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[GenesisDevice]

Ok, I've kinda decided to give up on "Smoke on the Horizon". I couldn't figure out how to keep it going after the ideas i had for the fourth chapter, so I haven't posted that and won't be either. Plus I realised it was kinda crap anyway.

However, this new story is going to be a psuedo, and hopefully better re-write, based on the original idea I had for that story.

The story is mostly planet-based, in an ancient city discovered by a Federation civilian research team on a planet in the Beta Quadrant, "east"* of the Romulan Star Empire - which WILL continue to exist, regardless of what the new film says. The city is perfectly intact, yet was abandoned some 25000 years ago by its inhabitants for unknown reasons. Small clues to who they were and why they left will be discovered throughout the first "season", culminating in a disturbing realisation in the finale. It is set in the post-TNG era, around 2385.

*Again, using Star Trek Star Charts as a reference.

Here we go... I hope yous enjoy it!! Be sure to comment with suggestions, etc

Prologue

Deep in the Beta Quadrant
25000 years ago

“Come on, come on!”

Her voice rang through the smoky control canopy, barely sounding above the whine of the ship’s dying engine pods. An electric crackle sounded behind her, and she bowed her head as a splutter of sparks flew out of the panel behind her chair. Her ship was coming apart at the seams; if she could only keep the subspace drive engines functioning a few moments longer...

“No, dammit!”

An alarm sounded from the console on her right; above a blue graphic screen a purple light indicated the close proximity of a confirmed enemy target. Quickly, almost without thinking, she pulled a control lever from underneath the forward console, slammed her finger on the graphic on the screen and pushed the centre button with her thumb. She half-watched as a new contact appeared, streaking away toward the target. A heavy jolt caught her attention – she could no longer keep the subspace engines operating. But no matter; her pursuer had already been destroyed. She almost regretted not seeing the bastard die. Killing them was the only small satisfaction she seemed to get lately.

The silver, almost needle-shaped vessel dropped out of subspace close to the planet. The egg-like control and living canopy, long aft spire and both dorsal and ventral engine pods had all sustained severe damage – the dorsal subspace engine was leaking plasma into space, throwing off her course somewhat.

“This is AD-103, Major Enriss Temaga contacting Base Command. Reporting the approach of twenty-three hive ships and accompanying vessels approaching the planet. Estimated time twelve minutes. Please acknowledge.”

Silence. But Enriss was not worried. Communication silence was a requirement during a time of siege. However, the message she carried was really quite urgent.

“I repeat, this is AD-103 Major Temaga. Please acknowledge my signal and grant me clearance to land in the Temple House. This is a first priority message!”

Again, nothing. Quickly scanning the planet, she saw no ships of her people, and the orbital stations were giving off no activity readings. Was it possible they had all been killed, already?

“No,” she said aloud. The war had been going badly for them, yes, but the enemy hives had never come close to assaulting the central world, much less destroying its population. She urged her vessel to increase speed toward the city, the canopy shuddering slightly as she entered the atmosphere.

“Come on... come on...” she whispered again, trying to will her ship to go faster still. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she broke through the lower cloud barrier and had her first look at the great city. Despite the direness of her situation, the wonders of the Ancestors had never ceased to amaze her before, as they still did now. The glittering pinnacles and spires of the great city had an astonishing beauty even at the worst of times, which was now stained blood-red with the setting star, calling her in as she approached the Temple House in the middle of the Centre Ring. She had still heard no contact from any of her superiors or the militaries. Now extremely worried, she only just decreased speed in time to accomplish a safe landing, leaping out of the canopy before the ship had even finished moving.

Sprinting across the landing pad, she heard nothing. Not the hum of generators nor the whine of airborne traffic between the buildings. Slowing for a moment and removing her scanning device from her breast pocket, she activated it and set it to search for energy signatures, be they from machine or person alike. She found nothing. Breaking into a run again, she left the landing bay and headed for the control centre, banging into several doors she knew, but did not think, wouldn’t open automatically anymore.

Forcing the doors to the military control area, she let out a silent gasp. It was empty. She had come to expect this but it still came as a shock, to see the place that had always been so bustling with life so... lifeless.

Catching her breath, Major Temaga activated her communicator and quietly, hopelessly asked if anyone on the entire world could hear her. There was no reply.

Walking slowly now, she moved back through the corridors and stairs to the landing bay on the top levels. Returning to her vessel, she stopped again to tearfully admire the now twilight beauty of the great, empty city. It was not possible, yet it had happened.

They were all gone.

And in the darkening sky, she saw the shadows of the great hive ships, coming for her.

Edited by CentralPlexus, 02 May 2009 - 11:35 PM.

[GenesisDevice]

_{My disclaimer: Starfleet, the Federation and everything else in the Milky Way Galaxy as established by the Star Trek series' belongs to Paramount Pictures, a division of CBS. Everything else in the story belongs to me, including the characters, the city and its ships, along with most of the planets. Just make that everything.}


EPISODE ONE: Lost and Found, part 1

Act One

"I can't explain, and I don't know,
Somehow we may reunite."

Present Day - 2385

“Is there really any point in this whatsoever?” Exasperation and annoyance were not hidden in the man’s voice.

“Hey, it’s standard procedure. We’re in uncharted territory and you’re a civilian under Starfleet’s protection out here. I need my phaser as much as you need any of these... things.” The lieutenant gestured to the numerous archaeological tools scattered across the nearby ground.

The officer surveyed the doctor as he straightened up from kneeling into a standing position. The aggravation was clear in his face, the ice-blue eyes barely containing their anger and the brown hair seeming to crackle with electricity as they started each other down.

“Look,” the doctor said, trying hard to sound reasonable despite his expression to the contrary. “I am here to excavate items from this site and determine their use to the Federation and in finding the lost world. You, on the other hand, have no purpose it seems other than to stand over my shoulder and obstruct my entire operation in the name of protection!” He cut the lieutenant off as he continued, “We have scanned this planet multiple times from orbit and didn’t detect anything except plants and simple animals with no evidence of humanoid habitation within the last five thousand years, so I think I am justified in saying that I and the rest of my team don’t need you here! And another thing –”

The Starfleet lieutenant cut the civilian doctor off this time. “Okay, how about you just shut up for once and listen to me. If it were up to me or my team we wouldn’t be here either, and you’d all be perfectly free to carry out your little digs in private. But the fact is that this is a Starfleet funded mission so Starfleet requires that there be a military presence here. We have no idea about the people who lived here or anything about the lost world besides the fact that it was very dangerous, to that point you are required to have armed escorts at all times, even if they were last here five thousand years ago,” he continued, raising his hand to prevent further interruption.

“Besides... you might need my help with that.” He nodded over the doctor’s shoulder at something he had just spotted moving towards them at high speed.
The creature was huge, maybe two metres in height or more. It was running on four legs and had a glossy, dark golden coat flecked with hints of bronze, no doubt providing camouflage in the red grasses of that world. Its face had a slightly feline look, with glowing green eyes and long, glittering fangs protruding from the mouth opening in a thunderous roar.

“Is that some sort of lion?” said the doctor, more to himself than the lieutenant.

“I don’t know, but my advice would be to... well, run.” He drew out his phaser and gave the doctor a nudge in the back, who was now suddenly unwilling to leave his guard. “You know, if it’s all the same to you I think I’ll stay here with you,” he said, a slight tremor of fear now in his voice as he saw a second creature running towards them from the opposite direction.

“You... you got another one of those?” the lieutenant nodded and passed his second phaser behind him to the doctor who was now standing with him back to back. “Just be careful,” he cautioned. “I’ve seen what you people are like with weapons. Just point straight and shoot.”

“These are set to stun, right?”

The lieutenant glanced casually at the display on his weapon; the four bars on the left were lit green, while the other five were red. “Yeh... well yours is. Not that it’ll do you much good.” The doctor turned with panic in his eyes. “What’s that meant to mean?!”

“Well you don’t really think that something only sufficient to stun a humanoid is really going to work against that? Nah, you’ll probably just piss it off even more.” The officer grinned and, hardly looking at his creature, hit it with a single burst from his phaser, the rippled, bright orange beam striking it squarely in the chest between the front legs. The creature slowed, shuddered, and then tripped over its own feet as it was knocked into unconsciousness.

Meanwhile the doctor had discreetly ramped the power on his weapon up to maximum; all nine bars were now glowing green. “Uh... a little help here?” he said, realising the officer behind him had finished. “You’ll be fine,” he said, turning and smiling at the phaser set on maximum. “Just point straight and shoot, like I said. But quickly,” he added, as the creature was now perhaps 20 seconds away.

Narrowing his eyes, the doctor pointed his phaser at the oncoming animal, and depressed the rectangular centre button with his thumb. There was no recoil, but his hands tingled with a sense of power as another orange burst streaked from the tip and shot towards the creature. However his aim was a little off, the officer noticed too late, and the discharge struck the ground by its feet only metres away. The power of the beam blew a three-metre crater in the ground, sending the animal flying into the air, its previous momentum still carrying it towards the duo.

“Get down!” the officer yelled, and forced the doctor to the ground before dropping himself and drawing his own phaser again as the animal soared over them, letting loose a shot into the creature’s side as it hit the ground behind them. It let out another cacophonous roar, and then fell still and silent like the first. It took him a few seconds to realise he was holding his breath.

“Wow...”

It took him a further few more seconds to realise he was still face down on the ground, with the civilian archaeologist on his back beneath him. Despite being half covered in dust, dirt and sweat, he couldn’t help noticing he had a certain...

“Guess I did need you after all.”

Still not moving from atop his charge, the lieutenant gave the smallest of smiles and looked into his eyes. Their contact held for only a second... perhaps a second too long as he began to stand again, offering his hand to help the doctor up.

“You know, I never got your name.” The annoyance in his voice had quite disappeared; on the contrary, it had been replaced with gratitude and maybe something like awe too.

“Me neither... Lieutenant William Gates, at your service sir.” He winked and gave an old-fashioned salute.

“Doctor Nathan Carson, at no-one’s service but my own.” He smiled slightly at his assigned protector, now glad he hadn’t resisted the appointment more strongly. There was something...

“So, what have you found so far?” Gates’ voice cut into his thoughts.

“Oh... well we’ve found a few artefacts dating back to the time this planet was last inhabited, like I said around five thousand years ago. They’re mostly just small things like jewellery, household items et cetera, but,” he began gathering the tools lying around and putting them in a silver case inscribed with a white Federation logo, “we’ve found something far more interesting in the main site, come on.” And he hurried away without a glance back, towards a small white square near the horizon. Gates hesitated for a moment, and then, doing his best to feign interest, walked off in the same direction.

*

The walk across the grassland had taken almost forty minutes; still, it was good exercise, Nathan mused as he entered the main tent with Lieutenant Will a few steps behind him. He moved to a table near the entrance and deposited his tool case on the ground, and removed a few small plastic bags from a second, smaller case he had been carrying. He gave them to the woman sitting behind the table with a smile, and then beckoned Will over to the dig in the centre of the tent.

The “trench” was at least ten metres deep, the soil a deep, rich red beneath the initial brown top layer. Within it lay a stone tablet, almost removed from the ground and in the process of being cleared of five thousand years worth of dust and dirt. Several circles were barely visible on its surface.

“We’ve been able to determine, using our computers, the image on the tablet as being that of five intersecting circles of various sizes. We think it’s some sort of map, designating spatial co-ordinates of this planet. The thing is we don’t have the first clue how to decipher it.” He took the lieutenant over to a nearby screen, upon which was a diagram of the tablet. It was square, approximately three metres in length each way. Each of the five circles was a different size – the smallest was at the top of the diagram, with the others placed in increasing side order anti-clockwise around the centre of the tablet.

