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CHAPTER FIVE

Stevenson materialized on board the USS-Nightshade along with the members of his engineering team who were charged with fixing the ship. They had beamed onto the bridge of the starship, there were no lights and Stevenson couldn't see anything.

He pulled out his flashlight and turned it on. The beam of light sliced through the darkness, revealing what was hiding behind the darkness. He scanned the bridge slowly, checking every corner before daring to move.

He finally came to the Ops and Conn stations. The officers were obviously both dead, the eyes open and staring into nothingness; their skin was covered with hundreds of small red dots. Stevenson had never seen anything like it. He moved the light beam to the captain's chair and saw the captain...Also dead...

Stevenson approached the deceased commanding officer and studied the face closely: Like the other officers, his eyes were open and blank and his skin was covered with the same red microscopic incisions that were barely visible to the naked eye. The only difference with the other dead officers: The captain's right arm was gone, and there was a puddle on the floor underneath the area where his arm should have been.

Ensign McPherson bent near the bizarre puddle with his tricorder brandished before him. He studied the readings then said: "I'm reading human organic material and some traces of fabric...the one used for our uniforms."

Stevenson connected the pieces of the puzzle in his mind, and then frowned in disgust: "Are you telling me that this puddle is what's left of the captain's arm??"

McPherson nodded, closing his tricorder: "Somehow...the arm was disassembled and dropped on the floor...right here."

"What kind of weapon could do this?" Stevenson asked.

"None that I know of..." McPherson shook his head. "I think it's the same weapon that made these micro-incisions in their skin...It's almost as if they all passed through a shower of disruptor beams that were only a few microns large."

Stevenson frowned: "We need to get one of the bodies back to the Eagle. Sickbay can do an autopsy."

"Agreed. I suggest we take the captain." McPherson said.

"Choose whichever one you want, McPherson." Stevenson said grimly. "There are probably plenty more..."

Kline drummed his fingers on the black console in front of him. Tompkinson had cut the power to some of the secondary systems so that they could give more power to the communication systems and the sensors...But the improvement was laughingly small and there was nothing Kline could do as long as the transmitter didn't work.

Lieutenant Stranson was trying to make the transmitter work but his efforts had proved useless and the only thing that the engineer had accomplished was to augment by 0.01% the reception of the device.

Kline sighed once again; he opened up his hand phaser and began to clean it. It was a useless thing to do but Kline always liked to make sure his weapons were spotless.

Her heard footsteps and turned his head to see Linda Hamilton walking towards him with an embarrassed smile: "Uh...sorry. Did I disturb you?"

He smiled back: "No...Not at all."

She walked towards him and sat in the chair which was next to his: "Lieutenant Stranson began working on the transmitter again."

Kline shrugged: "I don't know what good it'll do."

"I wish I knew what was happening." Hamilton said with a sigh.

Kline blew some dust from the energy cells of the phaser: "Yeah...I also wish I knew."

Then she locked her gaze onto his eyes, her gaze was the most disconcentrating gaze Kline had ever seen. Her eyes were so large it was impossible not to look back straight into them. He looked up from his phaser and straight into her eyes.

"You're hiding something from me." She said.

He frowned: "What do you mean?"

"I don't know..." She said. "But you are."

Kline lay down the phaser on the black console: "Why do you think that?"

"The last time I met you, you were different." She said. "You were...more..."

"Yes?"

"More...like Alan Kline."

He chuckled: "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"I know you, Alan."

"Yes I know." He said.

"And I know you're hiding something."

"We all have our little secrets." He said.

"You used to tell me everything." She said. "We were the best of friends...And I thought we still were."

Kline said nothing.

"Aren't we?"

He sighed: "We haven't seen each other in so long."

"And what does that change?" She demanded. "Why does a few hundred light-years separate two people like that?"

"You speak of light-years like they're much smaller than they actually are."

"Light-years are microscopic when it comes to friendship." She said.

Kline scratched the back of his head.

She continued: "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"I want to know what you don't want to tell me."

"Why would I be forced to tell you if there actually was something to tell?"

