Against the bright stars and clean blackness of space, Malta hung as a grotesque blemish. From orbit it appeared as a roiling clash of browns. Rusty skies of pollution pinpointed the centers of industry- dedicated long ago to the manufacturing of weapons for the endless war- and populations of weary people choking on the fumes. Massive dust storms swept across open lands that had once fed the world with lush crops. Now the ground howled its despair and condemnation on the voices of the winds that had stolen the rich soils. Murky oceans lay sallow and lifeless, poisoned and poisonous. The planet was dying.

Marlin Robins sat beside Comdr. Sinclair, the first officer, who held the center command chair. He stared at the ugly image on the view screen with a sense of horror and sorrow for the world that had once been green and vibrant, though not in the memory of anyone living. For nearly four hundred years the Maltese had fought a civil war. Their struggle had become a way of life that was threatening to kill their very planet. Their only hopes for peace, for survival, were the peace talks that Captain Forrester, Federation Diplomat Brendan Blake, and Councilor Antos Bek were mediating below.

Only a few of the dozen factions had agreed to meet face to face for the talks. The Endeavour's high power communications systems were the only link between the remaining representatives around the planet with the conference. With difficult atmospheric conditions Ensign Skye had her hands full separating and clearing frequencies so that the talks could take place. Lt. (jg.) Ray Fredricks sat beside her managing the monitoring. Ensign Denver Colton was busy trying to boost the effectiveness of their communications through the heavily charged atmosphere.

Their muted consultations from the upper tier of the bridge were the only conversations. Lt. Tiro Matsushita caught himself subconsciously holding his breath in the tense atmosphere, as if the contaminated air on the monitor had somehow leaked onto the bridge. He forced himself to relax his shoulders and breath naturally, to ignore the malignancy on the view screen, and to make the minor adjustments needed on his control panel. He heard Ensign Dalton Pierce on his right echo his sigh of tension from the helm.

"Sir," Jenna Skye's voice sounded over loud after the relative silence, "Captain Forrester has a private communication for you. Do you wish to take it in his ready room?" she asked.

Sinclair nodded her agreement. "Secure channel." She stood and headed for the ready room. "You have the bridge Comdr. Robins."

"Aye sir." he acknowledged and moved in front of the center chair, still not comfortable enough with his new rank to actually sit there.

Minutes later the first officer returned and ordered relief personnel to man the key positions on the bridge as she called her officers into the observation lounge for briefing. Matsushita, Pierce, and Fredricks sat on one side of the table, their actions mirrored by Robins, Skye, and Colton on the other. Sinclair gazed at them all with a grim expression.

"The talks are not going well." she confirmed what they had already guessed. "The Captain says that they continue to argue over the causes of the original conflict and refuse to focus on finding a solution."

"Can't they see that they are destroying themselves?" Tiro said in disbelief.

Sinclair had asked a similar question herself, now she gave the same answer that the captain had given. "Seven generations of Maltese have fought this war. They don't have any memory of peace. They don't know how to stop."

"Then the talks will fail." Robins said with resignation.

"That's not an option that any of us are willing to allow to happen." Sinclair corrected. "Diplomat Blake has an idea that may help." She had everyone's attention. "When the civil unrest began, there was one city that refused to be involved in the violence. Scimara was a religious center, and for a time attempted to mediate the conflicting arguments to bring peace. Obviously it failed. It is assumed that eventually the city was abandoned. But the ideals of Scimara still exist, though diluted, in the present generation of Maltese. Councilor Bek believes that a solid focal point of common heritage may be a psychological unifier. In short, they need Scimara."

There was a moment's pause, then Ensign Pierce asked the obvious question that had been left unanswered. "Where do we look for this ancient city?"

A slightly bitter smile twisted the first officer's mouth. "No one knows. Ironically, because Scimara was never a target, it was left off of every ancient tactical map- the only maps that have been preserved. Scimara has assumed legendary status and there are many stories about its location, all of them conflicting." She stood and looked each individual in the eye. "We're going to find Scimara, and give the Maltese the unifying point that they need. Because of the density of pollutants in the atmosphere, we can't trust sensors from orbit, so the Endeavour is unable to locate it. We'll have to use low flying shuttles. Robins and Ensign Skye are team one; Matsushita and Pierce, team two; and Fredricks will team up with Colton." Before they were dismissed she added, "I don't think I need to emphasize the importance of time here. The peace talks could rupture at any moment, and then these people will be condemned to their war."

They all knew that an entire planet was at stake. They stood and headed for the shuttle bay with renewed hope and determination.

***

The planet grew steadily larger ahead of the three shuttles as they approached the dingy, swirling orb. Their tight, line-abreast formation slowly blending into the streaky montage of dull brown clouds despite the efforts of the Endeavour's bridge crew to track them.