“Well, I’m no expert in geometry or spatial harmonics or anything like that, but it seems to me that each circle has a common tangent, there,” said Will, pointing to the centre. “So wouldn’t it be logical to assume that those are the co-ordinates of this planet?”

“Well yes, but this is supposed to be a map to the lost world and there is no point in putting this planet at the centre, therefore that must be the position of that world rather than this one.”

“Okay... you said these people were dangerous, right?”

“Yep.”

“Which equates them to being pretty powerful, yes?”

“Well we assume so...” confirmed the doctor, beginning to see what Will was getting at.

“So wouldn’t it make sense that, if that was the world we’re looking for, that these circles are actually just extensions of their territory, with these centres being less important worlds, and that this tablet is likewise just a map of their empire, rather than a clue to some future civilisation rediscovering them thousands of years later?”

“Maybe, but that still doesn’t help us. The stars on this map don’t correspond to anything in this part of the galaxy.”

Will sighed, then thought, remembering something he had read. “What about stellar drift?”

Nathan looked up. “What?”

“Well, I remember reading about some other archaeological mission years ago, where the clues were there but the stars weren’t. This galaxy is rotating around its core, so it would stand to reason that the stars are no longer in the same places they were five thousand or more years ago.”

“Oh my god... I think you might have it. If we adjust the model to count backwards in stellar drift until the stars match the map... yes!” the doctor exclaimed, as a stellar map superimposed itself over the diagram of the tablet, the stars at the top moving closer together and those at the bottom moving farther away until they matched. “You know lieutenant... you might have just made the biggest discovery of this century.”

“Oh come on, it wasn’t hard. I thought you scientists were meant to know something of everything?” Will snapped, trying to hide his embarrassment.

“I’m an archaeologist, not a cosmologist. I don’t know the first thing about the movement of the galaxy or what star goes where. Well, maybe the first thing but it’s still not much. In fact–”

“Gates to Beltane,” Will interrupted, tapping the commbadge on his chest.

“Yes Lieutenant?” a female voice sounded.

“I have a Dr Carson here who would like to say something about our purpose here.”

“Very well, put him on.” Will nodded encouragement to the doctor, who took a few moments to speak up.

“Uh, hello, Captain? I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.” He paused.

“Please elaborate Doctor,” the crisp female voice came again. “Need I remind you our time out here is limited?”

“No, but the thing is, you know the map we found the other day? It turns out that it wasn’t a representation of this planet; rather it’s a depiction of this planet’s position within a much larger territory with what we’re looking for in the centre. We’ve worked out its position along the heading,” he checked the computer, “088 mark 009. So if you set a course along that heading, you should err... well, find it.”

There was a slight pause, then “Thank you doctor. Advise your teams to prepare for immediate transport. Once we’ve beamed up you and your findings we’ll get underway. Beltane out.”

“Seems a bit eager, doesn't she? Right, right... okay everyone! Begin backing everything up, we’re leaving!” Lieutenant Gates remained as the archaeologist moved away to direct the clear-up, and smiled to himself. If they had truly found the planet they had sought for so long...

*

On the bridge of the Nova-class starship Beltane, the captain sat back in her chair. All teams and equipment were on board, and on the viewscreen the deep red planet was falling away as the ship approached the edge of the system at high impulse.

“We’re clear for warp speed, ma’am,” the young female ensign at the helm reported as she switched the viewer to forward again. The faraway planet was replaced by a dense starfield on a curtain of black, with a distinct, slightly purple band cutting the screen almost diagonally in half.

“Very well ensign; lay in a course for the star system along 088 mark 009 and engage at warp eight.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The stars on the screen blurred, stretched and then vanished with a white flash, replaced by the familiar sight of white blurs streaking by as the ship penetrated subspace and stabilised at high warp speed.

Leaning back in her chair, Captain Temaga allowed herself a small smile of triumph.

Edited by CentralPlexus, 30 April 2009 - 06:59 AM.

[GenesisDevice]

Okay, here we go with Act 2, continuing from where we left off. I'm doing my best to write this story in "episodic" format, i.e. how a Star Trek episode is done. Though I'm considering cutting it down to three acts, I'm not sure yet.

Oh, and as a side note - if you read this, please please please reply and let me know what you think. I need to know if what I'm doing is any good!! Thanks in advance

-------------------

Act Two

The Beltane dropped out of warp at the edge of the system after fifteen days at warp eight. For Captain Temaga, it had passed in a second. She had waited this long, but even to her the prospect of returning to the lost planet was a little daunting.

“Begin detailed scans of the system and advise Starfleet that we have reached the suspected location of the planet,” she directed at the science station to her left. Her first officer, the Andorian Commander Cad’En, was already at the station analysing incoming readings. “Report, Commander.”

“We’ve detected a total of three inhabitable planets in the star’s temperate zone, with an additional fourteen gas giants and smaller rocky planetoids within distinct boundaries of the system. Two of the three M-class planets definitely appear to show signs of advanced technological development, but I can’t tell you how recent, not at this distance.”

Temaga nodded. Everything was as expected. She rose out of her chair and walked to the science station, one hand resting on each of the two chairs where the officers sat. “What satellites to the habitable bodies possess?”

The female lieutenant to her left tapped a few controls and brought up schematic diagrams of the three planets. The inner two had one moon each, but the third brought up something quite different.

“A ring system?” the captain enquired. The lieutenant pressed some more buttons and two views of the third planet filled the screen. Two beautiful silver bands could be seen surrounding the blue-green planet.

“Can you tell what they’re made of? Does there appear to be any artificial satellites also orbiting the planet?”

“Not yet ma’am, and no, not that we can see. The rings appear to be the only objects in orbit.”

“Very well; take us into the system and put us into orbit of the third M-class planet upon arrival,” the captain ordered. “In the meantime, I’ll be in my ready room. Mister Cad’En, take the conn.”

She hurried across to the door on the other side of the bridge and entered the ready room, a large office-like compartment with three large windows looking over the starboard side of the primary hull. She sat on the sofa beneath them and paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. A new ring system around the planet...

*

“Bridge to Captain Temaga; we’re entering orbit of the planet.” She tapped her commbadge, “Acknowledged,” and got up from her desk, walking briskly back out onto the bridge. She slowed to a stop as she saw the image on the viewscreen.

A planet, so beautiful it captured the eyes of everyone on the bridge. Much of the visible surface was covered with turquoise water barely touched by delicate-looking wisps of white clouds that looked almost tangible. The landmass coming into view on the eastern side was predominantly green in many shades, though occasionally a sharp grey cluster of dots could be seen along coastlines, rivers and once a dense forest.

“Lieutenant... scan again for technological developments and highlight on the screen.” The captain’s voice was hushed with awe, as though she never quite believed she would see something like this.

“Yes ma’am,” the lieutenant at the science station worked her console and within a few seconds, thin yellow lines had appeared around the clusters of grey, and many hundreds more appeared in straight and curved lines between them, covering much of the view of the surface.

“Alright... magnify the heaviest concentration.”

The image on the screen blurred and shifted, and was replaced by a view of the eastern side of the planet, where another yellow line encompassed a not yet visible city, still on the night side of the world. “How long until we’ll be able to see it, commander?”

Her executive officer glanced at his own station. “It should be crossing the terminator into day in approximately twenty minutes, captain.”

She sighed slightly. But, she thought to herself, twenty minutes is nothing. “Have we found any evidence of population here or anywhere in the system?”

“Negative ma’am; there sure was a civilisation here long ago, but we’re alone here now.”

The captain thought for a second. “Very well then. Ensign, put us in geosynchronous orbit above that city. Commander, begin analysing the planetary rings and see what you can come up with. Temaga to archaeological teams One and Two, stand by to beam down to the planet’s surface in twenty minutes. I’ll be leading the away teams commander so no lectures about Starfleet regulations, please.” She put her hand briefly on his shoulder as she walked past him to the turbolift. “Oh, and ensign? Make preparations to land the ship on my signal,” she added as the doors closed behind her.

*

“I’m not worried! You know I just don’t like using the transporter, that’s all.” Doctor Carson’s voice rang through the transporter room as the captain walked in, carrying a bag which contained, from the sound of it, a lot of very heavy metal objects.

“Problem, gentlemen?” she asked lightly, amused at the sight of the doctor and her security chief Lieutenant Gates at odds once again.

“Well captain, it seems that our lead archaeologist here is a little... wary of the transporter, and would request we not beam down so, uh ‘hastily’.”

“But you’ve used it several times on all the planets we’ve visited on this expedition. What’s wrong with it now?”

Nathan sighed in exasperation. “Yes, I did, and if you’ll recall I was equally as ‘wary’ of using it then. Of course you Starfleets take these things for granted so I don’t really imagine you’ll understand–”

“Oh I understand completely,” Temaga cut him off, something she’d become all too good at over the past few months. “You’re perfectly welcome to take a shuttle down to the city yourself and meet us down there. Of course, you’ll miss out on all the big discoveries, but I’m sure you won’t mind that.”

The doctor’s eyes widened. “Well... maybe I’ll just...” he moved towards the door before turning back. “You know what, to hell with it. I’ll go.” And he stepped none too audibly onto the transporter platform with Will, the captain, another guard and two other members of his team.

“It’s okay Nathan. You can hold my hand if you get scared,” said Will, grinning at him and getting the finger in return. He laughed to himself as he saw Nathan’s mouth turn up in a reluctant smile after a brief moment of charged eye contact.

“You may energise, ensign,” called Captain Temaga to the transporter operator behind the console opposite the platform. As their molecules began to disintegrate, Nathan could be heard quite clearly saying,

“Bloody Starfleet...”

*

The party of six rematerialised on solid stone. Dr Carson could still be heard cursing under his breath as the initial ‘shock’ of transport wore off. The fresh air and slight breeze were bracing, but not cold, and drew their attention to the lilac sky that was turning pink on the eastern horizon. But it was what came before the horizon that caught their attention.

Buildings, almost as far as the eye could see, hundreds of them. Temaga ran to the edge of the large circular building whose roof they had transported to and leaned over the railing. They themselves were extraordinarily high – hundreds of metres at least. Looking down she saw a vast network of roads interconnecting an outer circle and four ‘spokes’ between it and a second circle surrounding the building they were on. Again her attention was drawn to the buildings in front of her – these truly defined the Earth word ‘skyscraper’. The shortest of them had to be four hundred metres tall, with dozens towering over the central building and the rest of the city. She reached for her tricorder and, oblivious to the many calls for her attention she scanned the tower directly in front of her: 1214 metres high. The others around it barely came to half that height. To her right and behind her she saw another nearly identical tower; two needles piercing the sky, reaching almost into space itself.

But the city was quiet. No hums of power generators, no whine of traffic, nothing. No life. Except that which she and her team were slowly bringing back into it.

At last, she allowed her composure to fall away. As the dawn broke, a single tear crawled down her cheek, and a word formed soundlessly on her lips.

“Home...”

[Terilynn]

CP! Please post 3!


Very interesting premise so far and I love the way you hung things up with "home..." so....I need more please.

