Unofficial LC #2: Time after Time

worffan101

So, Starswordc came up with this idea for unofficial LCs last month, and I had a ball with it. I'm going to go ahead and start another now, and we can do this alongside whatever official topics Smirk posts tomorrow. This way, we can have twice the stories, for twice the fun!

Standard rules apply. No NSFW stuff, one submission per writer per prompt.

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Unofficial LC prompt #1: "Time after Time" ~submitted by sander233

In which you and your ship are caught in a time loop, in which you and your ship are caught in a time loop, in which you and your ship are caught in a time loop...

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Unofficial LC prompt #2: "The Grass is Much Greener" ~submitted by moonshadowdark

"It was the perfect plan! During an excursion to the mirror universe, you successfully swapped places with your annoying counterpart and have infiltrated their starship. Now, as they are aboard your vessel in stasis, you are free to sabotage the ship and open portals to your universe! All you have left to do is-wait, what's this? The First Officer wants to have a lunch meeting? Your First Officer hates you with all their life. The ship's helm's man is inviting you to play cards? Must be a trick to assassinate you. Or is it? As you spend more time aboard this vessel, you discover how...nice it is! No having to worry about assassination plots, no battle rations for every meal, no having to report to those hard asses at HQ. This universe is paradise! But the Terran universe is expecting you to complete the mission. What do you do? Can you really turn your back on your home reality?"

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Unofficial LC prompt #3: "Out in the Cold" ~submitted by danqueller

"When you decided to join the Landing Party to do a quick survey of ruins on an arctic planet discovered in your patrol route, you didn't think it would turn into an extended stay. The hostile ships that came at your ship forced it to retreat, and the last communication you received indicated they were heading out of the system with the entire enemy force in pursuit. Now, you and those with you must survive in the bitter cold. Write a Captain's Log detailing the time spent on the ice planet and the eventual outcome of your efforts."

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Have at it, boys and girls. And remember, standard LC rules apply, even though this is an unofficial thread.

Discussion thread HERE.

worffan101

"Well, we have a fire, at least," said Ensign Mori Halan.

The little Ha'ni beside her just shivered in response.

The Patagonia's CSO was not faring well on the frigid wastes of Longran 7. Halan had found a cave to shelter in and had made a fire with the branches of a scraggly tundra tree, but even with that it was frigid. Engisn Mori herself could survive with sufficient food and her thermal gear, but the ectothermic zin S'linTa'kat was in deep trouble.

Their little Peregrine-class fighter had been scouting the planet, with the Patagonia doing some scans on the third planet, a gas giant, and the other fighters doing recon in other parts of the Longran system, when a graviton flux had knocked out the impulse drive and communications. Mori had managed to use the thrusters to get them through the atmosphere, but the fighter's hull had been toast on impact with the tropical tundra.

It was better than the glaciers further north and south.

They'd wrapped up quickly in emergency cold-weather gear and set out across the tundra. Ta'kat's boots were too large, and she'd been forced into a sort of shuffling gait that didn't work well with her Ha'ni physiology, adapted for digging, slow stalking and rapid leaps and charges. Mori herself was feeling the bitter cold in minutes.

They'd tried moving towards some rocky outcroppings that Mori had seen on approach, moving alongside primitive grazing animals with shaggy fur and stout, clawed feet. That had ended when the ice shark pack had attacked.

Neither sentient wanted to think about the ice sharks.

By the time they had made it to the cave, Mori was certain of several things:

1. She had given her boots to Ta'kat after the ice shark incident, and her socks were now soaked and freezing.

2. She never wanted to see an ice shark ever again in her life.

And, 3. They were located approximately on this planet's equator, according to the readings she'd taken from the fighter before the crash. Which meant there was nowhere warmer to go.

So she'd snagged a few dead branches from a scraggly tundra tree, set them on fire with her phaser, and was now trying to keep herself and the Ha'ni warm. She'd tried to contact the Patagonia and the other fighter groups, but the one garbled transmission that she had managed to pick up was of security chief Rachel Connor cursing about Hirogen attack ships. Help would not be soon in coming.

Ta'kat was still shivering, though, her ten clawed toes clenching and unclenching as her prehensile tail tightened its grip around her body.

She was already hypothermic, the Ensign knew. CMO Lieutenant JG Fel had a bunch of Ha'ni biology information that he had received from the woman that Lieutenant Connor called "the psycho b*tch", and had said that Ta'kat was for the most part similar in biology to the Selay, or perhaps the Gorn. At least, when reactions to environmental stress was concerned; her biochemistry was as different from a Selay as a Selay's was from a Human's. Not entirely surprising, given her origins.

The short version was that Ta'kat was freezing to death and rapidly beginning to go into shock.

Mori Halan knew there was really only one chance.

Her emergency knife (Lieutenant Connor insisted that all personnel be armed at all times, and Captain Trenek backed her up) was enough to nail her coat to the area above the little cave's opening, blocking most of the wind but hopefully letting oxygen in. The Bajoran tamped down the revulsion, sat behind the little Ha'ni--so light, and tiny, barely the size of a Ferengi and much slimmer than most of them--and picked the other woman up into her lap, then scooted as close to the fire as she dared.

Right. Warmth, body heat...Ta'kat was deathly cold, but she was still shaking in her body's best approximation of a shiver.

Next came talking to the patient.

"Alright..." said Ensign Mori Halan. "I...I really don't know what to say here. I...am not particularly fond of your species."

Maybe that was too demoralizing. Ta'kat didn't respond, though; she was still terribly cold. Mori tried to sit the other woman up more, craning her neck to get her head around the Ha'ni's large cranium.

"Well, you're probably wondering why I'm doing so much to help you. To tell the truth, I don't know why, either. I guess it's because I'm a Starfleet officer, damnit, and we protect our own."

Mori scooted as close to the fire as she dared, wrapping Ta'kat's oversized coat around herself and the Ha'ni. It didn't quite close in the front, which was probably a good thing in this case.

"The emergency medical training course said that I should talk to you now, to keep you going, because it's really bad if you lose consciousness. I suppose I could tell you a story or something..."

Ta'kat didn't respond.

Mori sighed.

"This would be a lot easier if we were both warm-blooded, you know."

Ta'kat shuddered, gripping Mori like a desperate lemur. Her prehensile tail gripped the Bajoran woman's leg with almost painful force.

"Well, at least you're moving a little...maybe let go of my leg a bit?"

Ta'kat didn't respond. Mori heaved them a little closer to the fire, stretching her neck over the Ha'ni's obstructively large skull to see.

"We've got to figure out something. Those ice sharks seem to be burrowers, they probably don't go over rock unless they have to, so we're safe on the escarpment and in this cave. But we've only got two days' emergency rations, and the Patagonia may not even be in the system any more. Might even be down, if the Hirogen got the better of them."