"... so communications will be difficult at best. I want you to break off search every thirty minutes and one team will move into high orbit to report. Understood?" the Captain ordered.

"Yes, sir," Lt. Comdr. Marlin Robins answered, "every thirty minutes. Team one out."

"Team one to team two," Robins hailed.

"Team two, go ahead, sir," Ens. Dalton Pierce answered.

"The latest atmospheric report predicts the mildest weather over the north polar region. Start your survey over the southern hemisphere and meet over the north pole in twenty-five minutes. I'll report to the Captain, and we'll resume surveys."

"Will communications be possible once we penetrate the cloud cover?" Pierce asked.

"Depending on distance and atmospheric activity," Ens. Skye explained, "communications will be limited."

"There you have it, gents," Robins concluded, "and Pierce- this is a search party. No fishing allowed."

"Not to worry, sir," Lt. Tiro Matsushita broke in, "I scanned him for bait before we left."

"Team two out." Pierce pronounced as he closed the channel. He turned to see Tiro grinning broadly as he piloted the shuttle.

"How am I going to get a fair and impartial evaluation," Dalton complained, "when he still holds that fishing trip over my head?"

"He's gotten over it," Tiro retorted, "I think he just likes trying to get a rise out of you. You're so..." he tried to mimic Dalton's accent, "bloody serious."

"Humph," Dalton snorted, "someone has to be while we're out hunting for ghost towns and mythical castles. Might as well be looking for bleedin' Elvis."

"Looking for what?" Tiro scowled.

"Elvis. Twentieth century entertainer who was thought dead until his reappearance in 2001," Dalton explained, "he died shortly after, but some held to the belief that he was in hiding again."

"Oh, yeah," Tiro agreed, "I saw a holo-concert of him once."

"He came back to set his daughter straight, as I see it." Dalton mused, "She was sole heir to the fortune, and her fifth husband, a chap named Spike Lee, was quickly depleting her funds making pseudo-historical films that nobody believed or wanted to see. His last went unfinished because he disappeared. Oliver Stone made a film..."

"Sorry I asked!" Tiro wailed. "You and your photographic memory." *** Having relayed the search perameters to the third team, Fredricks and Colton, Marlin began some serious thinking about how to find the lost city of Scimara. His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a communiqué from team three.

"Commander Robins, we are beginning to experience some very strange fluctuations in the readings from our shuttle's sensors, sir," said the voice of Lt.(jg) Ray Fredricks. "I thought we had something interesting for a moment, but when we circled around and retraced our path, the readings disappeared. Should we continue our northern course, sir, or...."

Suddenly communications with team three went dead. "Skye, see if you can reestablish our link with team three?" Marlin ordered.

"Aye, sir." Skye acknowledged. She swiveled her chair to better access the communications consul and bent over it, expertly manipulating the frequencies to reestablish the connection. After several attempts she looked up at Marlin and reported, "Sorry, Commander, there's too much interference. I can't raise them."

Marlin ran a hand over his hair in frustration. This mission was plagued with one problem after another, and seemed futile, but it was his assignment and he wasn't about to give up now. "Try team two." he said forcefully.

Jenna Skye nodded and turned back to her consul. "Sorry, sir, team two does not answer my hail."

Robins tried to get a sensor lock on first one and then the other of the two shuttles, but was unsuccessful. "Skye, let's try for a visual."

Skye enhanced the visual reception on the view screen, but what she got was disappointing. Even with magnification they could see nothing through the atmosphere's murk.

"It looks like we are flying through a thick fog or atmospheric dust cloud," she reported, "I can't pick out anything. Can you?"

Marlin squinted at the screen. "No, I can't make out a thing either. I'm going to take us up into a high orbit and contact the Endeavour."

"We've only lost contact for a few moments. We were told that the atmosphere would cause interference." Jenna pointed out.

"Something doesn't feel right. I want to use Endeavour's scanners to pinpoint the other two teams, if they can." Using the shuttle's instruments, Marlin set a course that would bring them above the pea soup they were currently flying through and then hopefully enable them to reestablish communications. After laying in his course, he sat back and kept his eyes on the view screen waiting for a change in view. After a few minutes it seemed as though the "fog" was beginning to clear. The next thing he saw made his blood run cold. The surface of Malta was coming straight towards them at an alarming rate. Before they slammed into the ground, all Marlin had time to do was wonder at the impossible sight before him.

*** Fredricks turned to Ensign Denver Colton and sighed. "Well, we're on our own now. I can't reestablish communications with team one, team two, or the Endeavour. I guess we should continue on our course for our rendezvous at the pole."

Colton nodded. This mission was becoming very tedious. Their scanners and communications were both malfunctioning, and it was even impossible to do a visual scan of the planet because they were hopelessly surrounded by some kind of impenetrable cloud.