[GenesisDevice]

And here we are! I feel this section should be dedicated to Terilynn, saviour of this series! Thank you

Act Three

For a place that had not felt the touch of life in 25000 years, the control centre – and indeed the rest of the city – was almost completely intact. Not unlike the bridge of a starship, Nathan thought as he walked around the circular perimeter. The room was perhaps 15 metres across, the white stone walls lined with strangely shaped control consoles and displays, with a central, slightly lowered ‘arena’ in the centre containing a ring-shaped table, several chairs and an interesting-looking pedestal inside it.

“Can we get any power in here?” the captain called to no-one in particular. In the three hours since the first team had beamed down, they and the other arrivals had only been able to secure the stone building in the centre of the city, and even then with some difficulty with spreading resources too thin. The Beltane’s five shuttles and captain’s yacht had flown down laden with supplies shortly after the control centre was secured, using any of the dozens of empty landing platforms underneath the roof of the building. The Beltane herself was maintaining an orbit above their position, her captain unwilling to let the ship land before the city had been properly checked out.

As if in answer to her question, three microfusion generators materialised in the central arena. Each generator was cylindrical, about 15cm tall and 10cm in diameter. The much smaller microfusion chambers – to be inserted into the generators – beamed down a few seconds later.

“Okay, let’s get these generators online and interfaced to the power systems in this room! Dr Carson, what computer experts do you have down here?”

The doctor didn’t look up from what he was doing. “Well ordinarily I’d recommend me, but since I’m busy trying to figure out exactly what does what around here...” he stopped at a severe look from the captain, “... then I’ll just stop what I’m doing and do that instead,” he muttered, the irritation seeping back into his voice.

“Thank you,” Temaga rolled her eyes slightly and tapped the commbadge on her chest,

“Temaga to T’Sor. What’s your status down there?” a moment, then a soft, slightly monotonous female voice replied, “This is T’Sor. We have secured what appears to be a chamber that distributes power to the rest of the building. No alien contact as of yet, Captain.”

Temaga nodded to herself. “Very well professor. We’ll get someone down there with the generators and confirm it’s the right place to set them up. I trust you have someone down there qualified to initialise and interface three Mark Seven microfusion power generation units?”

“Indeed, Captain. I will await their arrival, T’Sor out.”

Smiling to herself slightly, Temaga turned to see Dr Carson kneeling by an open panel on the central computer pedestal. She descended the three steps into the arena-like structure and took a seat on the table behind him. “Any progress?”

Nathan continued his work for a moment before answering, not looking up from the system. “Yes and no... I’ve identified this as the central portal through which all computer circuits enter and exit this room and have managed to connect most of them back to their consoles, but,” he rose and indicated the main interface atop the pedestal. Hexagonal, several centimetres tall and surrounded by six conduits, two red, two yellow and two green opposite other; the interface, encased in a circular trench on the pedestal offered no helpful hints on how to use it. “This is a whole different story. I can’t make heads or tails of it – scans won’t reveal anything about its internal structure or functions. The most I can surmise is that these,” he picked up a small, square, blue glassy object crossed with opaque lines from next to the interface, and indicated its origin on the side “form some sort of command or processing structure similar to our bio-neural packs or IOCs. We’ll need to dismantle this thing and reverse-engineer it piece by piece if we’re to get it working any time soon.”

Temaga considered for a moment. Were her skills needed more elsewhere? She decided they weren’t and called across the room, “Ensign! I’d like you and two others to take these generators down to T’Sora. She’s in a room near the base of the building. Use your tricorders to follow the power conduits if you can’t find her.” After a “Yes, ma’am,” from the ensign, the Captain turned back to Dr Carson.

“Right then Doctor... let’s get to work on this.” And sizing up the computer interface for a moment, she removed a small, thin tool from Carson’s engineering kit and gently prised out a yellow, rhomboidal crystal from the top.

*

“Report, lieutenant.” Commander Cad’En was beginning to lose patience.

“Same as before sir,” the lieutenant at the science station answered, “a small contact within the planets rings, unidentifiable at this range. I can’t tell you any more, sir; we’ll need to get much closer.”

Cad’En looked over the reports on the monitors. There it was alright, a low-level EM reading, inconsistent with the components of the rings, orbiting the planet with them. “Ensign,” he spoke addressing the helm “what sort of distance is there between the pieces of debris in the planets rings?” the ensign scanned for a moment before replying. “The largest pieces are between 300 metres and two kilometres away from each other; other, smaller components are every 50 centimetres to 100 metres apart. Mostly small enough to clear with both deflectors in concert if you’re thinking of flying in there.”

This one had good ears, Cad’En thought, smiling to himself.

“Very well ensign, plot a course at your discretion towards the source of that EM reading. Beltane to Temaga,” he pressed a control on the arm of the command chair, “we’re tracking an unidentified reading within the ring system; we think it may be a small vessel of some kind. Request permission to investigate?”

“Acknowledged commander, report to me when you have more conclusive readings.”

“Yes ma’am. Beltane out.” He looked at the viewscreen, towards the lustrous beauty of the glittering, silvery planetary rings. The gas giant his ice world orbited had something similar – their beauty enhanced of course by the presence of swirling blue cloud, but these had a splendour all of their own.

“Ensign, is your course ready?” The helmsman turned and nodded. “Very well... take us in.”

The image on the screen shifted; the planet disappeared off the right edge and a mass of silver suddenly dominated. As they drew closer, Cad’En could make out larger particles of debris, some of them larger than the entire ship. And that one...

“Lieutenant, detailed scans. Do some of those fragments look a little... unnatural to you?”

She pressed a few controls, and the images on her displays focused and tightened. “Yes sir; I’m picking up large traces of refined metals and space-resistant materials in the debris.” She stared at the main viewer, watching as the rings ceased to be a single entity and allow the ship inside them. She pointed out a large, angular fragment in the centre of the screen.

“There; that’s definitely artificial. I’m reading structures akin to power conduits and information distribution networks, among others. Looking at the rest of the field... I’d guess that these rings are composed of the debris of hundreds of large satellites from the time the planet was inhabited.”

“Okay... ensign, tractor a few small samples into the cargo bay, but maintain course toward the EM emission.”

Soaring majestically through the silver-grey asteroid field, the cargo doors atop the Beltane’s secondary hull opened and three thin blue beams latched onto several pieces of debris, drawing them into the ship.

Cad’En stood behind the helm console as the view switched from aft to forward. They were coming into range of the mysterious EM reading, and every now and then some of the fragments would drift just a little too close.

“Try and fly a bit closer, ensign,” he smiled slightly and moved back to the command chair.

“We’re in range, sir,” the lieutenant at science informed him. “Very well. Take us to within 700 metres and hold position. Let’s see it on screen.”

This certainly stood out against the silver debris of the rings. Black, and covered in thick, heavy looking armour plating, the source of the emission was clearly a small ship.

An alarm suddenly sounded at tactical to Cad’En’s right; he rose quickly out of the chair and turned to face the tactical officer. Behind him, the vessel on the screen was powering up, heading straight for them.

“What the hell is happening?”

*

“Remove the nano-cluster elements... bypass the subspace coils... and that should about do it.” Temaga muttered to herself, glancing across the pedestal at Nathan to see how he was progressing. They had taken to dismantling half of the main interface each. By no means an easy procedure, disconnecting the frames and removing the crystals had taken them the better part of an hour. She put her microfilament cluster behind her on the table and waited expectantly.

Dr Carson could feel her piercing gaze on his forehead.”Yeh, yeh, I’m almost done.” He removed the last triangular green crystal from the base and slotted it into the Federation-style interface he and Temaga had quickly put together. A beep from the large display they had set up confirmed its presence and activation – the building’s computer system could now be accessed and controlled.

“Good work doctor. Now all we have to do is tie in a few translators to the input devices so we can see what they’re actually saying...”

*

T’Sora was not pleased. Naturally as a Vulcan, she was never pleased, or displeased. But something about the situation made her seem displeased nonetheless. Perhaps she should increase her meditation tonight.

“Very well. Attempt another power-up. Doctor, kindly monitor power output from the generators. Ensign, please adjust the interface accordingly. Crewman, contact the command centre and inform them we are having difficulty integrating the generators with the alien power systems.”

Crewman Rhiohr nodded, stood by the doorframe and tapped his commbadge.

*

Temaga scrutinised the display, looking for some kind of pattern. The computers were up and running on the limited power they had managed to install in the command centre, and the interfaces were functioning correctly. However, she was now working alone trying to decipher the information they had so far accessed.

“I just about reach my limit when it comes to alien languages. I tried learning German once for a few years – actually it was a requirement, but anyway I was pretty bad so, as you seem to be the foremost expert on... well, everything that I’m not, I’ll leave you to it,” had been Dr Carson’s departure speech, given as soon as Temaga had expressed the need for assistance with the information. She couldn’t help but admire the man, really, but he was just... well, annoying sometimes. Especially now.

“Okay... well, this... now this could mean “friend”. Friend... un-friend? No, that’s “enemy”. So, enemy... what? “Bad”... speaks for itself... Inc... Radi... “home” and “leave”. Erm...” Starting at the most recent file entry, Temaga appeared to have uncovered a final log entry by the people of the city. However, it left no clue as to why they left, and why they left their city intact in the face of such a “bad” enemy.

“Rhiohr to Captain Temaga,” a male voice sounded as her commbadge activated. “Yes crewman?”

“T’Sora would like me to inform you that she is having... difficulty connecting the generators to the power grid. She doesn’t seem too happy.”

Temaga laughed, “Now now crewman, you know as well as I do that she can’t be “happy” or otherwise. But I know what you mean; I’ll send someone else down there to take a look.”

“Thank you ma’am, Rhiohr out.” She resumed her work, wondering how long she would be able to keep it up before the power went out.

“Doctor Carson?” she called as he was walking past.”

“Look, I’ve already said, I’m no good with languages, hell I struggle with this one sometimes –”

“It’s alright Nathan. I need you to get down to the power room, see if you can sort out the problem they’re having down there.”

“Oh, I see. Well it’s just that I was... you know what, sure, why not?”

Here we go, Temaga thought. “Well, you’re not too busy up here, are you?” He started to reply but was cut off by another signal from her commbadge.

“Captain Temaga, please respond!” She looked puzzled at the note of urgency but pressed the badge again.

“Yes commander, what is it?”

*

Beltane was on fire, her bridge not least of all. Two aft consoles and the MSD had exploded seconds into the engagement, and a damaged EPS conduit in the wall was spitting lethal showers of sparks every few seconds.

“We’re under attack!” Cad’En struggled to keep his balance as the ship rocked again and again. “The contact in the rings – it was a vessel. It powered up and opened fire the minute we got close. I had to take us out of the debris field and into open space but it’s still following!”

“Take her back to the rings commander; myself and others will be beaming back. Use the debris to evade them as long as you can while your shields are lowered.”

“Yes ma’am! You heard her order – get us back there! Transporter room, stand by to lock onto the captain and her group.”

In space, the Beltane swept a 180 degree turn and headed back to the planet, firing several ineffectual phaser shots at the attacker as they passed. Deadly green bolts of energy were sent back in return, impacting on the starboard warp nacelle. The outer hull vaporised instantly, followed by an explosive shock as the energy reacted with the subspace field coils, crippling several of them and sending some of them shooting out into space, still fritzing with uncontained energy.

“The warp drive is down! We will enter the rings in thirty seconds, but the hostile will join us only eight seconds later. I don’t know how long I can evade them in there.”

Cad’En’s face was determined, his blue skin darkened with soot and smoke. “Just take her in ensign. That should be plenty of time.”

*

The Beltane swooped majestically between the silver and grey chunks of rock and metal of the rings. Power to the deflectors had been reduced to a minimum, so several fragments made it to within metres of the hull before being swept aside.