Mori didn't really believe the last sentence, but it was a possibility. Trenek was a legend, and everyone knew that the security chief was something more than human (they were still telling stories in the lounge about the time Lieutenant Connor had sliced herself while shaving her legs and had gone around for a whole day with chitinous armor plating), but Hirogen were vicious foes.

Prophets. She REALLY didn't want to believe that the Hirogen had gotten the better of the ship.

Ta'kat's shivering was starting to ease. Mori reached over as best she could and dragged another branch into the fire. She'd need to get some more in an hour or so.

This was going to be a long night.
***
Ta'kat woke up. The last night was a blur of coldcoldcoldcoldcold, but she remembered the important details. Walk. Cold. Ice sharks. Don't think about those. Cave. Warm.

Important stuff.

The mammalian jaan--Ta'kat used the generic term for "woman" because she STILL hadn't figured out how mammalians delineated their castes--was already up, roasting an alien creature over the fire.

"Hey," said Mori. "Caught us a little something. Looks like a Terran hare. Should be enough for breakfast. There's a bit of sun and I have an emergency solar cell, so the phaser should have enough power for now."

"Thank you," said Ta'kat. "Are you intact? I have some medical training."

"I'm good. I was really worried about you; you were going into shock by the time we made this cave."

"I...I am Ha'ni," said Ta'kat. "We are not an arctic species. I am incapable of metabolic thermoregulation, as mammalians are."

She was so lost. In her own head. The normal rapid-fire thought patterns of a zin, branching trails leaping and connecting across vast spans of concepts and facts and ideas, were gone. Her head was so quiet. It wasn't right.

"I have not felt this bad since I first blew up my laboratory."

"Yeah? Feeling like a kid again, huh?" Mori sounded sympathetic, despite the bite in her words.

"No," said Ta'kat. "I first blew up my laboratory when I was half a cycle out of my egg. My mentor, zir Na'tin Akh'sat, was most impressed. Our zin-kzan'iae went straight to zaan Rugon, right past jaranat Nivat. Technically that's zhir'aata Nivat now, but still..."

"Are you alright...in here, I mean," asked Mori, tapping her head. "You...don't normally talk like this."

"I do not know. I suspect mild brain damage, exacerbated by exposure." She stared straight ahead and rocked in place, huddling close to the roaring fire.

"Great," muttered Mori. "Not only am I stuck with a brain-damaged Ha'ni, but she apparently blew up a laboratory as an infant."

"Ha'ni grow fast," said Ta'kat. "Especially compared to mammalians. We are physically mature in two cycles, but we generally continue learning for at least five more, depending on our caste. Jin augments need extra time to get used to their new bodies after the modification, as well."

Mori didn't respond to that.

"I assume that you scanned for toxins?"

"Yes. It's clean. No pathogens the tricorder recognizes. We should preserve our field rations, just in case."

"Wise. You would make a fine jian."

"I...thank you. I'll hunt some more later. I took a survival course at the Academy, and we had arctic survival as part of the course. We should be able to survive for a few weeks, at least."

"That is an optimistic assessment." The noise was starting again. Familiar. Comforting. Maybe she could...hey! Look at that!

"Tricorder!" burst Ta'kat.

"What?"

"Tricorder! It can boost a subspace signal, yes?"

"If configured properly, I suppose it would be possible, but where are we going to get a subspace transponder?"

"Combadges! I can do this! Tools! I need tools! And a zin-kzan. Will you watch me? There! That tool, I need that!"

"That's a knife from a survival kit..."

"Yes! This and a battery and some wires! Phaser! I need the phaser!"

"You can't just disassemble my..."

"Make new one! Use wires and fibers from charger!" The noise was back, still shaky but it was there and familiar and backing her up now as she went into hyper-focus mode. She could do this, it was a simple coms transponder, she made modifications like this for coms-jamming environments all the time, on Naarat and the Patagonia both.

"I'll just...be outside, setting up some traps."

Well, if she thought it was safe to leave a Ta'kat-broodline zin alone with potentially explosive technology and no zin-kzan'iae, that was on her.
***
Rachel kicked the last Hirogen in the groin for good measure, threw him into the escape pod, and slammed the doors shut seconds before Ensign Hernandez blasted the pod out of the ship.

Rachel slapped her combadge. "Connor to Patagonia. Job done. We can probably tow this Hirogen ship back home and get it repurposed for the Federation. Any sign of Ta'kat and Mori's fighter?"

"There has not yet been any unequivocal sign of them," said Captain Trenek over the comlink. "However, we are picking up a radio signal from the seventh planet; it would be logical to assume that they crashed there."

"Damn. They must've been stuck there all night and most of the day. And Longran 7's got a long day, too. Permission to take a shuttle, sir?"

"Permission granted. Prepare for site-to-site transport to the shuttlebay."
***
Mori Halan quickly bundled the Ha'ni woman in an extra makeshift coat, this one made from the skin of the grazing beast that had strayed close enough to the rocks for Mori to kill it and bring it back without being attacked by ice sharks.

It had been Prophets-cursed heavy, but Ta'kat needed the warmth. The little woman had come down from her manic phase hours before, and hadn't been able to maintain it for more than about thirty minutes at a time. Mori had seen Ta'kat go manic for fifty-seven hours straight once; she needed a real doctor, and soon.

"Alright. This plus that heater you cobbled together from the rest of my phaser the last time your manic mode activated should keep you warm enough. Is the transponder still working?"

Ta'kat nodded with a little shiver.

"Good. With any luck, the Captain will come and pick us up."

"I used your tak'nalat--your scanner, your tricorder--to perform a medical exam on myself before I hooked it back up to the akatana--the transponder. I have suffered a concussion, and the environmental stress is exacerbating my symptoms; I am beginning to lose katan ak nimak talar anko--the ability to nimak talar--to speak your language!" Ta'kat snarled a Ha'ni curse in frustration.

"It's OK, don't try to talk. We can unhook this combadge..."

"No! It is ktar likan nital--essential! To device functioning!"

"Alright. Alright. Just stay calm, huddle up there and keep as warm as you can. I'm going to go check my traps."

Mori left the Ha'ni huddled close to the fire, with a few more branches ready to throw in.

The first trap had nothing. Mori hauled herself up to the top of the escarpment to check on the other one; no luck.

The third had another hare-like creature. Good. They'd eat tonight, at least, and wouldn't need emergency rations.

Mori felt rather than heard the attack moments before it came, and hit the ground just as a bear-sized animal with the general shape of a saber-toothed, six-legged wolverine sprang into the air where her torso had been seconds before and skidded on the smooth rock ahead of her.

