Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters and situations are the property of CBS studios. Star Trek Online is the creation of Cryptic and Perfect World. Tomb Raider and the situations therein are the property of Square Enix. All are here used by myself for entertainment purposes only, without permission or intent to profit. Stardates were calculated with the help of the TNG Stardate Calculator available on TrekGuide .com and may be slightly out of sync with those used in the game's lore.
Starship Down
USS Nautilus, Shuttle One Crew, Senior Science Officer Carlin Agran's Log, Stardate 81631.6:
Despite the odds, I've somehow managed to rescue all of my crewmates who were being held prisoner by the Solarii. Sam and I fought our way out of the old palace the Solarii converted into their main base. We're crossing the bridge over the Solarii shantytown to rejoin Antori and the others on the ridge on the opposite side. In a way, we're almost to freedom.
But I think there's more to it...No, I'm certain there is. The Solarii leader, Matan, is insane and thinks that Himiko, the ancient Sun Queen, is somehow keeping us here. In a way, he's right. The sudden gust that saved Sam during the fire ritual could not have been natural, and neither could the storm that brought down the rescue shuttle. Something more is going on here. Whatever technology the Sun Queen used to control the weather must still be around, and it is very powerful. We won't be able to leave this place until we find it and take it offline. I know that in my gut!
Now, if only there was a way I could convince the others...But I need to get across this bridge first!
There was a flash of green light from the darkness on Carlin's left, then the apex of the bridge in front of her vanished in a ball of fire. She cried out, shielding her eyes with her hand. Someone grabbed her from behind, pulling her back. She staggered and fell backward. She opened her eyes to find Sam standing over her, pulling her back to her feet. She was shouting something Carlin could not hear over the painful ringing in her ears. The Sam pointed upward then. That, she understood.
She looked up at the storm-blackened sky and noticed that the air seemed to waver over the bridge. At first, Carlin thought it was a part of the storm. Then, the wavering resolved into the aggressive, sweeping lines of a Klingon bird-of-prey. A blue-white flash emanated from ship and faded into the darkened landscape. A subspace differential pulse, her mind identified it automatically. She could only think of one reason why a Klingon ship would be here and why its first move would be the very same thing Shuttle Two had done just before it tried to beam her up. They're going to try to beam us aboard! she realized, panicking. She had no desire to end up as a Klingon prisoner, but she suspected that wasn't the worst thing that could happen right now, nor even the most likely.
The Klingon's mustn't beam us up! she thought. Something is keeping us on this planet - and whatever it is won't let them leave if they try to take us! The realization terrified her. But before she could voice her fear, she felt a familiar energy humming through her body and the world dissolved in the red swirl of a Klingon transporter beam.
A moment later, Carlin rematerialized on an enlongated, blocky transporter pad. The dark, angular walls and red-hued lighting told her she was definitely aboard the bird-of-prey. But the green-skinned, bare-chested guards standing at the door told her that while the ship was of Klingon design, the crew was not. Orions! The overpowering musk nearly made her gag, even as the pheromones had...other effects.
A hand helped Carlin to her feet, and she found that she wasn't the only Starfleet survivor the Orions had beamed aboard. Sam was there, too: it was she who'd helped her up. Ensign McKensey and Doctor Howard were also there. Howard was helping Commander Drel up while fussing over the splint on Antori's left leg. Carlin was relieved to see them all, especially Antori, but that relief died when the deck suddenly shook under their feet and sparks flew from one of the control panels. It's happening already! she thought. The storm is here!
Antori must have seen her terror. He started to move toward her, with Howard's help, and gave her a questioning look.
"It's happening again!" she explained. "The same storm that brought down our rescue shuttle is going to try to take down this ship. We have to warn them!"
"You're sure about this?" Antori asked.
She nodded. "I don't know how or why, but it's got to be something Himiko left behind. Her device for controlling the weather is still on this planet."
"Alright then," he started, but before he could say any more, the door opened.