“Okay, I think I’ve bought us about a minute, better signal the captain to prepare for transport.”

“Acknowledged. Cad’En to Temaga; are you ready?”

“Standing by Beltane – Lieutenant Gates and I are ready to beam to the ship.”

“Lowering shields for transport,” the tactical officer reported. The next few seconds were crucial. The transporter needed six seconds to fully complete its cycle – they just needed to avoid detection until then...

“We have them sir! Raising shields,” not a moment too soon, as with a thunderous crash the fragment they were hiding behind was obliterated into hundreds of pieces and impacted against the shields.

“Commander, you’re in my chair! What’s the status?” the turbolift doors opened and Captain Temaga strode onto the bridge.

Can’En stood up to relinquish the command chair and reported, “The warp drive is offline. Shields are at 47 percent, but I don’t know how long they’ll hold and our weapons seem to be ineffective.”

She stared, “That ship is how big?” she said incredulously.

“Approximately six metres long, ma’am,” came the voice from the science station.

Cad’En leaned forward towards her, “Captain, I know it’s not Beltane’s forte, but I think we should risk taking her into the atmosphere. It –”

“No!” Temaga cut him off forcefully. “Whoever they are, they’re obviously powerful and not from this system. We cannot risk them finding out about the city and its technology! Ensign, take us deeper into the system – towards the star itself.” She settled in her chair in the momentary lapse of fire and prepared for the onslaught.

“Captain, I must protest –”

“You WILL stand down commander, or I will have you relieved!” Temaga exploded, her hair casting a firey halo through the blackening air. “I am taking the course of action I deem best for this ship and her crew, and you will NOT question my orders again! Ensign, plot a course to skim the surface of the star within 50 kilometres and engage.”

Her eyes still burning holes in Cad’En’s face, she readjusted her position and turned to face the screen.

The ship shook violently again, but everyone could tell it had not been from weapons fire. The strain was beginning to show on Temaga’s face; she’d never come close to losing a ship before.

“Report!”

*

Nathan sat anxiously in front of the computer pedestal, watching, as everyone else was, the sensor display of the engagement between the Beltane and the unknown ship, and things were not going too well for them. The hostile appeared to have locked a tractor beam on the Beltane, and was dragging her away from the sun where no doubt Temaga had a brilliant plan for the enemy’s destruction.

“What do you think they’re doing?” crewman Rhiohr asked quietly. No one answered, or could answer.

An alarm sounded – another one – and the display changed. What went unnoticed was the initialisation of the systems in the command centre without any manual input – until yet another alarm sounded at one of the consoles. Still keeping an eye on the display, which now showed an unusual subspace disruption forming and expanding, Nathan and Rhiohr raced towards the console generating the sound. A screen displaying similar data was present above the small control panel, with three purple lines surrounding the enemy ship. A blue triangular button in the centre was flashing in time with the lines.

“If this were a starship,” Nathan mused “then this would be...”

“A targeting display?” Rhiohr confirmed.

He nodded. “So that would probably make this the fire button, right?” Rhiohr grinned, “After you, sir.”

Nathan smiled and, with slightly trembling fingers, depressed the blue triangle.

*

“Lieutenant, now would be a good time for getting us out of this!” Temaga yelled over the noise of her ship falling apart around her.

“Yes ma’am! I thought if we overload the aft phasers on the secondary hull the energy will be directed down the tractor beam and into the other ship. If they’re built anything like a conventional spacecraft, it should disrupt or destroy their entire power grid,” the tactical officer behind her shouted back.

Temaga considered it. What did she have to lose now? Her bridge was almost destroyed, her ship and crew little better off.

“Agreed! Do it quickly, lieutenant!”

“Initialising overload... now!”

“Ma’am, I’m reading a massive subspace disruption forming behind the ship! If we don’t get out now it’ll tear us apart!”

As if the day couldn’t get any worse – “Captain, I’m reading three new contacts heading towards us, fast!” The ship was beginning to shake from the force of the subspace anomaly behind them.

“What now?!”

*

A faint sound was heard above them – the launch of three torpedoes, or at least their equivalents.

The torpedoes shot away from the city, leaving thin vapour trails behind. Exiting the planet’s atmosphere, they streaked through space and impacted the hostile ship. For a moment nothing happened, but suddenly the vessel was consumed in fire, internal explosions blasting it apart into tiny pieces.

“I... I did it! It’s been destroyed!” Nathan’s expression was jubilant, but quickly faltered again when he looked at the display ahead of him.

*

“Engines to full! Get us away from that anomaly, now!” the sound of the ship straining to obey her commands filled here ears, but it was no use.

“Sorry captain! She can’t keep this up. I’m showing a partial stability to the anomaly – it’ll be better to ride it out there than destroying ourselves trying to escape,” the helmsman turned to face her. Temaga almost gave the order to continue – but her first duty was to safeguard the lives of her people. She nodded, and the ensign turned and executed a command into his console.

Slowly, the Beltane turned to face the anomaly and let gravity take its course. The glowing green mess of energy and unstable matter filled the screen, and Temaga – along with all her crew – gritted her teeth as they crossed the event horizon. There was no going back now, she thought to herself. The bridge began to stretch around her, its contours and its people oddly distorted. It was almost enjoyable...

All want black.

*

“They got... pulled in,” despair was etched on Nathan’s face as he watched the blip that was Beltane disappear into the disruption. “The systems seem to have come online... anyone found a deep space sensor?”

Someone on the other side of the room called to him and he hurried over. “I think this is it; that’s this solar system in the middle, there. There are no vessels within 40... well, what I assume are light-years.”

“So they’re just... gone?”
“Looks that way, sir.” The man at the station bowed his head slightly.

Nathan walked slowly down into the arena and sat on the table, facing the large, now empty, display.

“Gone...”

*

Pain! She had not felt such pain in years; she had almost forgotten how to deal with it. But gradually, she forced herself to move her body and open her eyes. She found herself staring at a grey, metallic ceiling, and lying on grey, metallic grate.

She tried to force herself to sit up, looking around for her crewmates, but before she could do so she was seized around the wrist by a warm, grey, mottled hand. It pulled her up...

To face the creature that had inhabited her nightmares as long as she could remember. It raised its other hand in a fist and held it near her neck. It had no expression on its face, not even malevolence or hatred.

The triangular slots on its fingers opened. A scanning device emerged from the metal plate on the left side of its face, a thin green beam washing over her.

“Please... no...”

She could not allow this to happen to her. She struggled, but a distant memory replayed itself in her mind, and she gave up.

“Resistance is futile...”

TO BE CONTINUED...

------------------------------

Well there it is - Lost and Found, part I! Hope you enjoyed it, Act 3 ended up a fair bit longer than I indended Anyways, the usual - comments, suggestions etc are welcome!

Hope it's worth the wait, Ter

[Anna Amuse]

I think this is interesting and good quality-wise. I particularly enjoyed the interaction between Carson and Gates from the first piece. Was a little confused why Temaga was so bitchy with the Andorian -- it didn't seem deserved. Now I'm interested what happens next!

[GenesisDevice]

CONCEPT ART

Since part II isn't finished yet, and I wanted to post something, I thought I'd treat yous to some of the concept art I did when coming up with this "series". It's not up to much, but it helps me

 DSC00102.JPG   152.17K   2 downloads

Temaga's fighter from the opening segment. The design takes most of the familiar elements of a starfaring vessel and rearranges them into something new. I wanted to flip the "traditional" ships we have seen, so to that end I've put the nacelles (with a new name) at the forward end of the ship and rotated their placement to dorsal-ventral, instead of port-starboard.

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The Borg vessel that attacks the Beltane in Act Three. Little bigger than a shuttlecraft, this ship nevertheless possesses powerful weapons and shielding beyond the capabilities of the Federation as of the last decade of the 24th century. Vaguely inspired by the Borg Detector from Star Trek Armada.

 DSC00100.JPG   184.41K   2 downloads

The tactical control console in the city's military command centre. Controls the city's shields as well as the weapons in the form of energy cannons and torpedoes, both of as of yet unfamiliar design.

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 DSC00105.JPG   252.84K   0 downloads
 DSC00106.JPG   252.86K   1 downloads

My study model of the city (not complete yet). Helps me with the descriptions of the setting etc and is useful for knowing relative locations of important places. The command centre is located within the building at the centre of the larger circle (known as the Temple House, hearkening back to the civilisation's ancient times when the area was a sacred place). North of this are the twin towers of the Gatehouse, so called due to their "guardianship" of one of the most important trade routes in the city's early development. Some of the other buildings have backstories to them as well, but they're not really relevant.

Well, neither are any of them

Anyways, hope these are enjoyed as much as the story, hopefully it'll help clear things up a little

[GenesisDevice]

Lost and Found, part II

Teaser

"Leave me behind, don’t look back... ‘cause deep within you know I’m lost and damned."

The drone analysed her face for several moments. Now still within its grip, Enriss Temaga waited, prayed for death. But it never came. She heard faint movement behind her and prepared to defend herself, her fighting spirit resurfacing, but something on the drone’s face caught her eye. Recognition?

It was gone as soon as she had seen it. The Borg let go of her wrist, letting her fall unprepared to the floor. She heard the cold metallic whirs of it walking away, and an electrical fritz as a green security field appeared in front of her.

Still dazed, she sat up and began to take in her surroundings. A Borg ship, obviously. Some kind of holding cell, she mused; no regeneration alcoves, no power terminals or control stations, nothing that could be used by captives to engineer an escape. Except...

“Captain!”

She whirled round, catching her neck as she did so. “Commander... Lieutenant?”

Sat against the far wall as she had been a moment ago were the two officers from her bridge, Cad’En and Gates. Both looked a little worse for wear; several bruises and deep cuts oozed blue and red blood, their skin, uniforms and hair stained with blood and soot from the burning bridge. Remembering the battle she consoled herself with the thought that she probably looked no better.

“What happened?” her first officer looked around gingerly. “What is this place?”

“If I were to guess, a Borg ship,” Temaga replied dryly. “That disturbance must have been some sort of transwarp conduit. I guess the Beltane survived otherwise we wouldn’t be here, but...” her voice trailed off as she thought of the rest of her crew. “Do either of you remember anything before waking up here?”

Cad’En shook his head and winced; he put a hand to the base of his skull and withdrew it, groaning at the blood he saw. Temaga grimaced – Andorians were somewhat renowned for haemophilia. He would die if his injury were not treated soon.

Gates stood up warily and dusted himself off. “I remember... we were going to ride the anomaly out. And...” he leaned against the wall. “There was something on the other side, waiting. It –” the deactivation of the security field cut him off and several more drones marched in. Temaga rose and stood in their path.

“I’m Captain Enriss Temaga of the –” the lead drone struck her across the face before she could complete her sentence. She staggered and fell against the wall, instinctively reaching for the phaser she was no longer wearing.

“What do you want with us?”

Ignoring her, the drone spoke to the group, its voice rasping with machinery and disuse.

“You have activated the ancient city. You will come with us.” Motioning to the other two, it grabbed her by the wrists and began to drag her from the cell, the others following close behind.

“I don’t know about you,” shouted Temaga over her shoulder “but this doesn’t seem like typical behaviour to me.”

“Tell me about it,” Gates muttered. “I can walk, you know.” The drone holding him merely tightened its grip.

“Where do you think we’re going?” he asked as they rounded a corner.

“I think we’re about there...” Temaga replied as she took in the sight in front of her.