"Phekk!"

The animal roared, the element of surprise lost, and lunged again. With her phaser now part of one of Ta'kat's devices, all Mori had was her emergency knife, which looked discouragingly small against the massive fangs of the animal before her.

The creature lunged again, burly forelegs and powerful mid- and hind legs powering it forwards with impressive speed. Mori rolled sideways, but the thing's massive right paw clipped her shoulder, shattering it instantly.

Mori became dimly aware of a humming sound in the air, not unlike a shuttle in atmosphere. Then her brain recognized that her shoulder blade was broken.

Mori shrieked as the creature came about again, struggling to her feet as best she could and switching hands through the haze of pain. The animal tensed up...

And a phaser shot took it in the head, sending it sprawling.

"Afternoon, Ensign!" yelled Lieutenant Connor from the open back of a type-8 shuttle that was now hanging in the air about thirty feet up. She was holding a rather large phaser rifle in one wiry hand. "Sorry we're late!"
***
"Grade-2 concussion exacerbated by inclement weather conditions and biological incompatibility with the environment, bruised phalanges in the left foot, mild frostbite, cracked scales that are going to be a devil to repair, and mild burns to the frontal scutes from overexposure to a jury-rigged heater. Ensign Mori has a compound fracture that's basically splintered her left scapula and snapped the humerus; she's got internal bleeding from that, too, in addition to mild exposure symptoms and some mild bruising. I patched them both up as best I could, but I must insist that they both be kept here for monitoring for at least 24 hours; frostbite in ectotherms is a doozy to treat and that shoulder isn't a quick job, either."

"Acceptable," said Trenek. "Do not hesitate to sedate them, especially Ta'kat, if it becomes necessary."

"Yes, sir," said CMO Ensign Fel. "Oh, and Crewman Shou's leg is patched up from that Hirogen knife."

"Excellent. Continue to send me regular updates."

"Yes, sir." The Pakled saluted, and turned back to the sedated Ha'ni as the Captain left.

"You, missy, are starting to become a regular in here. Explosions about twice a week, that incident with those baby crocodile things, and now this. Whatever am I to do with you?"

worffan101

"Hail that ship!"

"No response, sir!" said Subcommander Zel, xir fear audible even through the helmet. On the viewscreen, a sleek, night-black ship spiraled out of control towards the Vengeance, engines leaking plasma.

"Ariennye! Full reverse!"

"Impulse drive isn't responding! Warp engines are offline!"

"Daysnur! Jak! What the Elements is wrong with my ship? Zel, thrusters, get us out of the way!"

"The chroniton pulse blew out the main engine power conduits!" screamed Subcommander Jak from Engineering. "We'll need at least half an hour to fix them!"

"We don't have that kind of time! Exil, Omek, options!"

"Tractor beams, set to repulse," suggested the Voth. "Or the heavy graviton beam, but targeting it would be tricky..."

"Weapons are nonresponsive," said Omek'ti'kallan, calm and collected. "I recommend evacuation, and prayer."

"Exil, tractor beams, now. Everyone else, get the Ariennye out of here! All hands, abandon ship!"

None of the bridge officers moved. Loyal fools.

"Engaging tractor beams!" shouted the Voth. "Rerouting all power to auxiliary systems!"

The tractor beams lanced out, pushing against the alien ship...and flickered, dying feebly as something exploded on the warbird.

"Damage report!" screamed D'trel, picking herself off of the floor as the sirens blared.

"Tractor beams and deflector dish are offline, Admiral! They must've been damaged by the particle burst and the rift opening!"

"Elements! Everyone out, now! Go, go, go!"

Zel had just made it to the turbolift when the alien ship hit, crashing into the warbird's core and destroying both ships instantly.

Everything went white.
***
D'trel awoke.

There was a moment of wrong-ness, and then a vague sense of unease.

Probably just the depression striking in the morning. This was getting to be a regular thing what with her therapy being disrupted so much recently.

Better hit the mess hall.

D'trel blew a kiss to the picture she'd drawn of Adani, buckled on her disruptor and Nausicaan sword, and forced herself out the door.

"Admiral," said First Omek'ti'kallan as she walked in to the turbolift. "We are approaching the anomaly that Command detected. Science Bekk Min'tak'allan says that he is detecting a large number of chroniton particles and spatial anomalies in this area. Third Zel has been advised to pilot cautiously."

"Good. Hitting the mess hall for your ketracel?"

"Yes, Admiral."

"Good. Jak had the gamma shift in Engineering, any hiccups?"

"No. He did request that the Engineering crew work overtime shifts to reinforce the power grid; there are concerns about exotic particles and spacetime fluctuations affecting the ship."

They got to the mess hall; Zel and Daysnur were sitting at a table. The Breen had xir boots on the table as usual.

"Boots on the floor, Subcommander. Daysnur, your man needs you in Engineering. Something about the power grid?"

"Yeah, we need to reinforce the EPS conduits," said the Lethean, munching his Klingon gladst quickly. "Don't want a blowout at a critical moment."

"Admiral, you up for a quick game of dom-jot in the lounge later?" asked Zel, twiddling xir thumbs. "Jak's betting three hundred bars that you can beat me."

Daysnur nodded almost imperceptibly.

"On the advice of my therapist, yes, I will be."
***
"What do we have?" asked D'trel, taking her seat as Zel lounged into xir helm chair.

"Some sort of spatial anomaly," said Science Bekk Min'tak'allan from where he and Subcommander Exil were conferring. "I'm putting my cards on a wormhole combined with some sort of exotic particle plume."

"This is probably it, then. Zel, take us in, nice and slow. Exil, Min'tak'allan, get your readings."

"Reading a .3 millicycle fluctuation on the starboard impulse drive," said Zel. "Omek, can you confirm?"

"Yes," said First Omek'ti'kallan. "Engineering, the starboard impulse engines are--"

"Admiral!" shouted Min'tak'allan suddenly. "Reading a spacetime fluctuation in the anomaly! Claws above--it's over 8 Hawkings! Something's coming through!"

"Shields up! Zel, get us out of here!"

The anomaly flashed. A sleek, black, bullet-like ship tumbled through, plasma leaking from its engines.

D'trel got a powerful sense of deja vu.

"Hail that ship!"

"No response, sir!" said Zel, xir fear audible even through the helmet.

"Ariennye! Full reverse!"

"Impulse drive isn't responding! Warp engines are offline!"

"Daysnur! Jak! What the Elements is wrong with my ship? Zel, thrusters, get us out of the way!"

"The chroniton pulse blew out the main engine power conduits!" screamed Subcommander Jak from Engineering. "We'll need at least half an hour to fix them!"

