Back to Archives

CHAPTER FOUR

"We're in orbit, captain." Johnson reported.

On the viewscreen was a blue-green planet with swirling clouds, resembling most of the class-M planets in the galaxy, notably Earth. In orbit, alongside the Eagle, was the USS-Nightshade, a new prototypical starship which looked like an aerodynamic mix of an Oberth-class vessel and a Reliant-class ship. It was approximately the same size as the Eagle but none of the lights were activated, and the engines weren't activated either.

"Can we contact the Nightshade?" Kline asked.

"Nope." Eskina shook his head. "We can't contact the ship or the planet."

"Right...Have you tried the commbadge channels?"

"I'll try right now..." Eskina said with a quick nod.

Kline waited a moment while Eskina's fingers tapped various buttons on his console, after a few seconds, Eskina looked up and shook his head: "There's some sort of bizarre interference, from inside the planet...I can't precisely identify it, and it’s jamming our sensors."

"Great." Kline sighed, scratching his head. "Well...What can we do then? I'd say we send some shuttles down to patrol."

Reeves said: "Uh...Sir...We have no shuttles."

Kline turned to face her and frowned: "No shuttles!?"

"No, sir...Starfleet Intelligence may have equipped us with all the latest technological advances but they forgot to give us shuttles...And a shuttle bay."

Kline sighed: "Great...So what do we do, now?"

Reeves shrugged, Kline turned to Sutter who said: "I don't know if you'll approve, sir. But why don't we beam some away-teams down to some of the stations to check things out?"

"Will we be able to beam the teams out?" Kline asked.

"We'd have to ask Robinson, sir." Sutter said, referring to the transporter chief. "But I'd be willing to take the risk of staying down there."

"A totally unnecessary risk, commander." Kline warned. "If you get stuck down there, we won't have any way to communicate with you anyway."

"We can take one of the new transmitters that Intelligence brought on board." Reeves said from the back of the bridge. "I supervised the transfer, they can cut through interference that even the most powerful starship's couldn't."

"Perfect..." Kline said.

"But I can't guarantee that it'll cut through this specific interference..." Reeves said. "And those transmitters are big and heavy."

"We can use an anti-grav unit to move the transmitter around." Sutter said. "I volunteer, sir."

"Not this time, Sutter." Kline smiled.

"What?" Sutter blinked, surprised.

"I'm taking this into my hands, commander. You're always out there, putting yourself on the line, and I'm always sitting here on my rear-end, biting my nails and praying that you'll make it back in one piece. This time, I'm going down."

Sutter sighed: "Well...You are the captain."

"Thanks, commander. I'll leave the nail-biting to you." He smiled and then turned and began walking towards the turbolift: "Eskina, Stevenson, Mantion, assemble two type-6 teams that should be both ready in ten minutes. Arm yourselves well...We don't want to have any nasty surprises down there."

The two teams were ready nine minutes and thirty seconds later. The first one, Team A, under command of Captain Kline was composed of Lt-junior-grade and Chief Nurse Sharon Davies and Lieutenant Grant Stranson, an engineer. The second team, team B, was under command of Eskina, with lieutenant Francine Rouen, the engineer, ensign Robert Ogden, the large security officer, and ensign Daniel Kaufmann who was the medical officer.

"All right." Kline said, handing phaser rifles and hand phasers to everyone. "Team A will be sent near the coordinates of Gamma station on the tallest mountain of the planet. That's why we'll be wearing these jackets." He pointed to four large jackets lying on the floor besides the transporter. "Team B will be beamed down to Alpha station which is the first station that was established on this planet. We can't read in that area because the interference is particular strong, that's why you're going down there. Greg?"

Eskina looked up: "Yes, sir?"

"Once we're down there, try out the commbadge immediately to see if we can keep communications even while we are on the planet."

"Right."

"Good...Let's get going. We'll go first." Kline pulled on his heavy jacket and activated his phaser rifle. "Good luck."

