EP 4 ACT 2



*** RUNABOUT HUDSON

Struckchev had barely hauled his pants on as he stepped into the runabout cockpit.

"Where the hell are we-" the Commander's voice trailed off as he saw the horrific scene through the forward portholes. Just several hundred feet away, the charred, decayed remains of the USS Papillon lay smashed in the side of a large asteroid. One nacelle was just visible, hanging like a broken limb from the wreckage.

Lirik stood from the pilot's chair. "I'm sorry, Commander. There are no survivors."

Struckchev swallowed hard, though the crumpled mass of wreckage said it all. A seasoned officer, the thought of his fallen comrades was too painful to hold back. As a single tear coursed its way speedily down to his chin, causing Lirik to quiver and frown in emotive response. The Commander stiffened his neck, speaking the words slowly. "Are you absolutely sure? Perhaps other pods were jettisoned."

Lirik looked down and across to Rebbik, holding each other's gaze for a second before turning back to the Commander. "We don't believe so. We've made a thorough scan of the area. We've also scanned the ship and found 135 bodies."

"That's still 85 unaccounted for," Struckchev replied swiftly, "not counting us."

Lirik didn't want an argument, but he felt bound to point out the obvious. "The secondary hull was practically vaporised, Commander. According to what you told me, there would have been in excess of 80 crew in that area at the time."

Struckchev just nodded abruptly, accepting the news without comment, and stared off into middle distance. "I'll inform Cadet Lee. Her cousin was aboard."

With that he exited, leaving Lirik staring after him. Rebbik looked out at the crippled hulk of the once gleaming Starfleet vessel. He heard Lirik speak to him in an unexpectedly lucid tone. "You know, Rebbik, this whole situation is really beginning to piss me off."

Lirik joined Rebbik at the runabout's controls, noticing the half-Ferengi chuckling to himself, but trying to hide it at the same time.

"It's okay, you can laugh in the face of adversity. I'm all for a bit of levity today," Lirik flexed his fingers and activated the narrow band scanners. "Let's scan for any items that could prove useful."

Rebbik looked nervously over his shoulder toward the narrow starboard corridor. "Shouldn't we check with him first?"

Lirik wanted to say 'no', but the thought of a further confrontation changed his mind. He nodded and shut down the scanners. "I need another coffee."

* * *

In the pitch-black, silent coolness of an access shaft between decks, Souveson and Christian stood on a narrow ledge pressed closely together. Where the Canadian was clammy and cold-feeling with anticipation and more than a little fear, she could feel the dry heat from the Captain's highly toned body through his uniform. She could also smell him, his breath, stale but not unpleasant, and the musty, sweaty odour coming from his uniform. Because water was a limited supply, and none of the sonic showers in the crew quarters they'd explored worked as yet, it had been about a week since any of the survivors had managed a decent wash, or a change of clothes. Souveson didn't mind. She'd quite enjoyed a similar experience while on field exercise at the Academy, reminding her of home.

Turning, Souveson's forehead brushed against Christian's coarse chin. "Who do you suppose they are?" she asked in a barely audible whisper.

The Captain lowered his head slightly, his lips lapping against the fine strands of hair around her ear as he spoke. "They were dressed similarly to the K'Tani who fired at us in the hangar on Helub, only a lot taller." The feeling of his short, hot breath so closely peppered on her ear caused a shiver that ran to her duty boots.

Souveson looked down into the blackness, not a hope of knowing if anyone was down there or not. She turned her head up toward the older man's head, her cheek brushing against his still down-turned mouth and nose. Although she didn't understand why, the Ensign felt a flutter of anticipation, her skin tingling from her cheek and down the side of her body. She banished any further thoughts, though feeling the weakening desire settling into the pit of her belly, just below her belly button. "I don't think they followed us, Sir."

She felt Christian move on the ledge, more than she felt comfortable about - it was a drop of about ten metres to the deck below. "I think you're right," he said. "In fact, I was also thinking back to the weapons discharge they fired at us. They seemed to stop shooting as soon as we came into the darkness."

Souveson squirmed, cocking her head to hear for any unusual sound. "Perhaps they're afraid of the dark? Or maybe there's something in the darkness they're frightened of." Inwardly, the Ensign laughed at herself - was she trying to scare the Captain with her suppositions?

"Maybe," Christian had served enough years in Starfleet to never discount any possibility, however ridiculous it may seem. "But at least while we remain here we appear to be safe. I wonder how far the unpowered area projects up and down? We might be able to go around them, or find another control area."

Souveson suddenly had a flashback to the deck schematics she had observed so far. "Captain! I remember seeing a bridge area indicated on Deck 6, forward of the Command section of the ship. I think it was flush with the separation plane at its apex."