"We don't have that kind of time! Exil, Omek, options!"

"Tractor beams, set to repulse," suggested the Voth. "Or the heavy graviton beam, but targeting it would be tricky..."

"Weapons are nonresponsive," said Omek'ti'kallan, calm and collected. "I recommend evacuation, and prayer."

"Exil, tractor beams, now. Everyone else, get the Ariennye out of here! All hands, abandon ship!"

None of the bridge officers moved. Loyal fools.

"Engaging tractor beams!" shouted the Voth. "Rerouting all power to auxiliary systems!"

The tractor beams lanced out, pushing against the alien ship...and flickered, dying feebly as something exploded on the warbird.

"Damage report!" screamed D'trel, picking herself off of the floor as the sirens blared.

"Tractor beams and deflector dish are offline, Admiral! They must've been damaged by the particle burst and the rift opening!"

"Elements! Everyone out, now! Go, go, go!"

Zel had just made it to the turbolift when the alien ship hit, crashing into the warbird's core and destroying both ships instantly.

Everything went white.
***
D'trel awoke with a scream.

She was alive. In her bed. Not dying in a million superheated atoms across space.

This...was odd.
***
"Hail that ship!"

"No response, sir!" said Zel, xir fear audible even through the helmet.

"Ariennye! Full reverse!"

"Impulse drive isn't responding! Warp engines are offline!"

"Wait a minute..." muttered D'trel. "I remember this!"

"Sir?" asked First Omek'ti'kallan, clearly confused.

"That ship...crash...tractor beams! The tractor beams won't work! Everyone out! All hands, abandon ship!"

"Sir?" asked Zel in confusion.

"Elements! Everyone out, now! Go, go, go!"

They piled into the turbolift, D'trel wishing and hoping that some of her crew, at least, could escape the detonation.

D'trel was just leaving the lift when the alien ship hit, crashing into the warbird's core and destroying both ships instantly.

Everything went white.
***
D'trel awoke with a scream.

She'd died. Died in a flash of light and heat and cold and pain all mixed together in one giant, horrible shock.

The explanation was obvious. Time loop.

D'trel hated time loops.
***
The torpedoes deflected off of the alien ship's strange hull, igniting the plasma trail and sending the sleek vessel tearing through the starboard wing and hull of the warbird, detonating the core instantly.

Everything went white.
***
The decompressing shuttlebay jolted them "forwards", but not far enough. The black starship hit the Kholhr amidships, tearing open the core chamber and destroying the entire main hull in an instant.

Everything went white.
***
On her hundred-and-somethingth loop, D'trel let Daysnur try the experiment to keep her mental health up.

He scanned her memories, even the deep ones. The ones she held most dearly. Then he went to the holodeck and started programming.

"In you go, sir," said the Lethean. "We'll make sure the loop happens." Exil had determined that the only way to stop the loop without jeopardizing the space-time continuum itself was to somehow avoid detonating the core while in the region of the anomaly.

So D'trel's crew was going to sacrifice themselves, at least this "round", for their commander's mental health.

"Computer, activate program Daysnur Therapy Alpha One."

A simple bedroom and a woman shimmered to life. D'trel felt the tears well up. The likeness was perfect. Of course it would be, it was made directly from her memories.

"D'trel! Come here, darling, how was your day?"

D'trel couldn't resist.

They talked, and D'trel was free, for a full thirty minutes before the prow of the alien ship annihilated the holodeck on its inevitable way to the singularity core.

Everything went white.
***
She had done this dozens if not hundreds of times before. And it was getting harder every time.

"I love you, Adani," D'trel said into the hologram's oh-so-realistic shoulder. Outside, her crew prepared to die. A hundred fine men and women, buckling their honor blades on and praying for a quick death.

"I love you, but I can't do this."

"Why? What's wrong, love?"

"I can't. Can't spend this time, these precious moments with you, when out there good men and women are dying for these moments."

To her surprise, Adani was smiling at that.

"It's alright, darling. I wouldn't have you any other way."

"R-really?"

"D'trel, don't you remember what I said at the Valley? I love you because you can't stand by and watch injustice. I love you because when you see good men dying, you want to save them. Go on, love. Save them. I will wait for you."

And something inside of D'trel snapped, or possibly clicked into place, and she pulled herself up, still weeping, and gave the image of her love one last look before she left for the Bridge.

This time, the alien craft rammed straight into the bow after a futile attempt to blow up local gas pockets. The Bridge was vaporized instantly.

Everything went white.
***
This time, D'trel didn't let Daysnur make the hologram. She didn't even tell the crew about the time loop.

Instead, she took the entire crew down to Engineering and performed the modifications Jak had wanted, throwing herself into her work.

The ship came through. Just like last time. And the time before that. And the time before that.

"Zel, full reverse."

And the engines responded with an only slightly labored hum, sliding the ship easily out of harm's way as Exil snagged the alien vessel neatly with the tractor beams.

"Communications are back up, sir," said Zel.

D'trel was silent for a moment, her brain processing what had happened.

They were alive. The loop was broken.

And she hadn't said goodbye.

"Hail them."

"Channel open, sir."

"Greetings, aliens. I am Vice Admiral D'trel ir'Aehallah tr'Rihannsu of the Romulan Republic. With whom am I speaking?"

The viewscreen crackled and fuzzed, before solidifying into an alien shape.

One that D'trel knew. The one she'd last seen had been maimed and had had weeping holes in place of those hooked claws and massive fangs, but the shape and pattern were the same.

"Greetings, unknown species. I am t'ongb

starswordc

Frostbite

“Blood on the snow of winter
Back are the eyes of coal
Glittery leaves a splinter
Spinning a flake of gold”
— “Blood on the Snow”, Erasure

First Officer’s Log, Stardate 87234.2. The Bajor has been on patrol in the Rolor Nebula north of Deep Space 9 for the last week. Twelve hours ago our long-range sensors detected a previously uncharted Class M world orbiting Alpha Quinque Fratres, a G2V yellow dwarf star, same as Sol or B’hava’el. Per standard protocol we’re now on approach to investigate.

“Coming out of warp in five, four, three, two, one, mark.” Lieutenant Park smoothly eased the Bajor from the reality-breakingly fast speed of warp down to the merely very, very fast speeds of realspace.

“Begin orbital insertion,” Tess Phohl ordered.

“Yes, sir. Establishing standard orbit.”

Behind her the turbolift door slid open. Tess turned, spotted a ginger-haired Bajoran in command white-on-black, and announced, “Captain on deck!”

“As you were,” Captain Kanril said. “Talk to me, Tess.”