Denver's stomach growled and he deeply regretted his decision to skip lunch. This was not going to be the quick little search mission he'd hoped for. In fact it was looking like it would take all day. He sighed and reached for a fortified fruit bar that was stored in the locker next to his seat. Just as he took his first bite, alarms all over the tiny ship began sounding and he nearly choked. "What the...?" he began and the compartment they were sitting in went dark.

"Complete systems' failure!!" Fredricks cried. "Back-ups will not engage. We're going down, Denver! Hold ON!!"

As the shuttle began to roll, Denver's fruit bar flew out of his hand and hit Ray's eye with enough force to blacken it.

*** "So Lieutenant, what do you propose we do now?" Dalton queried. "We have no communications, our bleedin' scanners are useless, and we don't even have visual. I'd say we were pretty much flying blind, wouldn't you? It's your call, Lieutenant. I am bloody well glad I am not in charge."

Tiro gritted his teeth. Dalton could try his patience in the best of times, but with things going so poorly now, his Cockney friend's attitude was definitely not helping matters.

"We have to follow our last orders and head for the northern polar region," Tiro said resolutely.

Dalton nodded. "Aye, sir," he replied a little too dramatically, and laid in their course heading.

It took a few minutes for them to realize that something was terribly wrong. The helm wasn't responding and several system alarms were going off. Tiro fought the controls to regain some kind of control over the vessel, but it was no use. When he turned a caught a glimpse of the view screen it was completely filled with a wide expanse of blue which, Tiro realized with horror, was not sky.

*** When Dalton regained consciousness, he wasn't sure weather he was dead or alive. He was surrounded by blackness and one white light, a beacon that suddenly turned and shined directly in his eyes.

"Are you all right, Pierce?" a familiar voice from behind the light called out.

"I..uh..guess I must be," Dalton answered shakily.

"Good, because we have to get out of here, now!"

Dalton unfastened the belt that had held him in his seat, though the seat had been torn from its moorings and was lying sideways on the deck of the compartment. He got to his feet and fell back down immediately.

Everything was pitching and rolling.

"Where are we?" he asked, wondering if the world was really heaving or if he had hit his head harder than he had originally thought.

"We seem to be on the surface of some kind of Maltese sea," Tiro answered. "And we have to get out of here fast because the entire shuttle is sinking!" The shuttle was floating on its belly with its nose dipping beneath the waves. Tiro moved to the aft part of the ship and released the hatch. It blew open with great force and let in enough of the dimmed light to light up the interior of the shuttle. It was a wreck.

Both officers scurried to peer out. They were below the bank of clouds and atmospheric debris that had previously blocked their view, and could see a considerable distance in all directions. Blue-gray water stretched out before them and Tiro began to scan its surface with a tricorder in all directions. Suddenly his face lit up as he pointed behind him.

"Land HO!" he called, grinning brightly.

Dalton turned quickly to follow Tiro's gaze. There behind them was land, only about 200 meters away. It had dark brown, almost black, beaches that bordered thick green vegetation. In Dalton's mind it resembled a tropical rain forest.

"Feel like a swim?" Tiro called out above the noise of the wind and waves. He could feel that the craft they were standing in was sinking faster now.

"You don't think that any of those gigantic fishes live here on Malta, do you?" he asked, looking reluctantly down at the water. "I'd hate to be another fish's dinner."

"I guess we'll soon find out!" Tiro shouted before he dove into the water.

Dalton hesitated a moment and then followed suit. Swimming almost in tandem they soon reached the beach and waded out of the water onto the dark brown sand. They sat down quietly for a few moments, regaining their breath, and watching the last of the shuttle slip beneath the waves.

"I guess the captain won't be too happy about us sinking one of his shuttles," Tiro lamented. "Do you think they'll be able to recover it?"

"If they can't, it's not the captain we'll have to worry about, but the chief engineer. She's gonna flip about this." He stood up and looked down the beach. "I suppose we had better start looking around before it gets dark."

Tiro got to his feet and started walking inland. The going was slow and they used their phasers to mark the trees as they walked, worried that they might become lost without some kind of reference to guide them.

Tiro began wondering if perhaps they should return to the beach, when suddenly they found themselves stepping out of the dense vegetation and into a vast clearing. Both officers caught their breath's simultaneously when their eyes focused on the dwellings before them. They turned to each other with the same unspoken question. Could this be the mythical Scimara?

*** Ensign Denver Colton slowly opened his eyes-- his head hurt, his left shoulder was sore, and his left leg was cut and slightly bleeding. For a few moments he couldn't remember where he was. Suddenly it struck him! He jerked up to find himself strapped into a chair on a shuttle. Lt. Fredricks was also strapped into a chair, and was unconscious. The shuttle was severely tilting at a forward angle.