Cubes, dozens of them suspended in mid-space. Hundreds of Spheres, Probes and the shuttle-sized vessels they’d fought earlier flying around them, between the many fragile gangways connecting them. Behind them she could barely see another wall; many layers of chunky black plating and conduits backlit with a greenish glow.

“So... not just one ship, then...”

[GenesisDevice]

Act One

“So where do we stand?” Crewman Rhiohr had been pacing up and down the control centre for the past ten minutes.

“Well let’s see. The Beltane is lost, we are stranded in this city with little hope of ever being found and we seem to have made yet another enemy which we could use like a hole in the head,” Dr Carson said irritably, poking at the mountain of crystals he and Temaga had extracted from the alien computer system.

Rhiohr sighed. “So, what are we going to do about it?” he walked up to the triangular wall display, still showing the readouts from the battle that had taken place moments ago.

“I don’t know! Any intelligible data on that subspace anomaly yet?” Carson turned to the female scientist sat at the station next to what was obviously tactical. Several screens and small consoles had been erected in a semicircle around it.

“Some,” she replied without looking round. “Several unstable tracks of neutrinos driven by dense gravitational distortions. There’s also evidence of tunnelling secondary particles and self-sustaining verterons – closest thing I can reckon is that this was a wormhole, though highly unstable. If the Beltane did get pulled in it’s very unlikely we’ll be able to follow her.”

“Great. An unstable wormhole that could lead absolutely anywhere in the galaxy or beyond. How does this help us?”

Remaining silent, she continued her analysis.

“Why don’t we just go and see?” Rhiohr asked, looking toward the screen in the centre of the room. “It’d only take an hour or so to get there by shuttle, which we have several of down here,” he continued, answering Carson’s question before he could interrupt.

“And then what? I suppose all we’ll have to do is wait a thousand years or so before the wormhole jumps back here again?”

Sighing slightly, Rhiohr continued. “Come on, you must’ve heard of calling unstable wormholes back to their previous aperture points?”

The scientist nodded. “The Barzan wormhole. The Voyager was able to attract the aperture by bombarding subspace with...” her face contorted as she struggled to remember.

“Verteron particles,” called a crew member on the other side of the room. A Starfleet database article was displayed on the screen in front of him.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Do we have verteron particles in a shuttle?”

Rhiohr shook his head. “Not usually. But we should be able to program one of our replicators to produce a sufficient quantity which we then take with us,”

Nathan mused, his face in his hand. “So... we take a shuttle and the verterons, call back the wormhole... then what? Defeat the enemy with the four people we’ll be able to fit in there?”

“I think I may be able to render some assistance in that regard,” a voice called, and T’Sora strode into the command centre. “In my scans of the surrounding buildings, I have found several repositories of what appear to be ships.”

“Where?”

She stood by the main screen and inserted an isolinear data storage device into the terminal. “Please direct your vision here,” she said, and a schematic of the city appeared. “One hundred metres east of the central building we currently occupy, there is a structure that appears to contain several large hangars. While several of these were discovered in this building, those were empty. The ones adjacent to us, however, are not.”

She pressed a few controls and the display zoomed in on the tower. Sure enough, there were the hangars, and inside them appeared to be dozens of small vessels. “As you can see, the vessels are not large, perhaps half the length of a Danube-class Runabout. However, they appear to possess powerful weapons and impressive drive technology.” She indicated the forward ‘wings’, and the unusual nacelle-like structure slung above the craft.

Nathan still looked concerned. “Will they be powerful enough to defeat whatever it was that attacked the Beltane?”

“I cannot be certain without a detailed analysis; though I might venture that we shall soon find out. If we wait much longer, any chance of retrieving the wormhole will be lost.”

He looked from T’Sora to Rhiohr, and finally at the display, still showing the diagram of the craft.

What the hell, he thought. “Alright, let’s go.”

*

Nathan looked around him before turning to Rhiohr. “You sure you can fly this thing?”

The two of them had spent the last fifteen minutes inspecting the strange, winged ship, apparently some sort of fighter craft.

“Well... how hard could it be?” he turned to look at the control console. T’Sora had taken the liberty of linking Starfleet technology to the controls, so the cockpit was currently a maze of computer screens, LCARS terminals and ODN fibre.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Right... well I’ll be in the back checking on the verterons. You... learn to fly.” He clapped him on the shoulder and ducked out of the rear entrance to the aft compartment.

“Learn to fly...” Rhiohr muttered. He sat in the chair on the right and pressed a few controls on one of the Starfleet terminals, and almost imperceptibly the engines began to power up.

“Are you sufficiently prepared?” T’Sora appeared behind him.

“Yeh, I think so. Pretty nice... interface you have here,” he gestured at the chaotic combination of alien and Starfleet.

“If you wish, I can pilot the craft. I am familiar with its systems and which aspects our technology can control.” Rhiohr’s eyes widened.

“You can’t have been in this ship for more than half an hour!”

T’Sora inclined here head and continued working at the port station. “Indeed. Powering engines.” She closed the cockpit door behind them. “T’Sora to Doctor Carson. We are ready to get underway, the ship will depart upon your signal.”

There was a moment’s pause before the cockpit door slid open again and Nathan stepped in behind them. “A word of advice... don’t shut the door.” He leaned forward and pressed two triangular buttons on Rhiohr’s console. All could feel the vessel suddenly rise up, and the two men drew a slight intake of breath at the sight of the city falling beneath them as the ship left the hangar.

“Control centre, this is... Imbolc,” he said with a smile, “Proceeding to wormhole coordinates.”

“Very well Doctor, we will stay in contact as long as we can,” came the reply from the centre of the city. They were already approaching the boundary between atmosphere and space.

“Carry on,” Nathan said, before turning back to the aft compartment. “And don’t shut the door!” he called even as T’Sora reached for the control.

*

The three people looked blankly out of the viewing port. “Are you sure this is the place?” Nathan asked.

T’Sora nodded. “My analysis indicates the subspace distortions occurred strongest approximately fifty metres directly ahead.

“Very well, shunt the particles to the forward beam emitters. Proceed at your discretion, odds are you know more about what you’re doing than me.”

T’Sora worked between her Starfleet controls and those of the alien ship, until a barely discernable hum and vibration could be heard and felt.

Two bright green beams suddenly shot from the short wings at the front of the triangular ship, streaking through space and colliding a short distance away. At the point where they met, a white light began to appear, and grow. After no more than a few seconds, space itself suddenly twisted and roared into life, a charged, green whirlpool tearing through the nothingness and bearing down on the suddenly tiny ship.

Inside the cockpit, the team looked on in awe. “Report?”

T’Sora was hesitant. “It appears to be a transwarp conduit. Gravitational emissions are negligible, quite different to the one we previously observed.”

Rhiohr turned his head. “Maybe we destroyed the ship generating it before it was fully formed, causing it to destabilise.”

“That is a likely explanation. However, I must now recommend against proceeding further. Only one race we know of utilises this technology, as I believe you are both aware.”

Nathan nodded slowly. “But we can’t abandon them to that fate. You said yourself this ship has ‘formidable weapons’, or whatever. And we can’t let them obtain any knowledge we have of the city. Something tells me they’ll want it pretty badly.”

Rhiohr and T’Sora nodded in agreement.

“Then take us in, please.”

*

Temaga carried on walking, repelling the shoves the kept feeling in her back. If nothing else she was tired of walking, but had given up on asking where they were being taken. More prominent in her mind was the question of why these drones seemed more independent than the average Borg. For one thing, they spoke, which in itself was almost unheard of.

“You guys okay back there?” she called as they turned yet another corner.

“Fine, for a guy on his way to the Underworld,” came Lieutenant Gates’ sarcastic reply. Cad’En said nothing. Temaga had noticed he was falling further behind, and it was only through the ‘insistance’ of the drone behind him that he was still moving at all.

They came to the end of the alcove-lined corridor, and the drone standing by the door turned and pressed a control. The unusually curved doors slid gracefully open to reveal a chamber, barren but for a tall, central alcove.

Temaga, Cad’En and Gates were shoved in and led to stand before the alcove, before being forced to their knees. The drones then turned and left. The doors slid closed again, and there was silence.

After a moment, Gates was the first to speak. “Where are we?”

A female voice, lyrical yet torturous, beautiful yet deadly reverberated through the room. “You are in my domain.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” Temaga shouted. She felt Cad’En shudder beside her.

The voice came again, sounding somewhat amused. “Perhaps I can make myself... clearer to you.”

Mechanical drones and whirs suddenly sounded from above the alcove, which slowly began to move. Behind the translucent covering, they began to discern a figure moving downwards on a platform. It reached the floor, and the door slowly slid open to reveal a woman.

Cased from breast to foot in glistening black armour, she stepped forward, her head and bare shoulders seeming to float independently above the ground. Her red lips were curved in a sensuous smile, yet her black eyes were cold and calculating, as if dissecting each of her victims in her mind. She raised a black clad arm and lightly held the side of Temaga’s face.

Disgusted, Temaga raised her arm and knocked the woman’s away, who promptly grabbed Temaga’s wrist with her other hand. She leaned forward slightly, her torturous smile widening.

“Resist if you wish. Ultimately, you will be mine. Say goodbye to your false life... Major Enriss Temaga.”

------------------

Sorry about the delay! But here it is, act one of "Lost and Found, part II". Let me know what you think!

[Glenn]

This is awesome, awesome work, Plexus! I'm in awe at the depth and detail! Those sketches and that model, too, were something I've never done: a great new approach, and they really helped in visualising the story (even though your writing style was good enough for that anyway)!

Five seasons... what a future! I look forward to it! Be proud!

[Terilynn]

Hey....

I like this!

Well done CP!

[GenesisDevice]

Thank you for your kind comments, Terilynn and Captain Archer!! I'm glad you like it so far - rest assured there's much, much more to come! But for now, may I present

Act Two

Suspended in space, the hexagonal construct glowed, and then suddenly burst into life. The swirling green cloud within convulsed, ejected the winged craft and disappeared.

In the cockpit, the three people were still reeling from the journey.

“That was... quite something!” The expression on Rhiohr’s face was one of shock mixed with amazement. Nathan nodded in agreement. T’Sora, however, was less than impressed. She examined her display.

“We have exited the conduit. It appears to be sustained by the structure behind us, possibly similar to a transwarp hub, though obviously smaller.”

“Never mind that now... what the hell is that?” he gestured out of the forward viewport, but the others had already seen it. Floating before them was something unlike anything they had ever seen. A truly massive starship, easily hundreds of kilometres long. Roughly cuboidal in shape, with two trapezoidal protrusions along the length on each side, innumerable cubical and spherical ships swarmed around it like flies round a house.

Nathan and Rhiohr were speechless, and even T’Sora seemed moved by the scale of the thing before them. One of her Starfleet consoles bleeped a warning.

“A Cube has broken formation and is converging on our position.”

Nathan took a seat behind Rhiohr. “Evasive action at your discretion.” He checked the Starfleet display beside him. “That’s the Beltane alright, right in the middle of that... ship. Any ideas on how we can possibly get there?”

Rhiohr remained silent, but after a moment T’Sora said, “I believe this,” she pressed a circular control in the centre console, “serves as an equivalent to a cloaking device. Sensors indicate we are concealed within a tertiary subspace layer. It is unlikely the Borg will be able to detect us.”

“That’s... handy,” Rhiohr said doubtfully. “You’re just noticing this now?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I have had sufficient time to familiarise myself with the vessels systems and translate its functions.”