Christian gripped the Ensign's wrist. "Are you sure, Ensign?"

"Well, yes," she said, "yes I am."

"That's only a number of levels directly above us. I think we're okay chancing the light of your torch to guide us."

Souveson gladly flicked the small device into life, illuminating the metallic blue of the shaft.

"What's that?" Christian said, then cried out in horror - slamming his hand over his mouth to stop the uncontrollable noise that echoed all around them.

Souveson turned the torch toward the Captain and he nodded up into the dark shaft above, still clasping his mouth with embarrassment. The light shone up and there the Ensign saw the curled-up brown-black skelaton of a large spider. It wasn't as big as some species she had seen, but this close it was a bit unnerving. Suspended as it was in the thin gossamer of its death shroud, its near-translucent skin seemed delicate and slender to her. Christian, she observed, had other feelings about the dead spider.

"Do you think they heard us?" the Ensign said, wondering whether this creature may have been the reason why their pursuers had not followed them - then asking herself how they would know it was there. Perhaps the K'Tani had been awoken from stasis chambers, she wondered. Souveson had to tell herself to shut up, or she would not hear the Captain's reply.

Christian shook his head. "It's too late to worry about that now. Come on, we'd better get moving." In his head, he was forcing himself to confront this fear and squeeze past the large insect corpse that blocked his way above.

Souveson led, and then made Christian's controlled fears resurface. "Sir, on the commune where I grew up, whenever we found a dead wheat beatle my father used to say 'Where there's one, there's more'."

The young woman was already above the hanging creature, and Christian closed his eyes when moving past the thing himself. "A fair folklore to live by, I suspect. Was he always right?"

The Ensign paused before answering. "Mostly."

"Oh," he felt the unexpectedly light pouch brush against his butt, some of the gossamer webbing applying itself to his tattered trousers, "that's hopeful then." The creature made a slight clicking sound as its bones were slightly nudged in the Captain's passing, causing him to wince and say a silent prayer that there may not be any others. * * *

In a not-too-far away part of the Fantasy, Leonard and Hedrik sat opposite each other, crouched in the small confines of a Jeffries Tube junction above the computer core.

"I don't understand, what exactly are you trying to say?" Hedrik whispered heavily, frowning at the handsome German as he tried to avoid looking at her body, she noticed.

Leonard took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked up, Hedrik got a prime view of his almost translucent blue eyes. She had never seen the natural like before this close, and was quite taken by their mysterious gleam; she noticed that they were particularly enhanced by the white blonde eyelashes, brows and stubbly beard. "In order to re-take control of the ship, we should try and knock out main power."

"That's crazy," Hedrik butted in, "it took you so long to get it up and running, it seems stupid to just smash it all to pieces again."

"True, but for all we know, we could be the only two still alive, though back there it looked like they were going after the Captain and Ensign Souveson - or maybe just one was drawing their fire while the other escaped?" Leonard mused. Hedrik suddenly realised this man was no great soldier, despite his rank and Starfleet Academy training. "Anyway, my point is that without power, they'll need to go to engineering to fix it. I'm sure I can come up with a few nasty surprises for them there."

Hedrik waited for the rest, but there was no more. "What? That's it? It's not much of a plan, Starfleet-guy. How do we get control back?"

Leonard seemed a little hurt, but relentlessly keen. "I don't see there's much else we can do without weapons."

Hedrik was thinking laterally. "Where did they come from? I mean, they came out of nowhere, didn't they? Without any warning."

"Maybe the K'Tani have cloaking technology. Or long range transporters?" Leonard suggested. "With our own sensors cockahoop, I'm not surprised that a ship could have crept up on us unnoticed."

Hedrik shook her head. "Cock-ahoop…? But if they are K'Tani, why wouldn't they just blow us up? Surely this ship's no good to them?"

Leonard replaced his glasses. "From what we know, the K'Tani were the ones who obtained this ship somehow and stored it in that facility on Helub, perhaps it's of some value to them? It may have even been them who coated the ship in that black substance - we've not seen it on any other of their ships, so maybe it was a one-off prototype they want back?"

Hedrik folded her arms, inadvertantly pushing her breasts together in a motion that caused Leonard to gag and cough. "Well then, that doesn't make sense either. We know that the substance works like a cloaking device, and yet if the K'Tani knew how to scan it, they would have found us days ago."

"Maybe they can't scan it, but they just chanced upon us? Or inadvertantly detected us some other way - picked up some kind of echo, maybe?" Leonard could think of numerous reasons.

"That's another thing that doesn't add up for me," Hedrik frowned, "who did we find supposedly hiding aboard the ship in that very same K'Tani facility? And who led us into this area of space?"