Tess gestured at the plot. “Alpha Quinque Fratres II, or Orvis II by Bajoran astronomy.” She reads off a PADD. “So far, nothing really interesting. Point-nine-four gravities, oxy-nitro atmosphere a little rich on the O2, orbital period 330 standard days—”

“Hang on,” her captain interrupted, pointing at the world of white inflating on the forward viewscreen. “That snowball is supposed to be Class M?”

Tess smirked and gestured to Commander Riyannis. “It’s in an ice age, Captain,” the Trill answered.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. FYI, Bajor looked something like that about five million years ago.”

“Standard orbit achieved, Captain.”

“Thank you, JG Park. Anything else?”

“Well, no signs of intelligent life,” Biri read off the screen. “Plenty of life under the glaciers and in the oceans, though, some primitive land-based vertebrates in the tropics, and a fair amount of volcanic activity… Huh.”

Tess glanced over at her and saw her brow furrowed in concentration. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure. I’m getting a weird heat signature around 47 north, 104 west. Wiggin, give me another sweep, please, hundred-klick radius.”

“Sir.”

Tess scanned the readouts. “What the frak is that?”

Biri shrugged. “It’s putting out a big EM field, whatever it is. Definitely artificial.”

“Didn’t you just say there’s no signs of intelligent life?” the captain asked sardonically.

“I’ve been wrong before,” Riyannis answered innocently. “Captain, with your permission I’d like to take a team down there and see what we can find out.”

“All right, take Tess with you. Park, take us geosynch over the site.”

“Conn, aye. Engaging impulse drive.”

* * *

Tess and Biri materialized on the glacier with half a dozen redshirts, five blueshirts, and a crate of base-camp supplies the ever-practical Andorian shen had insisted on. Biri immediately started shivering despite the insulated coveralls that make up the Starfleet cold weather gear. Tess chuckled. “Really?”

“Tess, I was born in the tropics and I’ve spent half my life on starships or in temperate zones. You’re Andorian, you’re lucky.”

“For your information I grew up near the equator.”

“Yeah, Andoria’s equator.”

“Could be worse, Riyannis. We could be in a jungle full of bugs.”

Biri ignored this, pulled a scarf up over her face, flipped her tricorder open and started scanning, then pointed a little west of north. “Rock face, hundred meters that way.”

The group moved carefully across the glacier, Biri repeatedly slipping on the ice. After the third time Tess told her to adjust her crampons and they made it the rest of the way without further trouble.

A sheer wall of black granite loomed ahead at the edge of the glacier, five stories tall. Tess brushed snow and dirt off the rock face, then stepped back and glanced at the Trill. “You’re sure?”

“That’s what the tricorder says. Definite metallic signature centimeters inside the rock, EM readings behind that.”

“All right, stand back.” Tess drew her Type 2 phaser and adjusted the settings, then stitched the stone with a four-shot burst, blowing a hole through it to reveal bare metal. Bronze-colored, embossed with ideograms that looked vaguely familiar to her. In fact, they were so familiar they felt like they were calling to her heart, and yet she knew she’d never seen these particular symbols before. “What the frak is that?”

Biri made another pass with the tricorder. “Well, I was right about one thing, there’s no native intelligent life. This alloy signature reads as the Preservers.”

“Shun muh?” Specialist Ling asked.

“Oh, come off it, Cathy,” Senior Chief Athezra Darrod commented. “You know, ancient humanoid species that seeded—”

The petty officer turned redder than the icy breeze would account for and answered, “Oh, right. Them. Think we’ve got another archive like the one the Norgh’a’Qun found in the Lae’nas system, sir?”

“Possibly,” Biri allowed. “I’ll know more if I can—damn it, tricorder crashed. I ought to sue their asses!”

Tess snorted. “Biri, just because it crashed one time—”

“Not one time!” the Trill complained indignantly. “I swear by the forty hosts of Gaunt, the entire model year is allergic to me!”

Tess was about to answer back but her combadge chirped and saved her the trouble. “Kanril to away team.”

The Andorian slapped the badge. “Go, Captain.”

“We’re going to have to break orbit. Picked up a distress signal from a Bajoran transport seven light-years out. True Way.”

“All right, we’ll pack up and join you.”

“Belay that,” Biri said. “El, we’ve got a Preserver installation down here.”

“Ooookay. Do you want to stay on-planet overnight? It’s going to take us several hours to deal with this.”

“Yes, ma’am, I would. Even with the cold.”

“All right, you guys can stay down there, then.”

“Captain,” Tess queried, “you sure you can do without—”

“Tess, I was a gunnery officer before I was a CO. I can handle your job. We’ll be back in twelve hours, tops.”

“Very good, ma’am. Phohl out.”

“Breaking orbit now. Bajor out.” High above, a barely visible dark speck suddenly stretched into the distance and vanished.

Tess shrugged, fiddled with a setting on her tricorder and panned it around the horizon. Not good. “Araaje! Better break out the tent now! We’ll need it!”

Biri and her blueshirts went into a discussion of alloys and energy signatures, all of it way over the azure-skinned career soldier’s head. She adjusted her phaser rifle in its sling across her back and helped Athezra and Crewman Araaje set up the tent against the incoming snowstorm. “Oh, that figures,” she complained. This pole is too short. I don’t get paid enough—oh, it’s just the one for the storm-flap, never mind.”

“Haven’t done this in a while, sir?” Athezra inferred in a dry tone.

“Shut it, Senior Chief.”

“Yes, sir,” the sandy-haired Bajoran noncom obeyed, grinning impudently. Tess shook her head and threw him an anchor peg for his corner.

Soon the tent was up and Tess had the heater lit. She grabbed a bundle of MREs out of the supply box and set them out on the heater’s grill to warm through. They were perfectly edible cold, of course, but they tasted better, for a given value of “better”, at blood temperature. She slapped her combadge again. “Biri, Tess. Dinner’s ready.”

Biri’s voice crackled back, “I’ll be there in a little while. Cathy and I are going up on top of the ridge.”

“What about the door?”

“Can’t do much with it without more equipment or some other breakthrough. This one seems to be better-secured than the installation on Lae’nas III. But there’s what looks like an EPS conduit running up the cliff. I might be able to get in that way if I can find the top of it.”

“Take Zasrassi and Glav.” She opened an MRE at random and stuck a spork in the main course, spooning it into her mouth. It was some kind of shredded meat, with a sour sauce on it. She glanced at the label on the package. “North Carolina-Style Barbecue & Coleslaw”.

Then her combadge chirped. “Matheson here. I picked up an energy discharge over the south ridge. I’m going to go check it out.”

“Be careful, Crewman, it’ll start snowing soon.”

“Won’t be a minute. Matheson out.”

Tess spooned up some more ‘barbecue’ and decided she’d gotten lucky with the MREs this time.