“Right...” he still looked questioning, but didn’t push it further.

Nathan stood again and leaned between their two chairs. “Take us in then. Don’t get too close to any of the ships though, in case this doesn’t work I want to jump to warp at a moment’s notice.”

The ship, unnoticed by Cube, Sphere or fighter alike, weaved between the constantly flowing formation of ships surrounding the monster vessel. After a few minutes, they reached the massive opening and were greeted by yet another impressive, if terrifying sight.

Dozens of cubes remained suspended inside the hollow, cuboidal tunnel, on the other side of which open space could barely be seen. Tiny drones could be seen moving along the fragile-looking gangplanks that connected them all.

“Where’s the Beltane?” Rhiohr asked with more than a slight tinge of fear in his voice.

“There,” Nathan pointed up and left, looking at his display, “one hundred and thirteen kilometres.”

T’Sora input the commands. Rhiohr shook his head, “I can’t get over the size of this thing!”

Nathan smiled grimly. “Well you’d better get used to it crewman; according to the database on this ship there were at least a hundred of them at the time the city was inhabited – they call them “Hives”. I guess they fought a war with the Borg... and lost.”

“We are approaching the Beltane,” T’Sora stated simply. Sure enough, a tiny dot of grey was visible above the green and black of a Cube.

“Take us into the shuttlebay. We can use her sensors to scan the ship.” Nathan, too, was beginning to feel a touch of fear.

A few minutes more and they were suspended outside the aft shuttlebay doors of the Beltane. T’Sora touched her controls and hesitated.

“This vessel will not fit through the space doors.”

“Shit,” Nathan muttered. He thought for a moment, before a simple solution came to him. “Give me weapons control.”

T’Sora raised her eyebrow again, but left her seat and took the aft station where Nathan had been sat.

He sat at ease in the chair, and tried to get to grips with the targeting system. He powered the beam weapons, and touched the targeting screen where he wanted the discharge to impact – on the bulkheads on either side of the space doors. The purple triangles turned blue, confirming the lock, and, his hand shaking slightly, he pressed the prominent blue triangle in the centre of the console.

Two dazzling yellow beams shot from the forward wings, impacting on either side of the shuttlebay. The fire terminated after a split second, having carved deep gashes in the bulkheads on either side behind the doors and destroyed the doors themselves – exactly as intended.

He smiled slightly at the irony of the situation. “Alright, Rhiohr... take us in.”

Remaining under cloak, the ship glided into the shuttlebay, the wingtips fitting snugly in the trenches cut in the walls by the weapons.

After a slightly bumpy landing, Rhiohr shut down the engines. “So now what?”

Nathan went into the aft compartment, emerging a few seconds later with two phaser rifles.

“I came prepared,” he said grinning. “Grab your stuff, we’re heading for the bridge.” T’Sora looked at him expectantly.

“What of our weapons? You appear to have only brought two, and there are three of us.”

Nathan looked confused for a moment, then smiled again. “Oh, these are just mine,” he said, grabbing a hand phaser from a small case. “You two will have to get your own.” And swinging a string of photon grenades over his shoulder he opened the exit and left.

Rhiohr looked at T’Sora with a small smile. “Well, guess that answers that.” He got up, armed himself with a phaser rifle and his Bajoran disruptor before also proceeding out.

T’Sora raised an eyebrow.

*

Nathan picked his way through the debris on the shuttlebay floor; beams, conduits, fragments of computer terminals. She must of taken a hell of a beating, he thought. Rhiohr was standing by the exit, taking in the scope of the Hive – fortunately there had been enough secondary power to raise the bay door forcefield.

“T’Sora! How long are you going to be in there?” Nathan called impatiently.

“I am coming,” a muffled voice replied, and she stepped out. Nathan could not help but laugh, for she was laden with every single weapon he had packed, minus the ones he and Rhiohr had taken. Three heavy-duty phaser rifles, one in each hand and the third under her arm; two hand phasers were stuck in her belt and two more strings of fifteen photon grenades and an isomagnetic disintegrator were slung over her shoulder. She raised an eyebrow condescendingly as Rhiohr started to laugh too, as if to say “So what?”.

“You know, you might find it easier... okay never mind – just hurry up, we need to get to the bridge.” Nathan snorted again at the sight of her trying to move with dignity through the debris strewn across the floor.

*

The Queen walked around her prey, still smiling her sadistic smile, her black-clad muscular yet voluptuous body swaying gracefully. She stroked Gates’ hair lightly and swooped down to whisper in his ear.

“Where do you come from?” her voice was sensuous, yet dripped with ice.

Will rolled his eyes. She had been ‘interrogating’ them for the best part of an hour without success, and he could tell she was losing patience. Though she maintained her sensual pretence, she was obviously tiring of them.

She straightened and turned to Cad’En. “You know, my friend... you will not survive much longer. Surely you realise that. Answer but one of my questions and I will see to it you never have to fear for your health again.”

“You leave him alone!” Temaga said, her voice shaking with fury.

“A challenge!” the Queen seemed positively delighted. “Very well, Major – you answer me this. How did you survive the war? Your planet is dead, and has been for aeons. How is it that a member of your – species,” she almost spat the word, “has managed to survive for this long?”

Temaga stood and faced the Queen, eye to eye. “You bitch. How dare you have the audacity to question my existence when you have been the scourge of the galaxy for the past thirty thousand years!”

The Queen shot forward, so close to Temaga she could have kissed her.

“Scourge of the galaxy? I find it ironic that you could claim such a title for any other but yourself. Or is it unknown to you that your people were once the oppressors of billions?” she moved back and walked around Temaga, who stood defiantly.

The Queen paused behind her, then suddenly grabbed her shoulder and pulled Temaga towards her, her left arm around her throat and her right fist inches from her neck.

“Do you know what they call you in the ancient legends? The Dead Ones. Your race has failed, but for you. How does it feel to know your species will die at my hand?”

Temaga said nothing. Gates looked on fearfully, but knew he could do nothing, and Cad’En remained kneeling, his head drooping, his blue skin now almost white. He did not have much time left.

“Very well,” the Queens blood red lips curved again in a smile. “Goodbye, Major Temaga!” Triangular slots opened on her index and middle fingers, but before she could proceed further she heard a stifled “NOOOO!” and was somehow knocked off her feet.

Cad’En had launched himself at the Queen, catching her off guard and bringing her to the ground. Temaga struggled free and pushed Gates toward the door. Wrenching a metal spike from the wall, she ran to the door herself but a cry made her turn back.

The Queen was standing again, holding Cad’En above the floor by the neck. “You dare?” she whispered. “You dare attack your Queen? Know, then, the punishment for attempted regicide!” Practically screaming the last words, she threw his almost still form against the opposite wall, where he landed and slid down with a sickening crunch.

“No!” Temaga rushed to him, but it was too late. His neck was broken; blue blood covered her hands even as she touched his cold, dead face. She felt a tear forming, and let it fall.

“I’m sorry.”

“You are beyond ‘sorry’, Major.” The Queen stood calmly behind her. “There is no one in this universe you can save. Not yourself, your city, your beloved first officer. You are mine, like the rest of your race.”

Trembling, Temaga stood again and faced the Queen in defiance. Letting out a cry of anger and despair she swung the spike at the Queen’s head, who raised a black arm and knocked it out of her hand. She reached forward and again stroked Temaga’s cheek.

“Don’t resist... I know you will enjoy what we offer.”

Temaga’s expression could not have conveyed more anger or hate than it did now. “You can go straight to hell,” she said through gritted teeth, and spat in her face. The Queen’s smile widened.

“Such strength... you will make a worthy addition to my Collective!”

She raised her right arm, and slowly brought her fist to Temaga’s neck. Again the slots opened, and thin black tubules shot out and stabbed into her skin.

Temaga let out a cry of agony. Her neck was on fire; already she could feel the nanoprobes at work, altering her blood chemistry, taking over her cell functions. She fell to her knees, feeling her body growing weak. The Queen snatched her hand away and stood back to admire the results.

“You bitch... you’ll regret this...”

The Queen turned and walked away. “I regret nothing.” Walking slowly to Lieutenant Gates, she turned again to watch Temaga collapse to the floor. She was about to resume toward him when her head cocked. A slow, cruel smile formed on her lips. Turning to Will but addressing them both, she said,

“You’re in luck... it seems your friends have found us.”

--------

Wow!! That last bit was a bit difficult to write. Anyway - feedback and comments are welcome as usual!

[Glenn]

I'm with Rhiohr on this one: "That was... quite something!"

[GenesisDevice]

In a good way?

[Glenn]

CentralPlexus, on Feb 27 2009, 10:04 PM, said:

In a good way?

Absolutely! Who doesn't love attempted regicide?

Seriously, your writing style is fantastic, rich in detail and drama... I can't wait for more!

'tis a brilliant time for fan fiction on the Omega Sector: Raven, Terilynn, trekfan, Mrs.Picard, Ad Astra up and running, Anna Amuse, Ael... now you as well, Plexus! So much awesome work out there!

I'll never need to buy another Star Trek book.

[GenesisDevice]

Captain Archer, on Feb 27 2009, 10:22 PM, said:

Absolutely! Who doesn't love attempted regicide?

Seriously, your writing style is fantastic, rich in detail and drama... I can't wait for more!

Hehe, well the Queen! Written her a little differently to the "normal" Queen but all will become clear...

Thanks You won't have to wait for long! In fact, here is

Act Three

Nathan climbed. He, along with T’Sora and Rhiohr had been wandering the turbolift shafts for the past ten minutes, but now found they could climb no further. They had reached the top, and a pair of grey doors greeted them at the top of the ladder.

“Right. Don’t suppose this will work but let’s give it a shot.” Nathan prised open the panel by the door and let it fall down the four decks they had just climbed. He pulled down the manual release lever, with difficulty considering how many weapons he was carrying, but nothing happened.

“Didn’t think so,” he said, and swung a phaser rifle off his shoulder and pointed it at the door. “Better watch yourselves,” he said over his shoulder to the other two, and fired the weapon twice.

Two bright orange bolts were let loose from the barrel of the rifle; they struck the door and blew it apart, revealing the nearly destroyed bridge.

Nathan stepped lightly off the ladder onto more solid ground. “Let’s go.”

The other two stepped gingerly onto the bridge, clearly disturbed at the destruction. Few consoles remained intact, and several bulkheads had been torn open revealing conduits and other inner workings of the ship, and many fragments lay scattered on the floor.

“So what’s your plan?” Rhiohr set down his weapons on the captain’s chair.

Nathan removed the photon grenades from his shoulder and slung them across the back of the conn chair.

“Simple. We use the sensors to scan for non-Borg life signs, then beam them aboard. Hopefully we can still distinguish between Human, Andorian and so on. Then we mount a daring escape somehow managing to destroy this entire Hive thing.” He leaned back against the chair smiling slightly. The others looked at him blankly.

“How do you intend to destroy the ship?”

“That’s where these come in,” Nathan picked up the photon grenades. “We beam these to strategic areas – warp drive, plasma conduits et cetera. Then we blow them up, and escape in the ship we brought while setting the Beltane to self-destruct. Should do some pretty significant damage at least.”

T’Sora inclined her head. “Even if we do manage to rescue the prisoners, and destroy the ship, I doubt Captain Temaga will be ‘pleased’ that you sacrificed her ship to do so.”

He grimaced. “Details! What better plan do you have?”

T’Sora did not answer, but instead removed her grenades from her shoulder and threw them to Nathan. “Proceed,” she said after a moment.