Leonard's turn to frown. "You suspect the Helan of being involved? Our trip through the wormhole was hardly their fault."

"We got subspace communications back not long ago, they could have sent a signal," Hedrik suggested.

"If we think that then we might as well suspect the Andorian Ambassador, or even Murak," Leonard rested back on his hands. "Or you, for that matter."

Hedrik paused, looking curiously at Leonard's torso and legs. "Who's Murak?"

"The Romulan," Leonard felt Hedrik's insistent gaze upon his body and leant forward again, inhibiting her view. "But he seems like just a typical kid, really. Look, it doesn't matter the whys and wherefores anyway. What matters is that they're here, they're looking for us and it's up to you and me to do something about them."

"Square one, German friend," Hedrik smiled coyly, "just what is that something?"

* * *

The Hudson cleared the straggling asteroids on the edge of the dense, active asteroid field, departing from the USS Papillon's final resting place. Struckchev had wanted to use the runabout's phasers to destroy whatever was left of her, but Lirik had refused, claiming it might bring attention to them. He also stated that seeing as the K'Tani already had access to other Starfleet vessels, there was little point in trying to destroy any technology now.

Struckchev sat in the pilot's seat, Rebbik in the co-pilot seat. "Mister Lirik tells me it was you who navigated us through the asteroid field. I wish I could have been awake, that must have been quite something."

Rebbik didn't know how to take a compliment yet. "You can watch it on the logs later, if you like."

The Commander cracked a smile, then lost it, chastising himself for enjoying himself while grieving at the loss of his shipmates. He looked out the side window to watch the ship's final resting place become a pin-prick in the distance, and then be consumed by the blackness of distant space. Sitting as he did on this small, lonely vessel in enemy space, with only a few centimetres between survival and oblivion, Struckchev felt the gnawing feeling of vulnerability that sometimes came as a precursor to the kinds of psychosis brought on by prolonged periods of living in space.

* * *

In the rear of the runabout, Cadet Lee was sitting up at the table, a little pale, surrounded by an array of boxes and pieces of equipment. A small pile of tissues had accompanied her as much from the tears that occasionally came in uncontrollable floods as from the chill that was working itself quickly out of her system.

Despite her alternating periods of calm disbelief, and unrestrained emotion at the loss of her beloved cousin and newly formed relationships on board the USS Papillon, she felt a little soothed by the steady work of this strange Lirik person. Tunic off, shirt sleeves rolled up, he busied himself, arranging the various recovered articles in piles and storing them as efficiently as he could at the very back of the ship. From time to time she could see the wafer thin environmental shield that constantly surrounded his body shimmer like back-lit glass as he moved.

"I'm sure you've been asked this a lot before, but tell me, Sir, how come you are part Medusan? I didn't think that was possible," the Cadet sniffed and blew her nose, hobbling over to the wall and disposing of the tissues in the replicator. She ordered a replacement set immediately.

Lirik stopped what he was doing and looked up, as if he'd heard something. He frowned, then feeling sure, hit his commbadge. "Excuse me, would you both please join us in the rear." Lee was rather surprised by his request.

"No offence, Cadet, but we have some other things to sort out first," he gave a genuine smile, but Lee felt embarrassed. She flushed even more when Struckchev entered and she locked eyes with him, immediately looking away with discomfort. Quite by chance, Lirik had caught this action, and instantly he was intrigued and thinking back to what they had both said when they came aboard. Things suddenly fell into place. This Commander was turning out to be quite complex.

Rebbik teetered by the narrow passage. "Shouldn't someone stay up front? Just in case?"

Lirik looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, all stop. Extend long range passive scans and inform me of any approaching event."

The computer chirped a quick response. "Commander, you pointed out that the Fantasy might have been taken by now. There's every chance you may be right, but I would like to hear why you think we should abandon her."

Struckchev straightened slightly, fresh faced after a quick sonic shave. "I never said anything about abandoning her. We agreed that we'd go with your decision."

"Then why did you steer us off course just now," he said. Rebbik cast the Commander a shocked look - he was unaware of any course change. Struckchev wasn't giving anything away, but Lirik knew the truth. "Humans wouldn't detect such a delicate shift, but being part Medusan, I have a strong affliction with the stars. I don't just see them, I feel them as well."

Struckchev chose to ignore his own revealed deceit and argue the reasoning behind it instead, hoping to save face somehow by trying to prove himself right. "Strategically it would be more prudent to remain undetected. Seek out allies and stay alive."

Cadet Lee chipped in, a weak attempt at supporting her superior officer. "Perhaps some of the Fleet escaped capture and are holding out somewhere nearby. If we could find them-"

The Commander ignored her remark. "Your friend here was telling me that this ship you came from is covered in a substance that cloaks it from normal sensors. Just how were you hoping to find it?"