Every male eye immediately went to it. Carlin, for her part, felt a slight headache coming on. She knew what had entered the room before she looked: an Orion female - no one else had such powerful pheromones. Sure enough, into the room walked a scantily clad and nauseatingly curvaceous green-skinned woman, swaying her hips with every step. She flashed the survivors (or the male survivors, anyway) a charming smile and cooed, "Welcome to the Orion Syndicate Ship Cluros. So nice of you to drop in!" She giggled at her own joke and Carlin rolled her eyes. Fortunately the next thing out of her mouth was more serious. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to surrender your weapons."
The Orion guards at the door already had disruptor rifles trained on them, and the transporter officer had drawn a disruptor as well. Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey were both unarmed, and the rest of them had their weapons out, but not ready. They were in no condition for a fight. Antori raised his hands and let his phaser rifle fall. Carlin followed suit. Sam put her bow back across her back and tossed down her uncharged hand phaser, refusing to surrender what had evidently become her favorite weapon.
Fortunately, the Orions didn't seem to think the primitive weapon was a threat. The guards lowered their weapons a fraction and the transporter officer holstered his entirely. The Orion woman smiled and slinked up to Antori. "That's a good boy," she said. "We're going to get along so well!"
Carlin wanted nothing better than to stove in the hussy's head in right then and there - and it occurred to her that she could: the Orions hadn't noticed her climbing ax. But she made herself calm down. Antori was giving the Orion woman's advances a reception that made absolute zero look cozy, and she had far, far more important things to think about right now. "I need to speak with whoever's in charge immediately!" she said.
The Orion woman gave her a sidelong glance. "How very convenient," she said. "Commander Ursan has requested your presence as well. There's just one tiny hitch, though." She traced Antori's jawline with a manicured nail. "The thing is, my Commander only wants to speak to the ranking officer of the Starfleet away team, and that looks like you, Commander..."
"Antori Drel, Commander, Serial Number VY 746-560," he recited. "That's all the information I'm required to give you." He looked to Carlin. "But if you take me and her to Commander Ursan immediately, I promise to be more forthcoming."
The Orion smirked. "Nice try, handsome, but she'll stay here."
"I need medical aid, in case you haven't noticed." He gestured to his leg. "She's our medical officer. She goes with me, or I don't go. It's that simple."
The Orion woman looked back and forth between the two of them. She seemed to note their determined faces. "Very well," she said. "Follow me." She turned to the guards. "Take the rest of them to the holding cells, if you would."
"Of course, Lady Atria," said the guards.
Carlin moved to Antoir's left side, putting her arm around his waist while he draped an amr across her shoulders. Together they stepped down off the transporter pad and exited the room, following Lady Atria. Antori's limp had gotten noticably worse. Carlin tried not to worry too much about it, reminding herself that she could treat it later using Doctor Howard's medkit, which was better stocked than her own. She also reminded herslef that if she didn't keep focused on what she needed to say to the Orion commander, a limp would be the least of Antori's problems!
They followed the Orion woman down a brief hall to the bridge. As Carlin had expected, most of the crew consisted of bare-chested Orion men - with a particularly large, dark-skinned specimen occupying the center seat - but there was also a muscular Nausicaan standing at the rear of the room, looking through some kind of periscope.
Atria went straight to the dark-skinned Orion in the center seat and touched his shoulder. "Dear, Commander Drel is here to see you. He's the senior Starfleet officer." She glanced at Carlin. "He insisted on bringing along his...nurse."
The big man - Commander Ursan, she presumed - turned and regarded the Starfleet officers coolly. "You've made it just in time to watch us finish up with your friends." He gestured to the viewscreen, where the Solarii's derelict warbird was dissolving into a pool of flame under a hail of disruptor bolts.
"I'm afraid we have more pressing concerns," said Antori. "We believe there's a device on the planet that poses a grave threat to your ship."
"What kind of device?" asked Ursan.
Antori looked to Carlin, prompting her. She took a deep breath. "There's a powerful weather-control device here that was built by an ancient civilization. It's still active, and apparently programmed to bring down any ship that attempts to leave the planet or beam anyone off. You're in danger!"
"Ah, the polaric ion weapon," said Ursan, cracking a smile. "We've also observed it in action, against your shuttle. Very impressive in terms of the mechanism."