To his suprise a large green tree branch was sticking through the dead view screen. Denver realized that the shuttle had crashed and was suspended in a tree.

"Lieutenant!" he shouted as he attempted to free himself.

"Lieutenant Fredricks!" Unfortunately, Ray remained unconscious.

Denver finally freed himself and arduously made his way to Ray. He quickly took his pulse and determined that he was alive. Moving with difficulty on the slanted deck, Denver found the emergency med-pack and assembled the hypospray. He administered a light dose of a mild stimulant to Ray, and he immediately regained consciousness.

"Ensign, are you all right?" Ray asked as he rubbed his eye.

"I'm fine, sir. How about you?"

"I think I'm still in one piece."

Suddenly there was a loud chatter of sorts, and to both Denver and Ray's astonishment, there were five small monkey-like creatures peering through the hole in the front of the shuttle.

"This must be the welcoming committee." Ray said.

*** Jenna carried the last of the emergency supplies out of the shuttle. Marlin sat on a large bolder and seemed to be enjoying the rocky terrain in spite of their unscheduled "landing".

"The communications system is dead, sir," Jenna Said with a frustrated tone in her voice.

"At least we are alive," Marlin said, looking up as if waiting for something else to drop from the sky.

"We're about the only things alive in this place," she aid and kicked a rock sending it skipping about three meters.

"Don't worry. We'll be rescued soon."

"Sir, may I speak freely?" she asked in a shaky voice.

"Absolutely," Marlin reassured her with a nod.

"I've never had a pleasant experience in a desert," she began, "In fact, you might say that I hate them with a passion."

"Are you speaking from experience, Ensign?"

"Family vacations in the Grand Canyon on Earth."

*** Tiro and Dalton stood motionless for several moments. The sight that lay before them was like nothing they had ever seen before. The buildings resembled poles, or smoke stacks-- there were thousands. Each pumping out thick noxious smoke, adding to the planet's pollution. It was a city, full of activity as people moved in and out of the tall buildings.

"What in the name of...?" Tiro began.

"My thoughts exactly," Dalton said. "This is the source of the pollution, or at least the majority of it."

"This place is huge. I can't believe what I'm seeing," Tiro exclaimed.

The wind suddenly shifted, carrying a gust of concentrated fumes from the city towards them. Both men began to cough and grabbed their throats.

"I can't breath," Dalton managed to spit out.

"I can't either..."

*** "Come here little fellow," Denver coaxed in a silly high voice.

"Maybe they don't like fruit bars," Ray said rubbing his eye again. "In fact, how do you know what they eat? They could be carnivorous."

The smallest of the primates inched closer to Denver's extended hand. "That's it, just a little farther," Denver said softly, ignoring Ray's comments.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do with it once you catch it?" Ray asked.

"I'm gonna eat it," he replied. The creature inched closer.

"You really shouldn't skip meals," Ray said with a smile.

"Oh, I'm not really going to eat him. I'll...make..." The 'monkey' carefully touched the food and tore a small piece off. Denver and Ray were silent. Then the 'monkey' seemed to become at ease with the situation and sat down to let Denver feed him the rest of the fruit bar.

"I've never seen anything like that before," Ray admitted.

Denver reached out with his other hand and scooped up the little animal and began petting it. "I'll make him a pet."

"Dr. Montgomery will..."

He broke off as the other primates suddenly scampered off in all directions.

Something outside the shuttle had obviously frightened them. Then there was the noise of some one approaching the shuttle.

"Hello, anyone alive up there?" a male voice called.

Denver and Ray looked at each other.

"Up there?" Denver asked. Both officers crawled to the hole in the shuttle and peered through. For the first time they saw how high up they were. To their amazement the shuttle was suspended about a dozen meters up in a tree in the middle of a dense forest. Below them appeared to be a native rescue team.

"Are you all right?" one male asked.

"Yes, where are we?" Ray asked.

"You are not far from Scimara."

Denver and Ray looked at each other in disbelief.

*** Jenna paced around the large bolder that Marlin was sitting on. He continued to stare into the sky. Every now and then she would look up at him and then at the sky, trying to figure out what it was he was studying.

"May I speak freely again, sir?" she asked.

"Of course."

"What are you waiting for?"

"Nothing," he said, "I'm watching."

She waited for him to complete that thought. Finally she asked, "Watching what?"

"The pollution stream," he began to explain. "Actually," he pointed at the denser dark green layer of gasses floating above them, "I'm trying to estimate the rate at which that pollution stream is moving. I think it is flowing from the west at about thirteen klicks per minute. As thick as it is, I don't think it has come far."

"So what you're saying is, that the source of this stuff is on the other side of that ridge?"