Then she heard a noise in Matheson’s direction. She stopped and listened, then heard it again. Then she placed it: energy weapon discharge. She hit her badge, dropping her MRE. “Shots fired, shots fired! Converge on Matheson’s position! Matheson, who’s out there?”

“Breen! Repeat, Breen—ARGH!”

“Matheson! Report!” Athezra’s voice came through as Tess zipped up her coveralls and bolted out the tent flap into the darkening world of white, with snowflakes already drifting down out of the sky.

“Rrrg, I’m hit but not bad! Returning fire!” Now Tess heard the distinctive staccato whine of a Starfleet phaser rifle on full auto as she bolted down the glacier.

There was an answering, lower-pitched roar, a Breen type 3 disruptor, and the phaser went silent. She hit her combadge again. “Matheson!”

The electronic warble of a suited Breen returned, “Matheson is dead. I am Dalsh Ruul. Your camp is surrounded, Starfleet. You will surrender.” Tess shot back with a barrage of angry Andorii that included a rather graphic description of where the Breen could stick his surrender demand, not to mention the parentage and probable genetic makeup of his shreya and thavan.

She came over the hill and dropped prone, flicked the optics on her rifle over to infrared, and sighted below the glowing radiator of a refrigeration suit. She squeezed the trigger twice and the Breen folded in half and flew backwards. Return fire hissed into the snow and ice around her as she selected another target. Off to her right Senior Chief Athezra and Petty Officer Hank Weaver added their fire. One suited Breen was struck in the head and painted the snow with his brains. Another took three shots to the neck and chest and still he shot back one last time; off to Tess’s left Specialist th’Shrellikath, firing from one knee, blew apart at the groin.

Then Tess heard a whine behind her and rolled over to see three more Breen appear, weapons leveled, the snowy air still sparking with the aftereffects of the transporter. She swore and threw her rifle aside, holding her hands up. “I surrender! Hold your fire!”

* * *

A vel’sh threw Tess onto the floor of the tent. She started to stand but a h’ren rammed the back of her knee with the buttstock of his gun and she went down again. A bulkier-suited Breen, this one a dalsh, or “shipmaster”, turned to her. A stream of electronic garble issued from the h’ren; after a lag her subcutaneous translator supplied, “This one is the leader.”

“Thank you, Draf,” the dalsh said. “Wait outside.” The h’ren nodded once and stepped back out, zipping the tent behind him. “I am Dalsh Ruul. Identify yourself,” the dalsh ordered her in clear, unaccented Federation Standard. He could’ve passed for somebody from Ohio.

Tess forced herself upright and answered, “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”

The big Breen demanded to know what Tess knew of the Preserver door. Again, Tess merely replied, “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”

The Breen dalsh growled in frustration and tried, “How many other Starfleet soldiers are on this planet?”

“Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”

“Answer me!”

“Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”

The Breen backhanded her across the face. “Talk, damn you!”

She spat a small amount of blood onto the Breen’s boot and again repeated, “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”

The Breen’s suit speaker let out a blast of electronic noise that her translator gave up on and bellowed for his compatriots to “bring in the Bajoran.” H’ren Draf entered again, this time shoving Athezra ahead of him, and threw him to the ground. The dalsh grabbed him by the back of his collar, pulled him straight up, and pressed a pistol to the back of his head. “Talk, or I’ll kill him.”

“Don’t tell him anything, sir,” Athezra told her. The h’ren punched him in the kidney and he grunted in pain.

“Yes, thank you, Senior Chief, I know how this works,” Tess said dryly, then looks to the dalsh. In a conversational tone, she told him, “No, you won’t kill him, because A, it still won’t make me talk, and B, if you do, our captain will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy, and there won’t be a thing you can say or do that will stop her from personally strangling you with your own intestines.”

“So, you can say something besides—”

“Besides ‘Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022’?” She paused, made an exaggerated expression of being deep in thought for about ten seconds, then went, “Nope, nothing comes to mind.”

The Breen’s gun hand shook, then he gave a frustrated roar and shoved Athezra away from him, and stormed out the tent flap with the h’ren and vel’sh hot on his heels. “Frak you and the zabathu you rode in on!” Tess hollered after him, then asked Athezra, “How many of us did they get?” The tent flap opened again and the Breen shoved in several other members of the away team. “Never mind.” She quickly counted uniforms. Crewman Araaje and Security Officer zh’Planathalian, Specialists Weaver and Atti, and Corpsman Neeshiredei. “Did anyone say anything besides name, rank, and serial number?”

“Squat,” Weaver answered.

“I called his mother a wh*re,” Atti said. “Does that count?”

“Good. Keep it that way.” Tess passed out MREs, then scooped her opened barbecue package off the floor and put it back on the heater.

“How can you think of eating at a time like this?” Araaje whined.

“Because I’m hungry!” Tess told the Bajoran, an eighteen-year-old barely out of boot camp. “And because I don’t know the next time we’ll get the chance.”

“Don’t worry,” zh’Planathalian said in a soothing tone. “If the Breen were going to kill us they would’ve done it already. That means there’s two possibilities. Either the captain comes back and does her makra la’zhavey thing”—Tess snorted at the description—“or…” The zhen trailed off and mouthed, The others rescue us.

“One other possibility, Petty Officer,” Athezra added after a moment. “They pick us up and leave.”

“Yes, thank you for being such a ray of sunshine, Chief.” She paused and patted the small of her back, then smiled, reassured.

* * *

Atop the ridge, a hundred-some-odd meters above the camp, Biri lay prone in the snow, shivering. Almost a centimeter had fallen in the last half-hour. Oh, and now her stomach was grumbling. It would be that the Breen hit the base camp before she’d eaten.

She’d heard Tess’ call for everyone to converge but her group didn’t have time to get down off the ridge before it was all over. Now all she could do was watch.

“We should go in and get them.”

“Zasrassi, there’s thirty of them and four of us,” she told the Caitian assault squad officer.

“Would that stop the captain?”

Biri dropped her tricorder into the snow and looked at the Caitian in annoyance. “No, but she wouldn’t go charging straight in there either. Eleya may be crazy but she’s not an idiot. Where the hell did they come from, anyway?”

“I’m reading a Plesh Brek in a two-hour orbit,” Ling replied, pointing her tricorder at the sky.

“Okay, so he’s left a skeleton crew up there.” The Trill checked the weather again. “Damn it.” The snowstorm was now threatening to turn to full-on blizzard conditions, exactly why they’d brought the tent. The Breen were far better off in these conditions than anybody but Tess and Talasethra zh’Planathalian, both of whom they’d caught.

Biri decided they’d have to wait out the storm. Okay, think, Riyannis. Survival 101. Cold weather.