"You too, sir." Eskina said.

"Robinson. Beam us down ten meters away from the station."

"Aye." The black-haired transporter chief said as she pressed a few controls on the terminal before her.

Team A stepped onto the transporter pads and Robinson said: "Energizing..."

The four officers disappeared in a shimmering swirl of blue lights, then the other team stepped onto the pads and Robinson said: "Energizing..." once again. The second team dematerialized and they reappeared on the planet.

As Greg Eskina rematerialized, he felt suddenly very hot and the air changed from the synthetic smell of the Eagle to another one...The smell of ash.

A few milliseconds thereafter, he was totally rematerialized along with his team...

And they were standing in an enormous inferno...

Kline tapped his commbadge: "Greg, this is the captain. Come in."

The only sound he could hear was static.

The anti-grav unit materialized besides the team with the large transmitter placed upon it. Davies took control of the unit.

The snow and the wind made a stinging tornado of flying micro-needles. Kline squinted and made out the shape of Gamma station a dozen meters away. It was approximately thirty meters high and had many antennas on the roof of the structure.

Kline turned to face his team and pointed to Gamma station: "Let's go!" He said loudly enough so that his team-mates could hear him through the blizzard.

They walked towards the station, their feet crunching the snow. They came to the front door of the station and Kline pressed the intercom that was besides the door: "This is Captain Kline from the starship...uh...May we enter?"

There was a small shuffling noise in the background and then Kline heard the voice of a woman say: "Captain Kline? Alan Kline?"

The captain blinked: "Uh...yeah."

"Of course! Come in!"

The doors opened and the four officers entered the station and were welcomed by more favorable climatic conditions. It was approximately twenty degrees Celsius and the team immediately felt hot in their heavy jackets. Kline pulled off the jacket and let it hang loosely off his shoulders; he looked around the room in which they had entered: The walls were bland and there were terminals in many different places, seemingly placed at random.

Two people in civilian clothes came towards them, a man and a woman. The man was a tall, silver-haired man with small, suspicious eyes and a beard. And the woman had long dark hair that came to the height of her waist; she had large round blue eyes and a big smile. Kline recognized her.

"Linda." He smiled.

"Alan...I couldn't believe it when I heard you on the intercom." She said, her large eyes looking straight into his.

Linda Hamilton had been in Kline's class at the academy, she had left after one year because she had decided to specialize herself in geology. Kline had continued in Starfleet.

Hamilton gestured to her partner: "This is John Dean, one of my colleagues in this station. Our third colleague is a Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Emma Tompkinson."

Kline gave a quick presentation of his team then went straight to business: "We're here because...because the planet wasn't transmitting like usual..." He didn't want to reveal anything about the Nightshade to civilians. "...so we came here to check it out and see if we could help. We couldn't hail anyone on the planet so we sent two teams down to check things out."

"We can't communicate with any of the other stations either." Dean said, stroking his beard. "We assumed it was due to the interference we detected...That was a few seconds before our sensors shut down along with our communications."

"Yeah." Kline nodded. "We have a transmitter to communicate with our starship..." He pointed to the large box on the antigrav platform. "Well...we hope we can communicate with our starship."

"What do you mean?" Hamilton asked.

"We aren't sure that the transmitter will work...I'd just like to test it if you don't mind." Kline said.

Hamilton smiled: "Sure...I'll go and get commander Tompkinson."

She walked away and Dean stayed with Kline's team as they activated the transmitter. The machine buzzed to life and many blinking lights appeared all over it. A long black cylinder extended from the transmitter, the voice transmitter. Kline bent down so that his mouth was near to the cylinder. He spoke into it: "This is Kline...Sutter?"

There was no sound, just static.

"Sutter. This is Kline. Come in."

"Ca...s...ou?" Kline recognized Sutter's voice but couldn't understand anything she was saying. "I c...rea...wh...u?"

Kline sighed in frustration and said: "Kline out..."

He switched the transmitter off and shook his head: "It doesn't work."