“Rhiohr, take the engineering station. See if transporters are still operational, if not do what you can to get them back and start beaming these around the Hive.”

Rhiohr nodded and moved to the forward port station. “Yes... sir,” he said with a small smile.

*

Will sat with his head in his hands. Cad’En was dead, Temaga assimilated, and yet he had been brought back to the cell unharmed. Why? The Queen had mentioned a party come to rescue them, perhaps her attention would be needed elsewhere.

He wondered what would happen to him. They would assimilate him most likely, he thought. The rest of the crew had already been lost to that fate – he had noticed more than one Beltane crewmember on his journey to and from the cell. He surmised it was only due to his being one of the remaining senior officers that he was still ‘alive’.

A low whine interrupted his thoughts. He raised his head and looked around, wondering what it was. He saw nothing, until he looked down – blue sparkles and streaks were swirling around his chest, and were spreading. His vision dissolved, and the next thing he knew he was standing – or rather, sitting in mid-air – on the bridge of the Beltane.

His feet materialised on the floor but the rest of his body, still in a sitting position, fell back. Before he could hit the floor, however, he felt strong arms catch him and found himself looking into Nathan’s blue-grey eyes.

“Nathan... how did...?” he pulled him into a brief hug before turning to Rhiohr and T’Sora.

“Yours was the only non-Borg life sign we could make out,” Rhiohr told him apologetically. “We scanned for the others but...”

“Cad’En is dead. He tried to stop the Queen assimilating the captain. As for the others... they’re as good as dead too.” Will’s voice trailed off.

“Then our purpose here has been fulfilled,” T’Sora stated.

Nathan stood in silence for a moment. “Yeh... you three get back to the ship.”

Will turned to him. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going to destroy this ship, and the Hive out there. Now get going, all of you!”

Will stayed still. “You’re not leaving, are you?” Nathan remained silent, withdrawing a remote detonation unit from his pocket.

He stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “You can’t!”

Nathan wrenched himself free and stepped back. “Actually, I can. And as the ranking member of this expedition I am ordering all of you to get off this ship, NOW! They probably already know we’re here!”

Will remained for a moment, staring into Nathan’s eyes, before backing away and running to follow the others leaving the bridge.

T’Sora turned before stepping onto the ladder. “We will keep a transporter lock on you.”

Nathan nodded, and grimly watched them depart.

*

“We’re not leaving him behind, are we?” Rhiohr looked concerned as he initialised the ship’s engines for departure.

“Sir?”

Will looked around. “No... of course not.” He sighed. “Take us out, crewman.”

Still cloaked, the ship backed out of the shuttlebay and headed out of the Hive undetected. Will noticed that less Cubes seemed to be inside than before. His suspicions were quickly confirmed as he saw the increased patrols around the Hive. Clearly the Queen believed they would try to escape in the Beltane.

“Take us three thousand kilometres out and hold position. Keep that transporter lock on him at all costs.”

Rhiohr nodded, “Yes sir.”

*

Beltane’s remaining phaser banks charged, and fired flaming orange bolts across the Hive where they slammed into the hull. Only the first few shots did any real damage, but she kept on firing. A few moments later, forty five simultaneous explosions occurred, taking out many key power conduits and doing significant structural damage.

On the bridge, Nathan whooped a cry of victory; all the grenades had gone off successfully. But the Hive’s internal weapons were already responding, and the Beltane’s weakened shields would hold for less than a minute, if that.

“Carson to Gates. The grenades went off as planned – I’m activating the self-destruct and setting a collision course. Stand by to get me out of here!”

“Acknowledged,” Nathan barely heard the reply over the roar of a chunk of the ship being torn out by weapons fire. An alarm sounded at the remains of the tactical station and he rushed over – intruders!

Another boom sounded and the bridge rocked hard. He activated the captain’s console and pressed various combinations of controls, but nothing happened.

“The secondary command relays are offline! I can’t activate the destruct sequence!” Nathan yelled over the roar of the fires and sparks throughout the bridge.

“We’re getting you out of there, Nathan. Stand by for –”

“Wait!” he cut them off, dashing towards the helm console, “I’ve got an idea.”

Will’s voice became urgent. “Doctor, there are five drones headed towards the bridge. There’s no time!”

Nathan’s fingers flew over the helm controls, adjusting the Beltane’s position within the Hive. He felt the ship quake as it struggled to obey his commands. He was about to engage the course, however, when a crash behind him made him turn.

The aft wall of the bridge had literally been blasted open, and through the smoke and dust a figure slowly approached.

“Oh my...”

Slowly, deliberately, Captain Temaga stepped onto the bridge. Surveying her surroundings for a split second, her eyes fell on Nathan, still stood by the helm. She cocked her head, and the four drone behind her moved towards him.

Nathan was quick with his rifle, taking out two of the drones, but they were quicker – within seconds they had seized his weapon and struck him to the ground. One drone crouched over him.

“Captain... don’t...!”

Temaga, or the thing that had been her, stood in silence, a war going on inside her brain. One part cold, sadistic and destructive wished so badly to kill the man before her, along with his friends. But the true Enriss Temaga, the defiant, fighting spirit the Queen had valued so greatly, was winning. Almost physically, she shoved aside her ensuing Borg nature and ran towards him. She snapped one drone’s neck before it even knew what was happening, and as the second one rose to stand and face her she grabbed Nathan’s discarded rifle, injected her new tubules into it and fired. The green bolt his the drone squarely in the chest, and it remained standing for a moment before staggering and falling to the floor.

“Go.” Her voice was sincere, yet desperate.

Nathan was rooted to the spot. “Come with us, we can help get you back!” Temaga shook her head.

“I can’t... I’ll only be a danger, to you all. Go, now – I’ll fly the ship.”

He hesitated, but after a moment tossed a device to her and tapped his commbadge. “Lieutenant, get me out of here!” He remained for a moment, before blue streaks enveloped him and he disappeared.

Temaga turned back to the helm console, looking at the Hive on the viewscreen. She knew what to do. Engaging the course, she injected her tubules into the console.

Slowly, the Beltane built up speed, heading towards the interior hull of the Hive. On Temaga’s inputted instructions, torpedo after pulsating orange torpedo flew from the front of the ship and impacted the Borg monstrosity.

Temaga closed her eyes.

Still firing, the Beltane struck the Borg ship. Her forward hull crumpled, but ploughed relentlessly through the Hive’s inner workings. Soon she was encased in a white fireball, which rapidly expanded, consuming everything around it.

In the ship, the four expedition members stood in silence. Numerous explosions were occurring along the Hive’s surface, and a massive chain reaction quickly blew the entire construction apart in a huge green fireball, destroying many of the smaller orbiting vessels.

The mood inside the ship was sombre. Not a word was said until several minutes had passed.

“Let’s go home,” Nathan whispered. Will put a hand on his shoulder, which he quickly grasped.

“Yes, sir.” Rhiohr input the course back to the conduit.

Emerging on the other side, the ship launched two of the torpedo-like devices that had destroyed the Borg fighter, sealing the transwarp conduit behind them.

*

“How many of those things did you say there were?” Will sat on the table in the command centre looking glumly at the main screen.

“According to the database, at least a hundred and ten. That was twenty five thousand years ago - who knows how many more there could be now?” Rhiohr got up and made for the door. “I’m going to bed – please let me know if there’s any more shit we can get into today.”

Will smiled, and looked round. “Ensign,” he called. Rhiohr almost didn’t turn – his recent (within the last hour, in fact) promotion hadn’t quite sank in yet. “Nice work.”

Rhiohr nodded, smiled back and left. Will drummed his fingers on the desk, and was also about to leave when a silhouette on the window overlooking the city caught his eye. He approached the door to the balcony, and found Nathan stood, apparently deep in thought, leaning against the railing.

“I was just about to turn in, but I thought I’d catch a bite to eat first. Care to join me?” Will asked, standing next to him.

Nathan shook his head. He had barely said a word since they had returned to the city earlier in the day. Will leaned forward but could quite see his expression; his face was shrouded in darkness from the twilight.

“What’s wrong?” The loss of Captain Temaga had obviously affected him greatly.

“It’s nothing,” Nathan said, straightening and kneading his shoulder. “It’s just...” he turned to face Will directly, “I don’t think I’m ready for this. Leadership, I mean. I know I’m the ranking member of the expedition and all now, but... I don’t think I can cope with that kind of responsibility. Not yet, anyway.”

Will smiled slightly. “I haven’t exactly received command training either. But maybe it’s something we can grow into... together?” he extended his hand, which Nathan took after a moment.

“Together,” he agreed, and smiled slightly.

They both turned to take in the awesome view of the city again. Even in the evening dark it retained its spectacular beauty, and the two men simply stood and admired it for a few more minutes. Eventually, Will turned to Nathan again, sensing his true preoccupation.

“What do you think will happen now?”

Nathan shrugged. “We sent a message to Starfleet a few hours ago, it won’t get there for a few weeks so I guess we can’t expect any help from them any time soon.”

Will nodded in agreement. “You sure we collapsed the conduit?”

“Positive. I had T’Sora do an extensive scan, there’s no chance of the conduit reappearing. But... that doesn’t stop them from coming by more conventional means. There’s probably a fleet of those Hive ships on its way right now.”

Will said nothing, knowing he was right. They stood in silence for another minute or so, before he looked at Nathan to his left once again, and put his arm round his shoulders. A bit risky, he thought, hope I’m not pushing too far too fast.

“Hey,” he smiled encouragingly as Nathan looked back at him. “We’ll find her, one day.”

Nathan did not smile back. He looked into Will’s brown eyes for a moment more before returning to observe the vista beyond.

“Yeh... maybe...”

----------

WOW!! That was hard. But worth it! And that's just the first installment of what (I hope!!) is going to be a tremendous series!

What did you think? Now the episode is finished, is it a better read? Etc. I really hope yous all like it!

[Glenn]

Well, I was certainly hoping for a big dramatic conclusion to the episode... and I got it!

Favourite moment: "together" just worked so well. Excellent moment.

Here's to clear horizons for the rest of Star Trek: Abandoned and the best of luck to you, Plexus! If you ever need any help writing an episode-based series (although I doubt that you will) I'm more than happy to answer the odd PM on the subject!

[GenesisDevice]

Thanks - I'll keep it in mind Things are going to quieten down for a while but I hope everyone still enjoys the next few offerings.

With that said, I'd like to present


Episode Three

Teaser

Enchantress came to me and said “Meet me at the lake, tonight”...

Dawn was breaking over the great city, the glistening towers bathed in pink and mauve light. The once dead place was slowly coming back to life, the habitation of the Temple House seemingly radiating out into the centre ring and beyond. Birds once again felt the need to flit between the buildings, singing their hearts away to one another and themselves, bringing back the life the city had so desperately yearned for.

Doctor Nathan Carson, lying on his back in a bed that was somewhat too large for his liking, heard the song, as if in a dream, and turned slowly to the unit on his right, on which a chronometer had been placed.

It took him several minutes to comprehend what the symbols on the display meant – 08:33. He blinked slowly, almost falling back into a half-sleep state.

His eyes shot open. “Not again!” He ripped away the covers to find the room surprisingly cold. Cursing silently, he scooted down to the edge of the bed and pulled on the nearest shirt and trousers he could find, before grabbing his commbadge and running barefoot across the room and out of the door.

Ensign Kira Rhiohr sat at the conference table in the control centre looking bored. “He’s late again,” he said with a hint of amusement.

