CHAPTER ONE
Sylvia Burnel stared...
Agatha
Burnel smiled...
"Well...aren't
you going to say hello?" Agatha asked.
"Where
in the god dammed world have you been??" Sylvia suddenly exploded.
Agatha
winced: "Not the kind of greeting I was expecting..."
She
sat down on the opposite side of the table to her sister, grinning: "I bet
you weren't expecting to see me."
"You
can say that again." Sylvia said, still half in a daze.
"So..."
Agatha pointed at Sylvia's replacement arm that was still in a metallic,
skeletal state. "What happened?"
Sylvia
looked up at her sister: "I saved an entire planet from destruction while
I was doing your job. Some crazy scientist was going to unleash some
killer plague on Hargill VII, he was about to
disintegrate the container of the virus to unleash it but I got in the way and
the phaser blast blew off my forearm."
Agatha
frowned.
"And
where were you?" Sylvia asked.
"Uh..."
Agatha smiled. "I had other duties to attend to."
"'other duties'?" Sylvia blinked. "...Other duties
than your duty to becoming a member of...of Team One?" She lowered her
voice a little.
"Believe
it or not...Yes."
Sylvia
sighed, and then asked: "Are you going to tell me what this mysterious
duty was?"
"I
can't yet...But you'll find out." Agatha said. "I need your
help."
"My help? For what?"
Agatha glanced around the room, as if to
make sure no one was listening, after her little inspection she said:
"There is a planet a few light-years away where a new world leader has
risen to power. He has plans to bring the whole planet to peace and has
initiated massive scientific programs that are progressing at breakneck speed.
This planet hasn't yet achieved warp capability, but thanks to this new leader
they will probably get to it in less than a month."
"And
who is this new 'leader'?" Sylvia asked.
Agatha
hesitated, then said: "He's a Starfleet
Intelligence operative."
Sylvia
blinked: "Starfleet Intelligence?"
"Yes...It
appears one of our colleagues from Intelligence has gone megalomaniac."
"One of our colleagues?" Sylvia raised an
eyebrow. "So...you're still working for Intel."
Agatha
nodded slowly: "...Yes...Another section of Intel than you. You're in the elite
field operations section; I'm in confidential intelligence security and
protection operations. When the people in the elite field operations section
realized that I was part of the security and protection operation, they decided
to kick me out of Team One and send you in my place."
"Why
didn't they say anything about this?" She asked.
"I'm
in confidential intelligence security and protection operations."
She gave a small smile. "They didn't have the authorization to reveal any
of this to you or your team."
"I
see..." Sylvia said, half-convinced.
They
didn't say anything for a moment, they just stared at
each other, studying each other's faces. Agatha was the younger sister, she was always wearing a smile and had a frailer
appearance than Sylvia. She always wore a smile, their sizes varied according
to her mood but she always had one. She didn't tie her hair in a ponytail like
her sister and rather let it hang loosely on her shoulders.
"Sooo..." Sylvia said slowly. "What are we going
to do on this...planet?"
"We're
supposed to get that guy out of there by any means possible." Agatha said.
"If he doesn't come willingly...We assassinate him."
Sylvia
jumped, the casual manner in which she said the last three words surprised her:
"Uh...Assassinate..."
"Yes.
He's a danger to the security of that planet, and possibly to Starfleet
Intelligence. He was high-placed and can compromise a whole bunch of our
agents. Including Team One."
"Oh..."
Sylvia said. "And why did you choose me, specifically?"
"Because
you're the best pilot I know." She said.
"After you." Sylvia added with a smile.
Agatha
sighed: "Well…I told you a thousand times that you should just take the
risk, if you take the risk, you can do it."
"Yeah...I
just don't have the nerves to do the things you do." Sylvia said.
"Because you are totally out of control when you drive a ship…"
Agatha
shrugged. "Well...Want to go see my ship?"
* * *
In
the main shuttlebay of Hell's Gate station, the two
Burnel sisters moved towards a parked vessel twice the size of a Starfleet
shuttlecraft. It was sleek, had no markings and had four warp nacelles instead
of the two that Starfleet shuttles usually had.
"This
is the Arrow." She smiled. "I wasn't going to try to invent a
name so I took the one of that flying box we used to pilot with mom and
dad."
"Yeah...Nice..."
Sylvia ran her fingers along the hull of the ship.
"We
should get going." Agatha pressed the control panel beside the door and it
opened. "Taran is five light-years away. That
should take about...hmmm...two days at maximum warp…That is…Unless we take the...the
shortcut through the Taranian asteroid
cluster."
Sylvia
sighed with a smile: "You do the driving."
* * *
What
a clown...
President
Tmish was giving another one of his inspirational
speeches on all the channels of the visual-transmitter. He gave one of these
speeches almost every day, all of them resembled the last one and he kept
repeating his plans for world peace and a 'new era'. The craziest thing of all
was that he had so many followers! The people were buying tickets to be
able to listen to one of his speeches.
Retan
shook his head in disgust...The people were getting stupider every year. It
didn't take a genius to understand that this man was mad. Even though his
extremely innovative approach to science had raised the Taranian
technology level impressively in a very short amount of time.
Retan
sighed and got up from his chair. He switched off the visual-transmitter and
went to the window. He plucked a leaf from his Vireel
plan, rolled it up and lit it with his lighter. He inhaled and blew out some
thick smoke. Then he looked out the window of his apartment at Uan, the city in which he had lived for all his life, and
in which he still lived. He looked up at the cloudless sky, both moons were
full and it was almost as bright as it could be during the day. He began to
doze…
* * *
"Watch
it!"
The
Arrow's engines roared to maximum power and did a controlled barrel
roll, passing inches away from a massive asteroid that was moving fast through
the field.
Sylvia
had her hands over her eyes, she asked: "Are we dead?"
"Nope." Agatha said.
"Not
yet, you mean." She let her hands fall onto her lap.
"Just
a little distance left." Agatha said. "Then we'll be out of here and
two hours away from Taran."
"Good..."
Sylvia nodded, then, suddenly, she jumped in her seat. She jabbed a finger at a
large asteroid towards which the Arrow was heading. "Watch
o..."
"Yeah, yeah." Agatha said, slightly exasperated.
And she accelerated.
Sylvia
was clenching her teeth and holding the armrests of her chair tightly:
"Uh...Agatha..."
"Stay
cool." The Arrow was now at full impulse, going straight for the
asteroid.
Sylvia
decided to let her sister do whatever she wanted to do.
"Steady..."
Agatha said to herself.
Suddenly,
she threw out her hand and hit the phaser control panel. The
red beam of energy lashed out and drilled a hole right
through the asteroid. This
compromised the structural integrity of the space rock and it disintegrated in
hundreds of harmless little pieces that bounced of the shields of the Arrow.
Agatha
smiled triumphantly.
Sylvia
shook her head: "You are totally insane, Agatha."
Her
sister shrugged: "We just won half-a-day."
"Hooray..."
Sylvia said unenthusiastically. "And we almost got ourselves a free
one-way ticket to hell."
"Don't
you trust my piloting?" Agatha asked with a grin.
Sylvia
said: "No I don't."
"Humph..."
Agatha sighed. "Well...You should try taking the risk sometimes; it can
save your life."
"But
it can also kill you." Sylvia said.
Agatha
shrugged: "There's always a risk everywhere at every time. You just need
to know that you need to play with risks to accomplish things. Once you learn
that..." She smiled. "...you can do miracles."
Sylvia
nodded slowly.