Ghost of a Chance (10 page)

“Range?”

“Just under two kilometers.”

“I don’t think that’s the only company we’ve got, either.”

Janeway turned slightly, allowing the tricorder to triangulate more accurately. “There. EM scan.”

Kim recalibrated his own tricorder, waited, then slowly nodded.

“These readings are definitely artificial. And they seem to coincide with the ferric metals readings we’ve been getting. I’d say it’s the same source.”

Janeway frowned. “So would I.”

“I put the contact no more than a kilometer or so the other side of the village, near the hills.”

“What would you say are the chances it’s a Televek cruiser that’s landed?”

“I’d say the chances are pretty good, Captain.”

They stood staring out across the fields toward the forests beyond. A bristled carpet of tall, spindly trees, swaying gently in the warm morning breezes, covered the high ground as far as the eye could see.

Crooked lines revealed the paths of mountain streams descending from distant peaks. This was high summer on Drenar Four’s main continent, and one could not help but be impressed. It was a beautiful world if you looked under all the soot, and if you didn’t mind that it was trying to pull itself apart.

“We’d better get out of the open, Captain,” Kim said, adjusting his tricorder again, repeating his earlier scans. “Those people are moving at a good pace. They’ll be emerging on the far side of these fields in just a few minutes.”

“And they will no doubt find the shuttle after that. We have to assume that’s what they’re looking for. And when they find it, I’d rather be outside watching than inside waiting. We may have to get Tuvok out of there, at least for the time being.”

“What then?”

It was a straightforward, sensible question. She just didn’t have a good answer. She placed one hand on the ensign’s shoulder, gave him a gentle pat. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kim.

Whatever happens, I’m sure we’ll keep busy.”

They turned around and headed back the way they had come. The shuttle lay just beyond a knoll, toward the far side of an expansive grassy field. The field, one of many in this area, was surrounded by low, forested hills. Fields that had been left fallow, apparently. Janeway was fairly sure a stream ran by somewhere beyond the low bluff that stood just on the far side of the shuttle. They were probably going to need water, among other things, though she feared they might find only a flowing stream of mud.

“How are we doing?” she asked as they entered the shuttle’s open hatch. They found Tuvok lying on his back, probing a web of circuitry under the navigation console. He had removed several of the access panels in the shuttle’s forward control section, more in the rear cargo area.

“I am very close to restoring minimal power to some of the primary systems, including the computer and the sensors, both of which seem to be largely undamaged.” He pushed back, then pulled himself up off the deck and moved toward another panel. “Mr. Kim, would you be so kind as to lend a hand?”

Kim nodded and went to Tuvok’s side, then took the probe from him and held it in position. Tuvok was apparently trying to use one section of conduit in place of another. Kim used the probe to fuse the connection. Tuvok stood up again suddenly and tapped the main console.

“It looks good,” Kim told him.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Janeway said.

At this, Kim withdrew the probe. Tuvok entered yet another command, and selected panels throughout the small ship suddenly flickered to life.

“Good work, Mr. Tuvok!” Janeway cried.

“A good beginning, but little else, I’m afraid,” Tuvok said.

“The rest of the repairs will take more time.”

“Sensors will do for now. I want you to scan these coordinates.”

She held her tricorder up and let the Vulcan examine the readings. He nodded, then moved to the sensor panel and began working.

“We think it may be a ship, just as you suggested,” Kim told Tuvok.

“We can’t determine anything more, though,” Janeway said.

“Wreckage could easily read about the same, including those EM emissions, if someone left the lights on.”

“Contact verified, Captain,” Tuvok said after a moment. “I am reading what appears to be a fully operational Televek cruiser, very much like the one we encountered in orbit. I find no indication of damage of any kind, and power levels are consistent with those of its sister ship. I am also detecting considerable activity in the area surrounding the cruiser.”

Janeway let out a sigh. “I knew they were up to something. I just wish I knew what it was.”

“When we find out, I’ll bet we won’t like it,” Kim said.

“Captain,” Tuvok said, looking up at her, “the cruiser is also in close proximity to the underground energy source we detected from Voyager.”