Professor T’Sora said nothing, as was her way, and Lieutenant Will Gates let out a slight laugh. “Give him a few more minutes, he needs his sleep just like the rest of us.”

T’Sora faced him. “The rest of us were here thirty four minutes ago, despite our apparent need for sleep.” Will shook his head and sighed.

“Never mind. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?”

As if on cue, the doors to the control centre slid open and a slightly breathless Nathan burst through, skidding to a halt as he reached the railings around the central arena.

“Hi. Starting without me?”

Rhiohr and Will smiled but T’Sora did not seem as happy. “May I remind you, that as joint commanding officer it is your responsibility to attend all meetings and briefings on time?” she cast a distasteful eye over his bed hair, crumpled black t-shirt and bare feet. “And appropriately dressed?”

Nathan rolled his eyes, but self consciously smoothed his shirt down his chest and attempted to pat his hair down. “Happy now?”

T’Sora gave him the Vulcan equivalent of a scornful look and turned back to face the screen in the middle of the ring shaped table. Nathan smiled and took his seat next to Rhiohr and opposite Will. A small PADD was in front of him with a very short list of what needed to be covered.

“Let’s get started then,” Will said briskly, clearly wishing to get it over with as much as anyone else. “Now as you know we’re still having difficulty interfacing our generators with the city’s power grid, though I don’t see much need to worry about that; the city itself seems to be providing all the power we need, at least for now. T’Sora, I’d like you and your team to have a look and find out how.”

T’Sora nodded. Nathan nonchalantly ticked off the first item on the list and took over.

“Last night we received a reply to our message from Starfleet. They said they’d taken our situation under advisement and will take appropriate action to support us, whatever that means.”

Will nodded in agreement; he was well aware of the bureaucracy still so commonplace in the upper ranks in Starfleet. “Lastly, our sensors still haven’t picked up any Borg activity within five hundred light years. Obviously we know they’ll be on their way even now, but... if the Hive we encountered is any indication, they have several thousand light years to go before reaching us. Not that that’s much comfort, but...”

After a moments silence, Nathan stood and stretched his arms behind his head. “Well if that’s all, I’m needed down in the city, there’s a couple of things I’ve been told to take a look at.”

“Such as?” Will called after him as he made for the door. Nathan turned. And threw the PADD back to him.

“Such as, things that don’t involve Borg, generators or Starfleet.” And with that he pressed the green triangle on the door control, waited for them to open, and left.

Will sighed. In the two weeks they had been in the city, he and Nathan had already formed a fast and strong friendship. But there was something about the man that tried his patience, not least his lack of regard for authority and schedule. He gathered the other PADDs left by Rhiohr and T’Sora and put them with Nathan’s and his own on the shelf below the screen. Maybe it’s just a civilian thing, he thought.

In his quarters, Nathan removed his commbadge, tossed it on the bed and stripped off his shirt. Throwing it aside he rummaged through his still unpacked multitude of cases until he found a clean one. Pulling it on, he retrieved his commbadge and activated it.

“Carson to Santos. You said you had something for me to see?”

No reply. He tapped the badge twice and repeated,

“Carson to Santos, please respond.”

Again, nothing. Frowning, he went across to the computer terminal. After pressing a few controls he spoke aloud.

“Computer, please locate Ensign Santos and the rest of her team.”

The metallic female voice instantly replied. “Ensign Santos is not in the city.”

“What do you mean?” the computer began to repeat its sentence but Nathan cut it off. “No, wait, stop. What was the last known location of Ensign Santos or any other member of her team?”

“A building nine hundred metres west-north-west of your current position.”

Nathan paused in his enquiry a moment to check the city schematic. The building in question was well outside the centre ring, next to what appeared to be several landing strips.

“What happened to them?” he asked, already knowing what reply he would get.

“Unknown.”

Nathan sighed, and activated his commbadge again. “Carson to Gates.”

“What is it, doctor?”

“I’m coming back up there. We have a team missing.” And slapping the badge back onto his chest, he walked – still barefoot – out of the door again.

-----

Cue title sequence! Like I said, this is going to be a somewhat quieter episode, but no less enjoyable, I hope. We'll find out a lot of things about the city that will be needed later on, so keep sharp.

As always, feedback, comments, suggestions etc are all welcome!

[GenesisDevice]

"Discoveries"

Act One

“What do you mean missing?” The senior staff consisting of Will, Nathan, T’Sora and Rhiohr as well as other department heads had all gathered in the central arena. A schematic diagram of the city was displayed on the screen.

“I mean missing,” said Nathan impatiently, having gone over the situation twice already as more people turned up. “The computer shows this to be their last known location,” he indicated the building about halfway between the inner and outer circles, “and that they disappeared from it around ten hours ago.” He pressed a control and the diagram zoomed in, showing a cross-section of the building.

“From that we can tell that entire section of the city seems to be some sort of transport complex, a spaceport if you will. We’ve detected several types of ship in the various hangars, including the fighter type we used for our incursion into Borg territory two weeks ago.” He indicated the four smaller diagrams to the side.

Will stepped forward. “We’re going to be working under the assumption that, for whatever reason, Ensign Santos and her team left the city from this complex, probably in one of these vessels. I know sensors haven’t picked up any airborne traffic other than our own,” he continued as T’Sora was about to object, “but we still don’t fully understand how a lot of these systems work, we could easily have missed something.”

The small crowd nodded but remained silent. “T’Sora, I want you and your team to go back over the sensor logs – ours and the city’s – see if there’s anything we’ve missed. D’Jan and Rhiohr, you and yours are coming with me, we’re going to check out that place. Let’s go.” Will left the table as the others departed and made for the door, but turned at the sound of a throat being cleared.

“Nathan, I want you to stay here, coordinate our search from the control room.”

“What...?” Nathan began to protest but Will cut him off.

“This is a security matter and technically, I’m still in charge of security. Besides, at least one of us needs to stay here, and sorry but it’s not gonna be me.” He gave him a brief smile before turning and heading out the doors.

Nathan remained where he was for a moment, then headed over to the sensors with T’Sora.

*

The shuttle soared majestically through the air, weaving between the buildings as if led by some great string.

“Taking the scenic route, ensign?” Will stood behind Rhiohr, watching as tower after tower passed slowly by. Rhiohr grinned.

“I hadn’t noticed, sir. But you have to admit it’s worth it.”

Will smiled as the shuttle came within inches of touching the road, before swooping up again to just barely clear the roof of a silver-capped cylindrical tower. Far below he saw the smaller Outer Circle passing by and said quietly,

“I would like to get there today, ensign.”

Rhiohr flushed slightly. “Sorry sir,” and bringing the shuttle swinging round a kilometre-high building he took them gently down towards the “spaceport”, the near-white building at the head of the main landing strip seemingly welcoming and yet sinister. The shuttle approached the base of the tower, where several entrances quickly became visible as they drew nearer.

“Better get ready to move out,” Rhiohr advised Will as he brought the shuttle to a standstill. Will nodded and armed himself with a phaser rifle and tricorder. The seven others in the back did the same as the aft hatch swung down.

The security detachments moved through the entrance hall, let by Will, Rhiohr and the Trill Ensign Hanar D’Jan. Tricorder scans quickly revealed there was nothing in the vast room save for what they could see – several flights of stairs, inactive computers and large display screens, and a counter that ran the entire length of the hall on the far end. Information in the alien language they still had difficulty translating was present above several stations.

Will pocketed his tricorder. “Definitely a spaceport or airport of some kind.” He smiled – it seemed some things truly were a constant in the universe.

“Alright. Teams of three – Rhiohr, Hanar and I will take two people each.” Each selected their personnel and fanned out through the hall, each team taking a different flight of stairs. Will tapped his commbadge.

“Maintain an open communication channel at all times. If anyone finds anything, the rest of us will be right there.”

Two replies of “Yes, sir,” later, he and his team found themselves in an empty hangar bay. He gestured to his teammates. “See if you can find a computer terminal, find out what’s been going on here.”

He left the others and walked slowly across the wide bay to the far end. In the dim light he could barely make out the multitude of horizontal slats that made up the door to the outside. Casting his eyes around, he saw a balcony to his right about two floors up.

“Over here,” he called, spotting an entrance below it. Prising the door open they found a flight of stairs, at the top of which, sure enough was the balcony, the edges lines with control stations and displays.

“Gates to Kira and D’Jan. We’ve found what appears to be a control booth in one of the hangars. I’m going to attempt to access the computer.”

Rhiohr was the first to reply. “Understood. We’re in another hangar, there’s some sort of transport ship in this one. You might want to get up here and have a look when you’re done.” D’Jan’s voice came a few seconds later.

“We’ve found something that might be related to the team’s disappearance,” she reported. “Stand by; I’ll tell you more when we have something more conclusive.”

Will ran his fingers over the controls, searching for something that might give him access to the network. The building’s secondary lights, at the junction between wall and floor, had powered up automatically when they entered, but they had learned upon first setting foot in the city that most other systems tended to need to be activated manually. Spotting a prominent triangular control, so like those in the control centre and the fighters, he took his chances and pressed it.

A loud, mechanical clang and whir made them start, and suddenly a brilliant shaft of light pierce the near darkness beneath them. The hangar door slowly slid upwards and open, offering a brilliant view of the landing strip below and the wider city beyond.

After a moment, Will addressed the other two. “Take those stations, find out what you can. I’m gonna go check on D’Jan.” They nodded and, swinging his rifle over his shoulder, he left the control booth and took off down the stairs.

*

“This really is quite incredible,” Rhiohr said as he walked back across the bridge of the ship. While not large, she could certainly give a Runabout a run for her money, probably in all respects. The bridge vaguely resembled that of a Defiant-class; small and crowded, yet functional. Two angular stations, one in front of the other were placed in the centre, while one continuous station lined the rest of the walls, bar the aft entrance and forward viewer.

“Contact the control centre,” he told one of his companions. “Inform them we’ve found several large-ish ships that might prove useful in the future.”

He made toward the exit, pressing his own commbadge. “Kira to Gates. We’re about finished here, we’ll be joining you shortly.”

The lieutenant’s reply was urgent. “Get up here quickly – we know what’s happened.”

*

“What do we have?” he strode into the room, closely followed by his teammates. He stopped at the sight of a slightly elevated, light blue glowing platform. “That’s...”

Will’s expression was grim. “It’s a transporter. Our tricorders indicate this is the last place Santos and the others were; they must have activated it somehow and been beamed to... well, who knows where.”

Rhiohr turned to the others, bouncing his hand on the console. “Doesn’t it say?”

D’Jan shook her head, indicating the display. “There are hundreds of rooms like this all over the city, but our computers said they weren’t here... they could be anywhere on the planet.”

*

It was too cold! Freezing water stabbed her body like a million knives over and over again. She called out, to nothing and no one. She struggled, her sodden uniform billowing around her, dragging her down. Bursting free of the icy water, her head and arms flailed, reaching for anything – her team, a piece of floating debris, anything.

She called out again. She yelled, she screamed, for minutes before falling silent. Soon she began to stop struggling. She slapped her chest in vain, reaching for her commbadge, now lying on the bed in the depths below her.

Ensign Santos gave up, lost in the endless expanse of ocean.

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Well there you go. A bit of a situation to be sure - that will be rectified soon enough Keep your eye out for Act Two, coming very soon. Like, tomorrow probably As always, let me know what you think!

[Glenn]

A cliffhanger... at the end of Act One?! Damn it, man! Don't do this to me!

Quality remains top-level. Story is genuinely interesting. I remain slightly envious.