"I believe so," he said climbing down from the stone. "What do you say we take a look?"

"Sounds good, sir," she smiled.

*** Ray had never much cared for museums. Hours of staring at endless accumulations of antiquated junk had always seemed like a fairly pointless waste of time to him, and he generally avoided them.

He was reminded of his distaste as he and Denver were led into Scimara. The city was over run with outdated junk. Gargantuan metal buildings towered over them on all sides, spread in every direction for dozens of kilometers. The towers seemed to be placed at random and crammed together in anarchy, shoved so close that the exteriors scraped against each other in places. The two Starfleet officers and their escorts were forced to wind a convoluted path between the steel behemoths.

It was not the dilapidated condition of the area, nor the cramped buildings that reminded him of the musty museum halls he had avoided in childhood. It was the strange atmosphere of rigor mortis that gripped the steel giants. He glanced around, examining the structures as they strode on. He wouldn't exactly call them buildings so much as smoke-stacks. There were no windows, and massive amounts of green-gray gasses were pouring out the tops. Most of the noxious gasses were being blown to the east, but some filtered down. The further they strode into the maze of buildings, the denser the gasses that filtered down were. Ray felt his chest tighten with each breath, and he noticed Denver tear off a rag from his shirt to cover his mouth and nose.

Denver studied their surroundings too as they passed. His breathing felt more labored with every breath. It was hard to believe that Commander Sinclair had described Scimara as a religious center. And what was generating all this pollution? If Scimara had never entered the military arms race, what were they producing? The silent stacks gave no clues.

Their guides led them towards a large cylinder that rose vertically from the ground. People were entering and leaving it, so apparently it was some sort of transportation to structures below the surface of the planet. The Scimarans entered it and beckoned the two officers to join them. It could accommodate all four of them comfortably. The door closed and left them in darkness, but the sensation of falling let them know that they were descending straight down.

Denver leaned weakly against a wall in the darkness. Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip, and every breath was a stabbing ache. A soft thunk to his right concerned him, sounding unmistakably like a body falling. He reached for Fredricks and felt nothing where he had stood. His own legs began to fold under him in spite of his determination to stand. An inner darkness, deeper than the darkness of their elevator, enclosed his mind in oblivion.

*** Tiro's eyes fluttered open to a grayish, dusty light. His head throbbed, but he was relieved to be able to breath. His last waking memory was of choking beside Dalton on the ground at the edge of the clearing as the noxious gasses had passed over them. More pieces of his memory began putting themselves back together rather neatly. The smoke-stacks, the city pumping out pollution...but none of it seemed to explain where they were or what had caused them to pass out.

The helmsman sat up and examined his surroundings. Dalton lay on a bed similar to his own a few feet away, still unconscious. On a table were technical looking instruments that reminded Tiro of medical equipment. The room they were in was rather small, no vents, ducts, or windows. The only break in the bare walls was the single metal door.

"You're awake."

Tiro lurched sideways in suprise. He hadn't noticed the nondescript man sitting quietly in the corner. He was dressed in a plain white toga. His skin was grayed, although it was impossible to tell if that was due to his health, or was normal to his species.

The man grinned kindly, amused by Tiro's shock. "Don't be alarmed, please," he implored the helmsman. "I am what you would call a...uh..physician? believe me, I won't harm you."

Tiro regarded him skeptically. "Where am I?" he asked hesitantly.

"At a clinic beneath Scimara." the physician replied.

"Feels like a cell to me." Tiro commented darkly.

The man chuckled without humor. "We have easier ways of dealing with criminals than keeping them captive." A touch of sadism entered his voice.

Tiro decided to drop that line of conversation. Instead he asked, "Are my companion and I free to go, to look around?" He had noticed that even though Dalton was still out he was breathing slowly and deeply. Tiro was pretty sure that Pierce was just sleeping and could be roused if they were given the chance to leave.

Now it was the alien who looked skeptical. "Well, I'd much rather you stayed here for a couple of days."

"I understand your concern, and I appreciate it, really," Tiro said with growing alarm, "but we have to contact the rest of our teams and continue our mission."

"How many were in your group? There are two more men like you and your friend here in Scimara." The doctor offered. "You are all better off here in the city."

"What do you mean, why are we better off here?" A feeling of foreboding was spreading through him.

"You were unconscious when we found you, dying from our air. It was necessary to perform emergency surgery on your respiratory systems to save your lives." he explained.

"Just what did you do to us?" Tiro demanded.

"You can comfortably breath the air here now because we altered you respiratory tract and absorption sacks. You would not be able to return to the air you were breathing before." Shock immobilized Tiro as the Doctor continued, "Your friends are also comfortable now."