"Then you know how dangerous it is! You have to land until we can located the device and disable it."
"You overestimate the weapon," said the Nausicaan, not looking away from his periscope. "This ship is a lot tougher than your little shuttle!"
"Nevertheless, it would be best if we didn't overstay our welcome," Atria said.
Ursan nodded. "Helm, take us back into orbit."
"No, please, no!" She knew this was a mistake. She could feel it.
The Orions ignored her though. The bird-of-prey began to rise, then jerked suddenly. Sparks flew from an overhead panel. "Polaric ion discharge: twelve gigawatts," the Orion at the science console reported.
"They'll have to try harder than that," said the Nausicaan. "Shields holding at 83%."
"See, nothing to worry about," said Ursan.
"Please, it'll only get worse!" said Carlin. "You have to land!"
"Lieutenant Agran is my senior science officer and the closest thing we have to an expert on this planet," said Antori. "I suggest you listen!"
The Orions ignored him. "Continued ascent and engage cloak," said Ursan.
The Orion science officer input a short command, but his console blared negatively. "Sir, the cloaking device is offline. That discharge must have knocked it out."
Atria let out a slow whistle. "Rsgar won't be happy about that!"
Suddenly, the ship shook violently, throwing nearly everyone to the deck. An unoccupied console exploded. Shrapnel ricocheted off armored bulkheads. Carlin shielded her head with one hand and clung to Antori with the other. When the bridge settled again, he started climbing to his feet and she followed suit, supporting his left side.
The bridge was dim now, and smoke hung in the air. The Orion science officer climbed back to his station. "Two more discharges," he announced, "both over five hundred gigawatts!"
"Our adversary has unexpected strength," said the Nausicaan, still on his feet. "Shields are at twelve percent. We can't take another hit like that!"
"War drive and impulse engines are offline!" said the helmsman. "We're on thrusters only!"
Atria was still on her feet as well and clinging to the back of the commander's chair. The Orion Commander himself was gripping a piece of shrapnel embedded in his side. The wound looked serious, but not immediately fatal - especially not for him. To Carlin's surprise, it was Atria who spoke, and surprisingly intelligently at that. "Can you get us above the mesosphere?" she said. "We should be safe from atmospheric storms there - and if this really is a weather control device, it won't be able to touch us!"
"I believe I can, my lady," the helmsman answered.
"Then do it!" she ordered.
No one questioned her, at least among the Orions. Carlin knew that if she didn't do something now, no one on this ship would live to reach the upper atmosphere.
Carlin released Antori and stepped forward. "You have to land now, before it's too late!" she told the helmsman.
"Go back?! You're insane!" he said.
She spied his sidearm: a Klingon disruptro pistol. She snatched it and pressed it to his temple before he could react. "Land the ship! Now!"
The Nausicaan growled and drew a wicked-looking throwing-ax, but Antori stepped between him and Carlin, blocking his intended trajectory. "Listen to her!" he urged.
"My lady!" the Orion science officer interrupted. "There's a polaric energy buildup just above the ionispheric boundary!" His console blared a warning. "It's forming an ion storm - level seven and intensifying rapidly!"
"That storm will rip this ship apart, if another discharge doesn't take us out first!" Carlin warned.
Atria's lips pressed together in a thin line, but in the end there was only one option. "Land the ship," she said. "Let's hope this device of yours recognizes surrender when it sees it."
"The helmsman moved to obey, but before he could finish inputting the course correction, another discharge slammed into the ship. White lightning arced through the helm console and the helmsman himself. A finger of it touched Carlin. All of her nerves registered agony. All her muscles fired at once. She was flung backward and hit the deck hard. She lay there, stunned, unable to move, as the ship trembled. She could smell singed flesh, and hoped it was just the helmsman.
The bridge was dark now, lit only by the flickering lights in the few functioning consoles and the orange tongues of flame from shattered ones. Figures moved in the smokey blackness. One knelt beside her, called her name. It was Antori. She tried to respond, but her mouth wouldn't form words. She could still hear the others though.