… Okay, drawing a blank. Damn the cold.

“If I may, sir?” Petty Officer Glav said after a moment.

“You got any ideas? I’d love to hear them.”

“Help me excavate the hollow around back of this outcrop. It’ll shield us from their infrared, it’ll give us shelter, and the digging will warm you up, Commander.”

“I take it you’ve done this before?”

“I’m from Temuzad State,” the jet-irised Betazoid answered. “I grew up in this. Half the reason I joined Starfleet was to get out of the snow.” He grinned ruefully.

The work was numbing, both in hand and mind. And somewhere deep inside the irrevocably fused consciousness that was Birail Riyannis, Birail Izer felt Riyannis twitching slightly in the pouch below her breastbone. Even the symbiont was shivering.

That couldn’t be good.

Glav seemed to notice, his eyes widening in worry as he looked over at his superior. “Chalice,” he muttered, putting a hand to her brow. “You’re freezing.”

“You’re telling me?”

“No, I mean if you don’t keep moving you’re going to develop hypothermia.”

She tried to nod but found her coverall hood had frozen in place. “Let’s keep digging.”

Eventually they worked their way into the hollow, and Biri was stunned to find that the walls were smooth, seamless stone, with a metal grate of some kind at one end. Obviously they’d found the far end of the conduit, or possibly it was an exhaust vent. That took a backseat to warming up, though. “Hope you won’t consider this too forward, sir,” Glav joked as he wrapped his arms around the Trill. Zasrassi and Ling joined in.

“Cop a feel and I’ll break your neck,” Biri murmured into Glav’s shoulder as the group’s collective body heat started to build up.

* * *

Pain. Pain was Tess’ entire world. White hot. Ice cold. Every nerve burned.

The pain suddenly stopped and she fell to all fours on the snow-covered ground. An ak’ched grabbed her by the hair and one antenna and pulled her upright. This hurt almost as bad—Andorian antennae were sensitive in more ways than one. Dalsh Ruul swam into focus in front of her. All she could make out clearly was the glowing visor. It was still dark outside, and snowflakes still whipped past her face, but it was slowing. “Not the best scream I’ve ever heard, but I’ll give it a seven.”

Tess hoarsely answered, “Sorry … to disappoint you.”

The dalsh sat down in a chair across from her and rapped a rod the palm of his hand. After a moment, he said, “I think this is very pretty.”

“What?”

“The design. It’s functional. Finely crafted to exacting specifications. Klingon ’oy’naQ are so crude. We acquired the design from them, of course, back in the reign of their Chancellor Mow’ga, but we refined it far in advance of their pathetic efforts. It won’t kill you, but the amount of pain or pleasure you feel is entirely up to me. I find it is particularly effective to give akhvet—I believe the human term is ‘humanoids’, such a self-centered word—a powerful arousal, and then immediately before they peak, trigger their pain center as I did to you just now.” He abruptly reached out and jammed the rod into her shoulder and the world went white with pain again. It stopped after what felt like eternity. “My men have cleared off the rest of the stone from the doorway. Tell me what you know of the installation.”

Tess took a deep breath. “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.” I hold to that one thought. They can do nothing to me but kill me.

The Breen struck her in the head with the painstick and she fell over. Another eternity of pain, though part of her knew it was only a few seconds before the pain faded once more. The Breen looked at her for a long moment. “You know, this is your fault, Commander,” he finally said.

Tess groaned. “How so?”

“If your Starfleet hadn’t found a countermeasure for our cortical implants, I could have just taken what I needed. I wouldn’t have to do this.”

The shen swallowed to get the metallic taste out of her mouth. “Sorry I’m such an inconvenience.”

“Actually,” the Breen corrected himself, “it’s not completely your fault, it’s also Thot Trel’s for leaving an intact copy where you cha’tor could get your hands on it. Frankly General Ssharki did us a favor when he killed that idiot. But it makes my life, and yours, much harder. This could have been so much easier on us both.” He knelt down and gripped her chin, hard. “Here, work with me. Easy question: What ship are you assigned to?”

“Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”

“Stop saying that!” And the world whited out again.

* * *

Biri was awoken by Tess’s screams. The Trill could hear it through the rock, and tried to ignore it. ASO2. Zasrassi wasn’t as willing. “Commander, this is pierec’eay’khartoh if you’ll pardon my Ferasan. They’re killing her!”

“No, just torturing her. She can handle it.”

The Caitian’s jaw dropped as a particularly harsh wail issued from the Andorian. “How can you be so heartless?”

Biri stood up, then stormed over, grabbed Zasrassi by the front of her coveralls and slammed her into the wall. “Don’t you dare call me heartless, you damn furball! It’s taking everything I have not to go right down there and blow that dalsh all the way back to Breen! But I do that and we die, too!” She dropped the Caitian on the ground. “You want to do something? Help me get this grate open.”

“What good is that going to do?” Ling asked.

“It’ll keep us busy, for one. For another, maybe there’s something down there that can help.”
Biri examined the edge of the grate with her tricorder. It took a sharp whack against her thigh before the scanner would give her anything useful, but based on the readings the grate was made of a metal-ceramic hybrid material, similar to the hulls of most modern starships. Hard to boil off, held its strength when superheated, and highly wear-resistant.

But the rock around it? Just ordinary granite. “Guys, go collapse the snow around the entrance. We’re going to need the sound insulation.”

“Commander, it’ll take us just as long to dig out as it took to dig in!” Glav objected.

“If I’m right, it won’t matter. We’re going down. Trust me on this.”

Zasrassi and Glav went out to the entrance. “On three,” Zasrassi said. “One, two, three!” They rammed the carbon fiber buttstocks of their rifles into the snow above and jumped backwards as it poured down.

Biri and Cathy aimed flicked their rifles over to semiautomatic and began carving the stone around the grating with continuous beams, starting at one corner and raggedly encircling it. The stone evaporated under the continuous streams, which met at the far corner. Biri ejected the nearly spent power cell and rammed a new one home, then flicked the manual safety and slung the rifle. “All together! Lift!” And the grate came free. “All right, where’s that rope?”

Before any of them could enter the cavity, however, Biri’s combadge chirped and she heard her captain’s rough contralto. “Away team, do you read?”

Biri quickly answered, “Spotty to Mama Bear, blue-4, red-7.” She adjusted a setting on her badge.

There was a pause, then, “Confirm, blue-4, red-7.”

They were now on a coded channel, but Biri wasn’t taking any chances. “Mama Bear, Mama Bear, Suits holding Stalks. Spotty positioned for surprise but outnumbered. Requesting rapid dominance, your timing.”

“Confirm, one Suit Trident in sight. Will gain high ground and deploy opposite. Initiating ECM. Two minutes out, stand by.”