Rage swept through Tiro's mind. He had never felt so devastatingly at a loss for what to do. It was then that Dalton woke. He sat up and blurrily looked around, but the sight of anger and anguish on his friend's face sobered him up immediately.

"What's wrong? Did Taggert find out what we did to her shuttle?" he asked.

*** Ensign Jenna Skye looked across the barren landscape that the Commander indicated. She knew from personal experience that distances in the dessert were misleading. She hurried into the shuttle and grabbed extra water flasks. She turned to find Marlin right behind her packing a few extra supplies as well.

He gave her an approving grin, "Always be prepared." She smiled back.

The heat radiated off the sand beneath their feet and made rivulets of sweat pour down Marlins neck into the collar of his uniform. Thoughts of a cool shower and clean clothes kept him moving. Jenna managed to keep stride with his longer legs and they were covering ground quickly. They were nearly at the top of the ridge now.

"Ugh!And Ick! How can these people breath this air? It's getting worse!" choked Jenna.

The air had an acrid taste that burned the lining of their throats with every breath. The thing that bothered Marlin most was the realization that the air here was obviously more concentrated with pollution than any of their scans had indicated. If they were remotely close to the coordinates he had calculated after the crash, there were no cities mapped in this area. That left one possibility; they had found Scimara, and Scimara was the source of this concentrated pollution.

They sat down for a rest. Jenna looked in bad shape. She was physically as fit as he was, so it had to be the lack of good air taking its toll on her. It was taking a toll on Robins too.

Marlin fished in the pack he had thrown together before leaving the shuttle. He pulled out the med kit and found a hypospray, giving himself a mild stimulant. Jenna gave him a puzzled look. "I think that the lack of oxygen in this atmosphere is getting to us. This stimulant should help some." he answered her unspoken question. Then he tossed the spray to her, giving her the choice to administer one to herself or not, and went back to rummaging in the emergency kit.

Skye hated hypos! She had spent a childhood around adults who treated drugs as recreation, and had sworn she'd never misuse any stimulant. She turned the hypospray over in her hand and weighed the necessity against her personal repulsion. She rolled up her sleeve and pressed the metal against her skin to receive the sting of stim in her blood. Instant relief flooded through her veins. Muscles cramped and starved for oxygen, relaxed; the blood pulse that had been pounding painfully in her brain slowly dissipated. She took a deep breath of relief, and wished she hadn't. The air still burned her throat raw.

"Here, this should help." The Commander handed her a flimsy, clear mask. A tube led from it to a canister that clipped to the belt. She recognized them as emergency oxygen canisters, kept on the shuttle in case of a life support failure.

Marlin was already placing an identical mask over his mouth and nose, and sealing the edges to his skin. He gave Skye a thumbs up as she put hers on, and they set off again.

Below the rocky ridge they had traveled, lay a city of towering smokestacks. A small dying rain-forest bordered the far edge of the city, and in the distance they could see a large body of water. "Well, its not exactly Mecca." Marlin commented looking down at it. His voice echoed muffled through the oxygen mask.

"Sir?"

"A religious center on Earth that many people make pilgrimages to."

he explained. "That there is Scimara. I'm sure of it."

"Then we've found it!" Skye said with satisfaction. "All we have to do is notify the Endeavour."

"That's right," Marlin replied with heavy irony, "all we have to do is notify the Endeavour."

****

The gray man in the white toga who called himself a physician, had left them alone soon after Dalton had regained consciousness. Pierce hadn't said a word since it had been explained to him that his respiratory system had been altered. It had Tiro worried, but he didn't know what to say. He was as stunned as Dalton about the whole thing.

The door to the room opened and Colton and Fredricks were led in by a woman in similar dress as the physician's. "We thought you might like to be with your friends." She smiled and left them all together.

"Don't tell us," Colton started with a rye grin, "you lost communications, your shuttle crashed, and you arrived at this lovely health spa to be given their 'special treatment.'"

"Something like that." Tiro answered. "Any sign of the Commander and Skye?"

"No. Maybe they were able to contact the Endeavour." Fredricks sounded hopeful. "And maybe they didn't." Dalton Pierce sounded bitter. "Maybe they crashed like us, but weren't so 'lucky' as to make it this far."

The others looked away. There wasn't anything they could say to that. They were all very aware of their situation. They couldn't leave the atmosphere of the city, so thee was no chance of escape. Their communicators would never be able to penetrate the atmospheric interference, especially from this city, so they were cut off from rescue. They could only wait for someone from the outside to stumble onto them.

"Look at it this way, fellas," Ray forced a lighter tone into his voice, "there are some mighty pretty nurses in sickbay back on the ship. And we are each guaranteed a stay there, when they get us back aboard and the Doc fixes this little condition of ours."