“How close?”

“Almost directly above it.”

“Then they might be the ones who put it here,” Kim suggested.

“Possible, but highly unlikely,” Tuvok replied.

Janeway looked at him. “Why?”

“The cruiser and the energy source are separated by some seven miles of earth and rock, and I am reading no direct connection between the two points, physical, radiant or radio. Also, the underground energy source has a complex energy signature, including trace tetryon emissions, while the Televek cruiser is using a conventional matter-antimatter power source.”

“So their signatures are entirely different from each other,” Janeway said, considering. Tetryons were rare indeed. The Caretaker had produced similar emissions, but it had been extragalactic in nature.

The Televek, most certainly, were not.

“Any change in the readings from the underground energy source?” she asked, moving to Tuvok’s side now, examining the data for herself.

Tuvok called up side-by-side displays of Voyager’s earlier reading and the shuttle’s current scans. “The overall output of the power source is still exhibiting a continuous, steady drop.

Present levels continue to spike downward, then recover, though for no apparent reason.”

“The Televek might be draining it somehow,” Janeway suggested, this time sparing Kim the task. “But maybe they’re not taking the energy directly into their cruiser. A storage facility, perhaps. Scan for anything that might fit that description.”

“I do not believe the Televek have the capability,” Tuvok said as he made a fresh sensor sweep. He looked up after a moment. “No such facility has been detected, but I will continue to examine that possibility.”

“Very well, Tuvok,” Janeway told him. “But I think you are quite right about Televek capabilities. Which leaves us with plenty of possibilities, certainly. Clarification, however, seems in short supply.” She grinned at the others; attempting to make light of their situation, at least for a moment. Only Kim grinned back.

“We have to go,” she said with a sigh. “A party of Drenarians is headed this way. At least we think that’s who they are. Shut everything down and lock up. I don’t think the locals can do much more damage to the exterior. With luck, they’ll nose around for a while, then move on. After they leave, we can come back and try to get communications working.”

“Understood,” Tuvok replied, already complying.

Once the hatch was sealed, they made their way up the face of the steep bluff, then hid among the thickly clustered trees that crowded its edge. The knoll east of the shuttle was just tall enough to block the captain’s view of the fields beyond, but soon enough she saw thin puffs of gray smoke rising above the ridge.

The approaching Drenarians were kicking up ash clouds, giving their position away. Janeway made a mental note to remember that.

It wasn’t long before two dozen or more humanoid individuals appeared.

Even at a distance they seemed somewhat taller and huskier than most humans. As they descended the gentle slope and edged slowly, cautiously, toward the shuttle, Janeway noted that their features were crude and almost brutish. Thick, long, dark hair and heavy beards obscured the heads and faces of the males, and the few females didn’t look much different, though their hair grew even longer. They wore sturdy handmade clothing, most of it apparently woven. Their shoes and packs, though, had clearly been made from animal skins.

With the last of them came three stout wooden wagons, small and two-wheeled, drawn by oxlike beasts that stood about complaisantly, chewing on the trampled, semiclean grassy tufts beneath their feet, as the caravan reached level ground and paused. The handful of individuals who appeared to be leading the way began to fan out, cautiously circling around the shuttlecraft, their bodies crouched low to the ground. They carried weapons, Janeway noticed now. Most held long, heavy knives that reminded her of ancient Roman short swords, but a few carried what appeared to be well-crafted, and probably quite deadly, crossbows.

Janeway began to wonder if these people hadn’t been given some of their tools and technology, which seemed to postdate their lifestyle and brutish physiology considerably. It was possible the Televek had been here for quite some time.

When they completed their circle, the Drenarians held utterly still, as if they were waiting for something to happen, waiting for some kind of sign. Nothing moved. Even the breeze seemed to have died.

“Their actions tend to indicate that they are motivated by curiosity rather than hostility,” Tuvok suggested.

“I agree,” Janeway said. “That could be some kind of attack formation, but they don’t look like a trained army. If they were, I don’t think so many of them would have died the last time they tried this.”

