she was sure, but the memory was still fresh. It was a subtle reminder to her that the ship was still vulnerable.

Kirk sighed. "Just once, Bones, you're gonna come up here and something won't mortify you."

"Have somethin' a little less nightmare-inducing next time and maybe I won't be." The doctor grumbled before he moved to stand near Diana. She smiled, happy to see him, but he would have none of it. He had already determined that the newest finding of the Enterprise was a dangerous one. "I mean, just look at it, Jim. It looks like something off of Nero's ship got chewed up and spit out by a Denebian slime Devil."

Diana rose an eyebrow. "What is a - " The captain caught her eye and shook his head. She let the question die, but made sure to look up the term at a later juncture.

Instead, Diana gave her full attention to what McCoy was so casually insulting.

The sphere was dark and would have blended in with the blackness of space if it had not been for the faint green lights that occasionally pulsed somewhere within it. Instead of the sleek hull she had grown accustomed to on the Enterprise and many other ships they had seen, she instantly thought of a ball of perhaps the filthy king rats she would see in cities. Dirty, smelly tails that knotted together, covered in feces and filth.

In the center, the vessel had been punctured. An ugly wound was indicative of an explosion or other violent endeavor to disavow the ship of its inner parts.

"It is… most unusual, Doctor McCoy." Diana conceded, trying to process the way the sight somehow turned her stomach cold. It was simply flotsam, but nevertheless, it struck her as unsettling and just… not quite normal. "I admit, I don't understand how any vessel could operate with a hull such as that one. It doesn't seem to have an atmosphere and it's… not… right." She faltered.

Again, the crew's eyes were on her, and again, she found herself more focused on the image before her than elaborating.

It was Kirk who finally spoke. That voice always instantly drew her attention. Again, every time she tried to distance herself, he would speak or look her way, and she had to force the comparisons away. "How do you mean?"

She tilted her head, still watching the sphere as it drifted aimlessly. "I'm not sure, but… It doesn't feel right. It isn't the way a… a person would build something."

"A surprisingly mono-speciest viewpoint, Ambassador." Spock remarked, his tone almost disappointed. Diana tore her eyes from the sphere to regard him. "Many humanoid species equip a variety of structures that humans would find unnecessary."

She shook her head. "That's not what I mean. I'm not saying that a human wouldn't build this. I'm saying that a flesh and blood creature, organic, would not build this." She crossed the distance of the bridge down to the viewport, then pointed at the way the "pipes" threaded over each other. "This type of architecture is more reminiscent of plant life. The way vines gradually grow over each other. But, even if a person - alien or humanoid - could grow metal, why would they grow it in such a fashion? There is no atmosphere, no viewpoint by which to see the world around them. There is no indication that the species that built this sees anything, experiences anything."

Spock quirked an eyebrow. "Perhaps the species does not have visual sight organs."

Diana spun, lips pursed. There was something wrong. As her aunt was so fond of saying, she could feel it in her bones. "I understand what you mean, Commander. I assure you, I don't mean it as a slight."

"Nevertheless - "

"I will apologize for my ignorance of the species when we meet them," Diana offered. Her heart sank a bit at the notion that she could just be… ignorant of a new people. She never wished to judge any alien race for simply being different.

But, she could not shake how unsettling this was.

"Well, we don't even know if anyone's aboard to apologize to, Diana, so I think you're alright." Kirk said with a wink.

Diana smiled back at him, trying not to let on that the expression also felt… not right. But, she had taken what Spock said to heart. She would have to reconsider how her understanding of man's world, once terrestrial, could color her experiences now. "Thank you, Captain, but I value Commander Spock's advice."

The first officer nodded, the two of them having reached an unspoken understanding.

She was not surprised one bit that Dr. McCoy chose to interrupt the companionable silence.

"Oh, good god, Jim, you brought a philosopher on board, and now she's gonna be on the pointy-eared bastard's side." He lamented.

Jim cast a dramatic roll of his eyes towards the other man, then focused his attention back to the screen. "Well, are there any lifesigns? Because, if there aren't, it's still a hypothetical conversation."

As Chekov tapped a button to begin a scan, Diana crossed her arms over her chest as she got lost in the ever-growing starscape before her. She was never going to get tired of it. It made what she left seem so far away…

"One lifesign, sir." Chekov finally answered. "But, eh, it's wery faint."

Kirk didn't miss a beat. "Can we beam them up? Send them to sickbay?"