**** Robins and Skye waited until the sun set. There was very little activity below in the city now. They hoped to sneak down and locate a computer terminal or communications relay of some sort without being spotted. Something told Marlin that there was a great deal wrong with this city. He didn't want to find out the hard way what it was. So he had decided to wait for dark.

They were each on their second canister of oxygen. The emergency kit only held six, since that was the maximum capacity of the shuttle they had been flying. They could not wait much longer. There was no doubt in Marlin's mind that they would not be able to breath inside the city without the masks. Every inch of exposed skin on his face and neck itched in irritation from the pollutants. How could the people survive here?

"Sir, I think I have located a relay." Skye reported. She had been carefully scanning the area of the city closest to them, using precautions to use a signal that would not be picked up and betray their location. "But," her face fell, "It's twenty meters below the surface."

Robins had guessed that the structures above ground were all for production and that the people must live underground. He wasn't suprised by Skye's discovery. "Good job, Ensign. Let's get down there and see if we can find a way inside to that relay."

The dense buildings provided plenty of cover for them to move about. Jenna led them to a structure that was closest to the relay readings she could find. Locating the entrance/elevator was not hard. Each structure only had one opening. Apparently they felt secure in their city, for there was no security lock.

"Keep a close eye out." Marlin warned. And he held the palm phaser he had brought from the weapons locker in the shuttle ready for use.

The lift deposited them on a level with the relay. Dark corridors led in both directions and Skye had to use her tricorder to locate the signal she was tracking. "This way."

No people were about. Subdued lighting suggested a night cycle here below the city, similar to the way a ship generated artificial night. A sharp corner blocked their view. Marlin motion Skye against the wall as he cautiously poked his head around for a view. A group of shadowy figures darted around a bend ahead. Blood chilled as Marlin registered their significance. Somehow, they must have been detected and a trap was being laid.

**** "Bloody Hell!" Pierce cut loose with frustration, "We can't just sit here waiting like a bunch of raw cadets for rescue!"

The others gave him little attention. He had alternately railed against their situation and sat in angry silence. They had all been discussing ideas, but so far no one had a workable suggestion.

Tiro looked over their options and inventory again. It was bleak. None of them had even a signal tricorder among them. Their communicator badges had been left to them, apparently because they were absolutely useless here, nothing more than formal jewelry. Other than that, they had the furnishings of the room. They could easily fashion crude weapons out of these- Dalton's suggestion- but where could they go? To leave the city was instant suffocation.

Dalton futilely tapped his communicator one more time, "Pierce to Endeavour." A weak static was his only reply.

"Would you give it a rest, Pierce!" Ray gritted out in irritation.

"Wait! Do it again!" Denver said with a little enthusiasm.

"You've got to be kidding!" Fredricks groaned.

"No, I think he has an idea." Tiro raised a hand to calm Fredricks.

"What is it, Ensign?"

"The static," he said as if two words explained his whole idea. The others looked at him expectantly. Denver went on with growing excitement.

"If our com badges were totally dead, with no receivers or transmitters within range, there would be no sound at all, not even static. There has to be some sort of relay in range!"

The others started to look hopeful. "Is there any way we can use the communicators to locate it?"

Denver thought for a moment. Turning communicators into a locator beacon was not exactly something taught in the academy, though right now Colton figured it ought to be a required course. "I think I can reconfigure them, but it will take all four." The others had their badges off and on the table in front of Denver before he could finish the sentence.

"Colton, ol' boy, you get us to that relay, and I'll treat you to a pint at our next shoreleave!" Dalton was thumping him on the back happily. "Make that two!"

**** Robins readied his phaser on stun. "How far to the relay?" he whispered to Skye.

"It should be just ahead." she answered.

They edged around the corner, staying close against the wall. Marlin strained to here any noise ahead that he could. A figure lunged around the bend with a blunt weapon raised in his had as if to club them! Even in the dim lighting of the corridor Marlin was able to fire and strike the man in the chest. He fell at their feet and Skye kicked what looked strangely like a wooden chair leg out of his hand and across the floor. Another figure dashed towards them!

"Wait!" Jenna cried, "Endeavour crew!" She hoped it was enough to identify them to their attacker and to tell the Commander he was firing on the wrong person. There was no time to explain, both men were in the act of defending themselves on instinct alone. In the split second after she had kicked the weapon away from the fallen man, she had registered that it was one of the members of their missing teams.

Both figures froze in the half light like parodies of warrior statues. In a single breath they each registered who their opponent was and instantly lowered their weapons.

"Sorry 'bout that, Commander," Lt.(jg) Raymond Fredricks said with embarrassment, "Thought you were one of them."

"No apology necessary, Lieutenant, made the same mistake myself." They turned Dalton over from where he lay stretched on the floor. Marlin checked him over. "He'll be fine in a few minutes."