Hamilton came back with a woman in a Starfleet uniform that was even shorter than her. She had blond hair that was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head.

"You must be commander Tompkinson." Kline said, shaking her hand. "I'm Captain Kline."

"Nice to meet you, captain." She had a strong British accent and firmly squeezed his hand. "We appreciate your help."

"Well..." Kline smiled. "I don't know if we're much help...Our transmitter doesn't seem to work very well and we have no way of contacting the second team since the commbadge don't work."

"They only work at close-range." Tompkinson corrected. "We tested them right after the communication systems of the station went down."

"I see..." Kline said. "Well...At least something works on this planet..."

The trees had turned into giant, black torches from which the flames rose high into the sky. In the distance, at the place where the station was supposed to be, there was nothing but a giant pile of ash and debris that was also flaming. The heat could be felt through the skin of the Starfleet officers and it was almost impossible to breathe.

Eskina could feel the ash enter his lungs when he tried to breathe, he coughed loudly and then said with difficulty: "Let's get out of here."

They ran as fast as they could, but the forest fire seemed to stretch out for kilometers and the flames continued as far as the eye could see. Eskina guessed that, somehow, the station had exploded and had ignited a fire in the surrounding trees, thus starting a giant forest fire. The air was getting heavier and sweat was sliding down from Eskina's face and wet the collar of his uniform, the fabric was sticking to his skin and he was beginning to get tired. He almost couldn't breathe anymore...They had to get out now! But the flames continued in the distance for what seemed like an unending distance...they would never make it...

Then, ensign Kaufmann collapsed onto the ground face-first. He didn't move, Eskina's lungs burned and he almost couldn't get enough oxygen. But acting on a crazy impulse, he bent down and hauled Kaufmann onto his shoulders. Fortunately, the medical technician wasn't such a big man and he didn't weigh too much. But Eskina's muscles still screamed as he stood up and began his sprint again through the infernal forest. His eyes were tearing due to the heat and ash, his mind was blurring and he was now acting solely on his instinct, the instinct of survival.

In the distance, he could make out the shape of his fellow team-mates who were also attempting to escape from the forest of flames, and even farther away he saw...

He saw salvation...

The air was becoming lighter; the flames were slowly becoming smaller as he got farther and farther away from the central area of the fire. He was free from the inferno.

They came to a field a few hundred meters from the forest, the air was pure and Eskina took in a deep breath which came out with several hacking coughs. He lowered Kaufmann to the ground; the medic looked in really bad shape and coughed so violently that he threw up in the grass. Ensign Ogden bent down and checked the medical officer; he shook his head and looked up at Eskina who was rubbing the ash out of his eyes: "He's not in very good shape, sir. And he won't get better if we don't get him back to the Eagle."

Eskina suddenly jumped. The transmitter was supposed to have been beamed down two minutes after them at their same position...The fire had sent them away from that position and now they had no way of contacting the Eagle.

"We left the transmitter in there." Rouen said, pointing to the burning forest with one of her elegant fingers. "How will we call the ship?"

"I was just thinking about that." Eskina said with a sad smile. "We can't..."

Kaufmann began coughing again; Ogden steadied him with his strong arms and asked: "What can we do?"

Eskina tapped his commbadge and attempted to communicate with the other Team, but to no avail. He pondered a moment then said: "We'll have to get going for the nearest station. That should be Delta station if I remember correctly."

Rouen pulled out her tricorder and tapped a few buttons on it: "My map says that the station is twenty kilometers north." She gestured in the correct direction. "But I can't read the station itself, it must be the interference."

"Let's hope it's that." Eskina said, and then he turned to Ogden. "Can you handle Kaufmann?"

Ogden pulled the medic onto his shoulders and nodded: "I'll manage."

"Good, let's move." Eskina spat onto the ground some ash that was still in his mouth and began walking north, hoping to find Delta station and whatever was happening on this planet...

Go to Chapter Five