Another moment. Another scan. "Ah, no, sir. Zere's too much interference. It's… hard to pick out ze precise location of ze lifesign. It's almost like zey are.. In ze wall?"

Diana cast a glance around the bridge. Everyone seemed as perplexed by that statement as Chekov himself was as he said it. She took every effort not to focus specifically on what the captain was thinking. This crew operated much like the Amazons did in battle: independent but unified under a leader. If Kirk thought his crew had a good suggestion or perspective, he would absolutely listen to them. It was yet another divergence between Kirk and Steve. Steve took his marching orders and diverged from his plan when a better idea came along. His collaborations with his team were much more happenstance than openness. Kirk had taken the skills Steve had only barely grown comfortable with and turned it to a fine art: another part of the dance.

"The ship is completely silent, captain." Uhura spoke up, her hand pressing her earpiece close, as if she could divine a hint of noise if she waited long enough. "I mean, there's normally something, but there's not even a jamming system."

"Then, I guess we'll have to go over and knock." Kirk mused. That mischievous glint in his eye had quickly become indicative of an adventure waiting to happen. "Spock, I want you and Murray to meet me in the shuttle bay. Let's go check it out - "

"Captain." Diana wasn't able to stop herself from interrupting. She left the viewscreen behind, instead making her way over to him. He was already halfway to the turbolift, but he'd pivoted mid-step to face her. "Actually, I would like to be on the away team."

Spock was clearly preparing an objection, but Kirk held his hand up to stop him as he gave Diana his full attention. "No offense, Ambassador, but I can't authorize that. This isn't an ambassadorial mission - "

"On the contrary," Diana mirrored Kirk's body language, crossing her arms over her chest. "As Commander Spock mentioned, this is a vessel of unknown origin. It could be a new species, and if that is the case, then it is my duty as a Federation Ambassador to help welcome them. You said it yourself, Jim, you wanted to help me explore and meet new civilizations."

The look on Kirk's face went from placid to knowing he'd been caught the moment she called him Jim. Since the familiarity between the two of them was infrequently used, it had the desired effect of making him acquiesce. He chuckled and shook his head, seemingly unable to form a sufficient rebuttal.

"Well, Jim," Dr. McCoy clapped his friend on the shoulder and sent Diana a sidelong glance on his way to the turbolift. "Now you've gone and done it. You're stuck with her now. You went and told a queen she could do whatever she wanted and you'd help."

Diana rose an eyebrow at him, softly chuckling in mock-offense. "That would be former queen."

In wearing an atmospheric space suit for the first time, Diana found that cold, unsettled feeling in her stomach only grow. She, Kirk and Spock docked the shuttle against the hull breach on the sphere, but they still had to float into the vessel. It wasn't the zero gravity that bothered her - that was no different than flying.

It was this ship.

Diana took a breath to steady herself as her boots locked on magnetically to the exposed walkway. It was comforting to hear her own breath echo back to her and the satisfying hiss of oxygen in the helmet. But, it could only do so much to allay her concerns with the serpentine tubes and mechanical walls. The entire sphere crawled with technology.

"The life sign is approximately 20 meters in that direction, Jim." Spock pointed ahead of them. Slowly, vigilant of their surroundings, the trio made their way towards the life sign.

The walkway veered to the right to avoid some sort of core computer console. While the two men went forward, Diana's feet came to a halt. There was something familiar about something within that console. Tilting her head, she stepped closer and brought up the wrist light on her suit. She knew what that was… she had seen too many of them….The chrome glinted in the powerful light.

"Jim." She breathed, hoping that her trepidation had not come through in her voice. The signal would have carried to the others, no matter how far they were. "We need to get off this ship."

She turned, realized they were out of sight, then rushed to catch up. The magnetic lock on the boots made her stride more intimidating than she intended, but she hoped it would get their attention. Her wrist light swung around the corridor, this time catching sight of another piece of chrome welded against a broken pipe. This time, her light traced the symbol etched into it, plain as day.

The Greek letter Omega. The banner of an enemy she had not seen in years.

And as she scanned the attempted repairs, it became clear that the banner was everywhere.

Diana forced down another cold shiver of fear and focused on finding Jim and Spock. She had to find them. This was not a vessel they wanted to be in for long.

"The hull breach that we entered through seems to be the result of a concussive blast of some kind." Spock continued somewhere beyond her, but she could hear him clear as day in her helmet. "I do not recommend we stay here any longer than necessary, Jim. The integrity of this derelict is dropping rapidly."