"Shields are offline!" the science officer was saying. "Main power is down!"
"Switch to auxiliaries!" Atria shouted. "Route helm control to tactical, and land the ship, by the Thousand Gods!"
"Thrusters aren't responding. All engines are dead!" the Nausicaan reported. "We're in free-fall!"
Antori turned his head to the others. "The command section should have its own ejection engines. They should be enough to allow us to land safely!"
"He's right," said Atria. "Prepare for emergency separation! Seal the bulkheads and blow the explosive bolts!"
The deck jerked beneath Carlin as a pop of protesting metal echoed through the ship. Then, the floor began to tremble. "We're re-entering the storm!" the Nausicaan reported.
"We're coming in too fast and too steep!" the science officer objected.
"I'm trying! The storm's just too much!" said the Nausicaan. "We're going in!"
"Everybody brace for impact!" Atria shouted.
Antori grabbed Carlin's waist with one hand and reached for a grab bar to hold onto with the other, but there wasn't time. They hit. Carlin was briefly airborn. She saw a support beam rising to meet her, then nothing...
Author's Note: Carlin's log entry at the beginning, like the chapter itself, is only lightly based on the game. In the game Lara does say in one of her logs that she knows in her gut that the approaching rescue helicopter isn't the way off the island, and wishes she could convince the others of this. Also in the game, Lara winds up boarding the helicopter anyway and, supported by Roth demanding that the pilot land before the storm brings the chopper down. She goes to the same extreme as Carlin, putting a gun to the pilot's head when he refuses to land.
Other than taking those elements, though, the chapter is pretty much original. It had to be: Cluros isn't a rescue helicopter and Carlin had no idea it was coming. It's crew consists of characters that have their own motivations and must be dealt with accordingly.
There are some things that deserve mention in the note. Antori's name, rank, and serial number recitation is, of course, a reference to the Geneva Convention which states these are the only pieces of information prisoners of war are required to give their captors. There is some evidence that this bit made it into Star Trek times (in Star Trek IV, a captured Chekov gives this information immediately to his interrogators, despite the very apparent ignorance of Cold War Era America that pervades Starfleet behavior during the movie). His serial number itself is a reference to Voyager, NCC-74656 (a zero was added to give it the same number of digits as Picard's serial number).
In case you missed it, the first hit the Cluros takes, while Carlin is still in the transporter room, is not (as she assumes) from the storm. It's actually Matan's shot from the warbird that starts a very one-sided fight between the two vessels. When the discharges do start hitting the ship, they are much more powerful than what hit the shuttle, but still fairly weak. 12 gigawatts, for reference, is less than half the power of Doctor Soran's force field (Star Trek Generations). However, the later 500 gigawatt hits are individually more powerful than the shots fired by the warship the survivor on Delta Rana summoned to drive the Enterprise away, which was able to disable the shields of a Galaxy-class ship in two shots, though it did not do serious damage to the ship (TNG: "The Survivors"). Since Cluros is just a bird-of-prey (and an underpowered one at that) and since the storm isn't going for nonlethal damage like the illusory warship was, I figured those hits would do a lot more damage, though they'd probably be more focused on damaging the ship than stripping away its shields.
The idea that the command sections ("head and neck") of the bird-of-prey can be ejected is from various sources, including the Hayes Owner's Manual for them (which is, amazingly, a real book).
Finally, Atria's behavior change deserves a little explanation. The prequel series episode "Bound" established that the female Orions masquerade as slaves to disguise the fact that they are the ones really running the show. Both this story and Star Trek Online (which heads the Orion Syndicate with an "Emerald Empress" and features Orion matrons as bosses) follow this example. So while I wanted to make sure she played the role of Commander Ursan's pet lover/slave well enough, I also wanted to show that, when everything hit the fan she was willing and able to drop the mask and reveal her true nature as a competent captain. The mesosphere she suggests going to is the layer of the atmosphere directly below the ionispheric boundary, which was clear of storms during the first shuttle crash. However, the mesosphere is also the region of upper-atmospheric lighting, which could indicate that a weapon that manifests as "lightning" could still be potent at these altitudes.