Chapter Six
"This
is Captain Alan Kline to all personnel...I want you to listen to me carefully.
Most of you have experienced visions, these visions are actually
aliens...Aliens who are trapped and need our help. I need you to communicate to
the bridge all visions you experience as quickly as possible. We need your help
to help us help the aliens." He smiled at his sentence. "Thank you
all in advance...Kline out."
The bridge waited in
silence for a communication to come in. As soon as one came in, the transporter
room would try to locate the disturbance in space-time and lock onto it; hopefully
managing to beam out the aliens from their space-slice.
A few minutes later,
the first call came.
"Bridge!
This is Ensign Daniels in my quarters! I see something...It's on the far side of
the room!"
"Transporter
room, do you have a lock?" Kline said.
"Aye,"
Robinson's voice said over the commlink. "Locking onto
disturbance...Initiating transporter sequence...Energizing..."
There was silence
for a minute...A silence that was extremely tense to everyone on the bridge.
Finally, Robinson's
voice said: "Medical team to sickbay!"
The
tension left...A collective sigh of relief was let out on the bridge.
"Let's go greet
our 'guest'." Kline said.
* * *
Doctor Simon Tarses
had never seen anything like it...
The alien was not
humanoid, not humanoid at all.
He...She...It?
He decided for 'it'
at the moment.
It had no legs, no
arms...At least none that were visible...The main section of the body was a
large blue exoskeletal shell, as solid as rock but
penetrable by the bio-scanner. There was just one other member that Tarses
believed was the equivalent of a human head. There was an orifice which
presumably served as a mouth of some sort. However, the brain--if one could
call it that way--was located underneath the exoskeleton.
"Weird..."
Nurse Sharon Davies was passing a medical tricorder back and forth across the
alien, taking scans.
"I'll
say..." Tarses frowned. "Any sign of consciousness yet?" He
asked.
"None..."
She shook her head. "But, this guy is so strange that I'm not sure what
I'm reading."
The doors of sickbay
opened and Captain Kline walked in, followed by Lt-Commander Sutter and
Lieutenant Stevenson. Their eyes came upon the alien and they all frowned
simultaneously.
"He has a
nice...uh...exoskeleton..." Stevenson said.
Suddenly, the
exoskeleton of the creature began changing colors, it
went from light blue to red after a few seconds. Then, the lone member that
Tarses had named the head twitched.
"What's up
"Uh..."
She was staring in confusion at the meaningless readings that were showing on
her tricorder. "I think he's...waking up..."
"Hmmm..."
Stevenson said. "Nicely deduced..."
The head of the creature suddenly extended
from the shell by using a long neck-like arm. It raised high towards the ceiling
of sickbay and seemed to study the people in sickbay.
Kline took the first
step; he came towards the alien and spread out his arms: "I am Captain
Alan Kline, leader of these people. Can you communicate?"
The head of the
alien abruptly came towards Kline and stopped a few centimeters away from his
face. The captain was startled but he stood still.
Suddenly, a booming
voice said: "I am Tkyasm, master of the Dyndarii ship Tartron."
"You can
communicate?" Kline said, surprised.
"We have
analyzed your language and minds and we have managed to find a way to synthesize
vibrations approximating your vocal communications." Tkyasm said, his head moving away from Kline's.
"Impressive..."
Kline said truthfully. "But we have another problem."
"Indeed...We
are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience we have caused you." Tkyasm said. "We had no idea our new engines would
cause the space-shattering phenomena, when our vessel was damaged, we attempted
to teleport ourselves onto your ship. Unfortunately, the connection that the
teleportation link established between our two levels of space-time shattered
your ship among three levels and disabled you as well..."
"Well, as long
as no one was hurt." Kline said. "But now, how will we fix the
'shattering' of our space time?"
"If you
could beam the totality of my companions out of the level where they have been
exiled, we could work together to attempt to find a way to return space-time to
normal and return ourselves to our respective levels."
Kline nodded:
"Perfect. We shall begin transporting your colleagues on board."
Tkyasm
changed color from red to blue again: "You have our thanks, Captain
Alan Kline. Let us hope that we shall find a way to return the universe to
normal, and—by the same occasion—learn something from each other."
Kline smiled:
"We'd like that..."
Epilogue
Captain's Log, supplemental.
Thanks
to the help of the Dyndarii crew, we have managed to
return space-time to normal. They have returned to the Tartron,
their ship, and to their own level of space-time. In the two days we have
worked with the Dyndarii, we have learned much about
their culture, and they have, in return, learned about us. Both our crews have
been satisfied by the knowledge they have gathered, and we are both on our way
home.
All
the data we have gathered on the phenomena of "space-shattering", as
the Dyndarii called it, has been sent to the Daystrom institute for study and Doctor Sevelin
has been thrilled to discover that his theory was, indeed, correct and I'm
certain that a new wave of scientific tests will soon begin in the institute
within the next few years.
Now,
we're returning to starbase for a full-scan of the ship to make sure our
"reassembly" didn't leave any structural cracks. Everyone on board is
resting a little, including our chief engineer, John Stevenson, who probably
wore himself out the most over the past few days.
And
I really need a coffee...
THE END
Trek
and all related names are copyright to
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Trek S:I Book 9 After Shadow is the property of Agelshaxe Planet and the author.