"Because we're friends..." Her eyes were filled with sadness. "...aren't we?"

"Starfleet doesn't help friendship." He said.

"I have friends in Starfleet...Friends who have been my friends for years and years...Why aren't you like them? Why have you changed?"

Kline shrugged: "If you take two people and give them the same ingredients and the same recipe...Their two meals will still taste different."

She frowned: "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means it's not because you have friends in Starfleet that are still good friends that I can stay your good friend...Starfleet is a pretty complex recipe..."

He stood up and said: "I wish I could tell you..."

Then he walked away.

And as he walked he heard a strange noise...a high-pitched screeching sound. It lasted only a millisecond and seemed to be very distant, so he shrugged it off and guessed it was the sound of the wind.

It wasn't the wind...

The Eagle had cloaked and was now in orbit around Gyltian, the repair crews were tending the wounds of the Nightshade and the away-teams on the surface hadn't managed to contact the ship.

In sickbay, Tarses was performing an autopsy on the captain of the Nightshade that Stevenson's crew had beamed aboard. He was being aided by a nurse and they were presently doing a bio-scan of the corpse.

"I don't understand what could have done such damage to his skin..."

The nurse was moving the tricorder around the area of the corpse's right shoulder where the arm used to be, she was trying to determine the cause of the dematerialization of the arm, but with no success.

Tarses walked towards the biobed where the body was and began scanning the face of the corpse.

"There are microscopic cuts that go right through the head...It's impossible..." Tarses sighed in frustration and tapped his commbadge: "Tarses to bridge."

"This is Sutter, go ahead."

"I can't get any information from the body..." He said. "It's just impossible..."

"Okay...well...I'm sure we'll find out soon...I have a feeling..."

"If you mean whatever killed the crew of the Nightshade...I hope you're wrong..."

Eskina couldn't believe his eyes...

Delta station was a pile of debris and ash. Something had destroyed it, just like Alpha station but, fortunately, no fire had been ignited by the explosion.

"Well....That's annoying." Ogden said, laying Kaufmann against a tree. "What do we do no..."

There was a scream in the distance, very high-pitched. The Starfleet officers exchanged confused glances as more screams were heard. Eskina activated his phaser rifle and readied it. Ogden and Rouen did the same and positioned themselves around Kaufmann so he would be protected.

Eskina held the rifle in his right hand and flicked open his tricorder with his left hand. There were several small but strong areas of disturbance approaching their position of the same type as the disturbance that was envelopping the whole planet.

"Something's coming." He said as he stuck the tricorder back in his pocket. He raised the phaser rifle and slowly scanned the surrounding area.

The screeches began once again.

Eskina saw them...

Stranson slammed a frustrated fist on the transmitter: "I'm sorry, captain...There's nothing I can do to augment the transmitting capacity."

"Right." Kline said, sipping a cup of black coffee. "Did you try to communicate with commander Eskina's transmitter?"

"Yeah...about a hundred thousand times..." Stranson said. "Their signal is nonexistent."

Kline sighed, and then he heard a screech. He frowned; it was the same sound that he had heard a few minutes before: "Did anyone else hear that?"

"Hear what?" Dean asked.

There was another screech.

"That." Kline said.

Dean frowned: "Yeah...What was it?"

"I heard it too." Davies said, looking out the window.

Tompkinson walked into the room: "What's up?"

Then there was a long, louder screech that kept up for a few seconds.

"Get to the weapons." Kline said, he threw a rifle to Stranson and unholstered his own hand phaser. Davies grabbed her own rifle and the two civilians took some phasers that were in a compartment in the wall. Tompkinson said: "I'm going to polarize the outer wall of the station."

"Good idea." Kline said. "Make it quick."

She rushed to the control room and pressed on a few controls, there was a low, almost imperceptible rumbling sound that started and Tompkinson came back into the room: "There...The wall is polarized and no one should be able to come in."

Kline walked to the window next to which Davies was standing and looked out into the blizzard. At first, he saw nothing. Then he saw a strange black disturbance in the snow which was accompanied with a loud screech.

They were approaching.

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