"Well, as soon as we find our lifeform, we'll get back."

By the time she reached them, Kirk and Spock had run into a similar mystery down the hall.

Kirk's wrist light was trained on a body on the ground. At least, it was part of a body. There was very little of the Vulcan that had been merged with machinery. The left side of his face was covered in cybernetic implants, and from the neck down, it was unclear if the individual was covered in technology or was technology.

"Spock, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

Spock's expression was understandably troubled, and backlit by the lights in his helmet. It only made him look more severe. "The deceased is a Vulcan male, approximately 82 years of age at the time of death. But, he seems to have been fitted with cybernetic implants on approximately 75% of his body."

"I have seen this before." Diana swept her light over the body, pausing at the unique ocular implant on the Vulcan's face. "Not in such an… industrial sense. But, one of my colleagues. Vic was almost entirely cybernetic in nature because of technology his father experimented with." Diana could feel her stomach drop, and she reached out to take Kirk's arm. "Jim, listen to me. We must go. Now."

He turned to look at her, looking dismissive until he caught her expression. She knew how fearsome she looked, but it was nothing compared to how scared she felt beneath. "Diana, what is it?"

"I have seen the technology in this ship before." The grated flooring rumbled beneath them, and from the way the pipes began to leak and belch some sort of plasma exhaust.

"So have we. There's bits of Romulan and Klingon technology strapped in all over the place." He motioned past them. "We should find the lifeform and go back. This thing's falling apart."

Diana held so fast to his arm that when Kirk turned to move, he was tugged back in place. He looked down at her hand on his arm, then back up to her face. She simply shook her head. "They have a motherbox. From Apokolips. We cannot be here if it awakens." She had not seen Darkseid in centuries. She had no desire to give the Enterprise crew to him. She was growing more convinced that this was a trap. "This place has technology that I know, as well as technology from races around the quadrant that you recognize. If Darkseid knows that we are here, if he is somehow still alive and has set this trap, then we are in grave danger."

Jim simply watched her, clearly not following her train of thought. "Who the hell is Darkseid? Diana, you're losing me here, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I told you this place was unnatural - "

"Captain." Spock had continued on as the two of them had argued, presumably still on the trail. "I believe I have found our lifesign."

Diana released Jim's arm. She knew there was no point in stopping him, and she would not leave them alone. She followed him, step by magnetic step, down the corridor until they reached the first officer. Jim had completely stilled beside Spock.

When she reached the same viewpoint as them, Diana's mind also went still. There were no parademons and no Darkseid, but danger still waited to pounce in the darkness. But, she could not visit that same fear on the person before her, sitting on the ground, leaning against a gutted wall.

A human - or humanoid - woman. Her skin was the same mottled grey as the others they had seen, but she had far less by way of cybernetic implants than the corpse they had seen before. They could still see her bare arms, covered in a spider web of small metal tendrils digging into her skin. Wires jabbed into her head, the entry points puckered as if the tissue had rejected the intrusion. From the green pus that had crusted on her skin, it would have been most painful.

"She is alive, but barely." Spock said, eyes on his tricorder. "Only 30% of her body has been augmented with cybernetic implants. It appears from her white blood cell count that she her body is attempting to reject the foreign matter."

"She's a fighter…" Diana crouched down beside the slumped figure, reaching out cautiously towards her face.

"Diana, don't - " Jim protested, but she ignored him.

Her fingers brushed against the cheek of the woman. Through the gloves of the suit, she could tell that the skin was still pliable. She still looked so human compared to the other corpse they had seen. She was human. Diana's breath caught in her throat, warmth in her eyes bringing her closer and closer to tears.

"Who would do this to her?" She breathed, her voice thick and low. "Why would they do this?"

The firm hand on her shoulder steadied her, and for a moment, she could not have been more glad that it was Captain James T. Kirk that crouched beside her and not Steve. This was not her world, it was not Steve's. This was something hellish born from her past, but Kirk's present. When he squeezed her shoulder, she could tell from his even tone that he was unfazed. "There's only one way to find out." He muttered. The ship rattled beneath them, and this time, did not stop. "Come on. Like you said, it's time to go."

Steeling herself, Diana nodded and forced herself to her feet. Carefully, she picked the woman off of the walkway. She carried her back to the shuttle, cradled in her arms, and set her down on the bench in the aft section. Heavy-hearted, she sunk down beside her, guardian and support.

What could possibly have been so evil? And how could they have Darkseid's torturous technology?