The Ensign was already showing signs of recovery. He groaned as they propped him against the wall. It was then that Robins noticed that both men were breathing fine in the polluted air.

Fredicks guessed from his questioning gaze behind the oxygen mask, what the Commander wanted to know. "Both shuttles crashed and the Scimarans rescued us- if you want to call it that- by altering out respiratory systems surgically. We can't leave the city." Anger briefly lit his features, then faded with resignation. "We just found the communications relay. Lieutenant Matsushita and Ensign Colton are trying to raise the ship. We," he indicated Pierce and himself, "were standing guard." Marlin gave him an approving nod, "Great minds think alike. We were on our way to the relay." He handed Skye the med kit from his pack, "Take care of Pierce here. We'll go call in the cavalry."

Lt. Matsushita looked relieved when Marlin entered the communications room they had found. "Are we glad to see you, Sir!"

Robins gave him a reassuring nod and turned his attention to the young communications Ensign sitting at the control board. "Any luck, Ensign?"

"I had to do a little modifying, Sir, to bypass their scrambling program," Denver said, indicating a string of fiber-optic lines he had pulled from beneath the panel and cross wired. The whole thing looked like a tangled mess. "But I think the Endeavour should be able to receive us now. We may only get one message out though, Sir, before the Scimarans are alerted to what we have done."

Marlin turned to Matsushita. "Get Skye and pierce in here. If the Endeavour can lock onto this location, we'll need to beam out quickly."

"Robins to Endeavour." They all waited for a few seconds with their breath held in hope and anticipation.

"Commander Robins, where have you been?" Comdr. Sinclair's voice sounded relieved and upset at once.

"I'll have a full report soon. Can you lock onto the location of this transmission and beam out six?"

A few seconds that felt like years passed. "We have you, commander."

"Beam us directly to sickbay, and tell Dr. Montgomery we'll have four critical respiratory cases."

Nothing had ever felt so good as the feel of the transporter beam dissolving their atoms from the surface of Malta.

**** It was three days since their rescue from Scimara. Marlin imagined he could still feel the irritated rash on the back of his neck from the pollution, even though Dr. Montgomery assured him it was long gone. He reached behind and rubbed the back of his neck anyway as he entered the briefing room. Dr. Montgomery, already seated at the table with Counselor Bek, the diplomat Brendon Blake, and the Captain, gave him a knowing smile.

The rest of the teams arrived shortly after he sat down. The four members who had been surgically altered had just been released from sickbay that morning. They looked fine, considering all they had been through. Jenna Skye and Dalton Pierce looked a little uncomfortable being included in an officer's briefing.

"We felt that after all you went through, you deserved to learn the outcome of your efforts and this mission." Captain Forrester explained to the group. He looked tired and disappointed. Marlin was almost afraid to hear the news. "Malta is at peace." He said simply. "All the factions have agreed to stop production of arms, and to put all their efforts into restoring their world. They have requested aid from the Federation."

The words all sounded positive, their mission was accomplished. Yet sadness hung in the Captains eyes.

"Then finding Scimara was the key to uniting the Maltese." Comdr. Robins said.

The Captain nodded and let Brendan Blake explain. "Yes, Scimara united them. But not the way we had hoped." He sighed. "We contacted the Scimarans after we beamed you out. They were very upset at having been located. Their plans were nearly finished and they wanted no interference."

"Plans?" Matsushita asked.

"The pollution of Malta is no accident. For generations the warring Maltese have polluted the world in their war efforts; but even more heinous, the Scimarans have devoted their society purely to the destruction of the atmosphere. Apparently, when their efforts to mediate the civil wars failed, they decided to speed up the inevitable destruction oftheir world. They altered the air, then their respiratory systems. If the warring factions had ever reached agreement, the Scimarans would have reversed their plans; but if they refused to stop the wars, even to save their planet, then the others would die and the Scimarans would rebuild." Blake spoke the horrifying words without emotion.

"They would have killed everyone!" Dr. Montgomery exclaimed.

"Likely, yes," Blake agreed, "but they won't have the chance now."

"The other factions have agreed to peace and that got them to stop." Ens. Skye guessed.

"No." Blake shook his head. "The other factions learned what the Scimarans had been doing. They have sophisticated devises for eves dropping on communications and intercepted our discussions with the Scimarans."

A feeling of foreboding washed over them all.

"The Maltese factions united to destroy Scimara," the Captain finally explained, "a common enemy. The city no longer exists."

The rest of the briefing filled in the details. With the one act of cooperation, the factions began to put aside their animosity and recognize thir common need for survival. Teams of ecologists, sociologists, doctors, and even terra-formers, would be sent by the Federation to try to heal the wounds of the devastated planet Malta. Scimara had fulfilled its four-hundred year old purpose of reuniting its world and people. Peace.