"Instinct and logic," Lirik said sharply. "Something you have yet to show an appreciation of, Commander."

"I don't have to listen to this-" Struckchev shifted slightly, cut off by Lirik stepping up close to him, the environment shield around him flashing menacingly from the quick movement.

"Oh yes you do, Commander! Like I said before. This is a Diplomatic vessel and I have jurisdiction here. You had no right to make that course change, despite whatever you feel about me or about our situation. In future, all course corrections and command decisions will be made by me alone, got it?" blotches of red bristled around Lirik's neck. Normally he wasn't so moved to anger, but he found deceit amongst Starfleet officers (diplomatic or otherwise) to be contemptuous, whatever their mental state. "I said do you understand?" Lirik watched the Commander take a step back and turn to Yip. "Answer me dammit!" Lirik shook with anger.

"Yes," Struckchev was seething, but controlled, "I understand."

"Make it stay that way, Commander," Lirik spat. He was a little relieved at the Commander's grudging acceptance of his leadership - showed that the man at least respected Starfleet regulations.

Rebbik was gaping timidly to one side. He'd not expected an outburst like that - but if Lirik was right about the Commander's subterfuge, he understood why.

"Whatever we do, we can't risk being captured," Lirik continued in a more controlled tone, finally lowering his arm.

"Oh, I agree with that," Rebbik blurted out.

Lirik wanted to smile, but held it back, deflated by the return of Struckchev's mocking expression. He tried to ignore it, putting it down to a bad attitude. "What we represent is hope. The runabout, the four of us and these supplies, will all be of great help to the civilians. In a sense, although they don't know it, they're all counting on us."

"Fine," Struckchev snapped, "we've agreed we're looking for this Fantasy of yours." The Commander sniggered - a strange, hateful reaction almost. "Shall we just get on with it and forget the speeches?"

Lirik licked his lips. "Rebbik, take Cadet Yip forward and put us back on the course I originally laid in."

Rebbik was curious what was going to happen next, but realised he wasn't welcome to hear the exchange. He felt a little hurt at the disclusion, so sulked back to the cockpit with the apprehensive teenager in tow.

When alone, Lirik gestured for Struckchev to sit. The big man declined. Lirik walked over to the windows, twisting his way through the heaps of salvage. "Tell me, Commander, why were you two the only survivors of the Papillon?"

The Commander glanced over at the Yeoman briefly - Lirik's back was to him, waiting for an answer. He licked his lips and slipped into the nearby chair. "We were just lucky, I guess."

Lirik shook his head, rolling his tongue. "I don't think so. It doesn't take a genius to work it out, Commander." Lirik turned to face him, perching on the sill. "When we were scavenging for supplies, I scanned over five hundred impact fractures in what was left of the ship's hull. They all had the same rate of degradation, meaning the ship was hit rapidly, in succession, in a very short space of time. The attack took probably no more than a few of seconds in all. That's hardly enough time for the alarm to be raised, let alone for the bridge crew to realise the ship was breaking apart and order the abandon ship, is it?"

Lirik sat in silence, waiting for the Commander to reply. Instead, the big man cradled his hands in front of his mouth and looked over at him, his eyes half-filled and fearful. Lirik finished the evaluation for him. "No, the only way you could have got away in time was if you had been inside the pod at the time of the ambush."

Struckchev looked shocked and opened his mouth to speak, but Lirik wouldn't let him start. "No, Commander, no excuses or explanations are needed. You see, I got thinking - I'm a man, and I know what a man's body can do to him if not properly disciplined. And so I understand how you came to be with the Cadet in a lifepod. But when all is said and done you've both survived a terrible experience. You both exercised poor judgement, but in truth there's no time for blame or punishment in our situation. We need you both, just as you need us."

Struckchev dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eye-sockets with his palms. "You're ah not going to report this?"

Lirik pursed his lips. "I'm not surprised at that - to hear that your Starfleet record is more important to you than anything else," Struckchev wanted to explain himself but was cut off. "The truth is both of you will have to live with this for the rest of your lives. I think that's punishment enough."

The Commander cleared his throat. "I keep thinking what might have been had we not been in the pod."

"You'd both be dead, that's what," Lirik slapped the man on the arm, rather hard, causing his shield to flicker slightly. "I'll keep this to myself, don't worry. No need to tell the Cadet about this conversation either."

Struckchev just nodded in sombre silence as Lirik walked through to the cockpit. As the narrow doorway closed behind Lirik, the Commander looked out of the window and broke down in shame.

* * *



ACT 3