“The last time?” Kim asked.

“We have seen no deaths,” Tuvok pointed out, still watching the Drenarians below. “To what are you referring?”

“I’ve seen these people before, in… in a dream. A vision, you might say. They died horribly. Phaser burns all over their bodies.

Chakotay has seen them too. I suspect the Televek were responsible.

Or will be. I have no way of knowing if, or when, those events took place.”

The crouched Drenarians began inching closer to the shuttle now, drawing the circle smaller.

“But you suspect that what you saw has already happened?” Tuvok asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s certainly possible.”

“If that is true, I am surprised they would come so near something like the shuttle,” Tuvok said.

“So am I,” Janeway replied. “They’re either very brave and curious or utterly foolish.”

One of the men had finally reached the shuttle. He used the tip of his knife to poke at its hull just aft of the port nacelle.

When nothing happened, he struck the hull solidly, producing a metallic thrum that echoed across the field. He drew back, startled, a motion imitated by the others, but their trepidation lasted only a moment. As they all drew near again another male began trying to work the tip of his blade into the seam along the edge of the rear hatch.

“They don’t waste any time, do they?” Kim noted.

“Remarkable,” Tuvok said.

“They’re clever, from what I can see,” Janeway muttered. “I doubt they have the means to get inside. Still, they could conceivably do more damage if we let them poke around long enough.”

“But if they did get inside…” Kim said.

Before anyone could say another word they heard the quake. A low, distant rumble at first, it grew rapidly, approaching from several directions at once as the ground beneath their feet began to twitch.

The noise and the shaking seemed to build on each other as the quake rushed upward from the planet’s crust, then swept through the bluff beneath their feet, knocking them to the ground.

“Grab on to something!” Janeway shouted, wrapping her arms around the smooth trunk of a stout young tree, pulling herself close to it as the growl of shaking earth became deafening. A hundred meters north of the shuttle the grasses abruptly heaved upward as a vast area of bedrock was pushed several meters skyward. An adjacent strip of land seemed to vanish entirely.

As Janeway watched the split in the earth travel still farther northward, racing toward the horizon, she felt thankful it had not come the other way and swallowed the shuttle whole. Below, the Drenarians were scrambling to gather together in the open.

They huddled close to the waving grasses, watchful of developing dangers. So helpless, Janeway thought, and no doubt frightened.

How could they understand what was happening to their world? As it was, with all the resources of Voyager at her disposal, she wasn’t certain herself.

Suddenly Janeway felt the ground directly under her feet start to move.

Behind her a series of loud, echoing cracks sounded as trees began to snap in half. Then the tree trunk she was clinging to began to rise.

“Head for open ground!” she commanded, updating her strategy, pointing to the Drenarians. There wasn’t any choice. But as she tried to stand, the edge of the bluff jerked, then abruptly gave way. She saw Kim and Tuvok being thrown forward toward the field below.

She reached back toward the next closest tree as the earth disappeared from underneath her. Her hands came up empty. She felt herself falling, tumbling down the slope in a jumble of earth and roots and rocks. Sharp pain registered on her right side, and then her left leg turned underneath her. Abruptly her head slammed against something huge and hard, and she slipped quietly into darkness.

*** Captain Janeway was having a dream, though she was certain it was not her own. The acrid smell of hot sulfur and molten metals burned her nose and lungs; the smoke that curled and swirled from every direction made her eyes water. Blinking, then squinting, she found herself high up, and standing on a plateau only a few dozen meters from the edge of a great precipice. Far below and stretching out into the eerie distance lay a vast, glowing lake of molten lava. The steam and smoke and the high, arching cavern walls were illuminated for kilometers by the reddish glow of the lava lake, but more light came from behind her, bright light that radiated all around her, bringing stark detail to the entire plateau. As she turned, she was forced to raise her hand to block out the unnatural glare.

The plateau swept back to the nearest wall of the cavern, perhaps two hundred meters away. There, bathed in cool white light from dozens of fixtures set in the rock, and radiating light of its own, she saw an enormous machine unlike anything she had ever encountered.