* * *

The pain stopped abruptly and Tess saw the Breen looking skyward, holding down the communication key on his helmet. “Bor Tok, this is Dalsh Ruul. Enemies approach. Please respond. I say again, Bor Tok, do you read?”

Then, high above them in the lightening sky, visible through a break in the clouds, there was a series of silent flashes. Orange and purple beams and bolts briefly spat back and forth, but mere seconds after the battle had begun there was a single actinic flash, a warp core detonating and putting a new momentary star in the sky that just as quickly was gone.

High orbit, Tess thought. The highest ground there is.

Then a voice issued from the Breen’s communicator. “Breen commander, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship Bajor. Release your prisoners immediately and surrender.”

“Transporter scrambler, now!” Dalsh Ruul barked.

“Delay her!” somebody yelled back.

Ruul pressed a button on the side of his helmet. “Kanril Eleya. I have heard that name before, in intelligence briefings. Since you have apparently destroyed my ship, you will provide my men and I with a shuttle—”

Eleya sounded almost bored when she interrupted, “Wrong answer.”

Ruul looked at Tess, who would have sworn the Breen looked annoyed if he hadn’t had a helmet on. “She hung up on me.”

“Dalsh Ruul!” somebody cried from the other side of the campsite. “Transporter signatures!”

Wait.

“I told you to scramble it!”

Wait.

“Too late!” Then Tess heard the roar of a phaser assault minigun on full auto. There was an electronic squawk from the Breen’s communicator as the guy on the other end was hit in the head; more phaser bolts streaked overhead and spattered the snow with molten rock from the cliff face.

Wait.

Then the ground rumbled and snow fell from high atop the cliff. A gap appeared in the calligraphy-rich metal-ceramic face of the Preserver doorway. Two h’rens whirled to face it and more phaser fire erupted, stitching them from neck to groin. Biri leaned out of the doorway and a searing orange beam erupted from her rifle; the vel’sh in the party took it in the shoulder, spun about, and went down.

Wait.

Dalsh Ruul began to turn, reaching for his sidearm as he dropped to one knee—

Now. And Tess moved. The 7.5-centimeter stiletto she always carried at the small of her back appeared in her hand and she buried it to the hilt between the Breen’s spine and his right shoulder blade. Crimson blood spurted onto her gloved right hand and the coppery scent filled her nostrils as she drew Ruul’s pistol and sighted on an ak’ched, barely hearing the dalsh’s roar of pain. The disruptor bucked in her hand as she fired and her target’s head exploded in a shower of sparks, bone, brains, and blood.

* * *

From the doorway Biri saw Tess fire as the others searched for more targets. She spotted three more Breen soldiers running from the oncoming assault unit. “This is Starfleet!” she heard the captain shout on her battle armor’s loudspeaker from the other side of the tent. “Drop your weapons!”

Tess fired again and one of the Breen went down; the other two started to turn. Biri pulled her tricorder and punched one of her macro keys, and for once it didn’t crash on her. An orange glow bloomed out of midair between the two h’rens and they flew apart, their suits suddenly engulfed in flames. As they rolled in the snow, frantically trying to extinguish the fire, the captain, wearing full MACO armor in a white, gray, and blue camo pattern, came around the left side of the tent and fired at something off to Biri’s right. A blast of electronic noise and suddenly it was silent.

“Clear!” she heard Lieutenant McMillan shout from the far side of the tent.

“Clear!” Eleya hollered.

“Clear!” Biri joined in.

“Clear!” Dul’krah’s deep voice came from somewhere to the left.

The tent flap unzipped. “Clear,” Senior Chief Athezra announced, shoving another ak’ched out of the tent in front of him. The Breen went to his knees and clapped his hands to the back of his helmet.

Eleya flicked the safety onto her rifle. “Kanril to Bajor, we are code four, all clear.”

Tess collapsed and Biri ran over to her. The Andorian was shaking. “Tess, talk to me.”

“I’m okay, just the… aftereffects of the painstick. Just… just give me a second.” Biri shouldered her rifle and helped her up, and Eleya jogged over to grab her other arm.

“McMillan!” the captain bellowed. “How many of these ye’phekk makteru kosst amojan are still alive?”

“I got three over here, Captain!” McMillan answered, and came around the tent with a duo of Bajoran E-2s, shoving a trio of disarmed Breen ahead of her.

“This one’s had it,” Glav reported, “but the two Riyannis set on fire are still with us.”

“The dalsh yet breathes as well, Captain,” the towering bulk of Dul’krah, Clan Korekh answered. The horned Pe’khdar stepped closer, one taloned hand holding a crescent-shaped neural disruptor on the now-shipless Breen CO. He reached down and unsnapped the seal on the helmet, lifting it off.

“Huh,” was all Eleya said as a heart-shaped face with a shock of close-cropped silver-blonde hair came into view.

“She’s human!” McMillan exclaimed.

The woman named Ruul spat blood onto the snow. “I am Breen,” she insisted in a pained soprano.

Eleya shifted Tess further onto Biri, then grabbed the front of the woman’s suit; the human Breen yelped as the knife still stuck in her back shifted. “I frankly don’t give a flying phekk what you call yourself. You hurt my crew. That means I hurt you.” She threw Ruul back into the snow to another yelp and radioed, “Bajor, we need medical and security teams down here right away.”

Zasrassi tugged on Biri’s coveralls. “Yes?”

“What the sivt was that you used on those two h’rens?”

“Exothermic induction field,” Biri answered. “It’s a fancy way of saying my tricorder has a flamethrower.”

“Why didn’t you use that to warm us all up earlier?” Glav queried, suspiciously.

“‘Cause it would’ve lit us up like a Christmas tree on their infrared.”

“What’s a Christmas tree?” the captain asked.

* * *

Author’s Notes: That’s eastern North Carolina-style barbecue by the way. Chopped pork with a vinegar-based sauce. Delicious.

“Quinque Fratres” is Latin for “Five Brothers”, a Bajoran constellation mentioned in the novel Captain’s Peril.

Zasrassi’s curse word “pierec’eay’khartoh” is a reference to Timothy Zahn’s Cobra novels (specifically Cobra Bargain), although it’s not a profanity in the original context.

As for Dalsh Ruul, I wanted to do something a little crazy with the Breen. We never see the inside of one of those helmets in the shows, but the novelverse (specifically Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game) came up with them being a confederation of a dozen or so species. (The real purpose of the suits is to head racism off at the pass, i.e. “we are all Breen”.) For some reason I thought of the Tau Empire in Warhammer 40,000, also an alliance of species, and of how they’ll convert human planets to the Greater Good. The humans from those planets are called “gue’vesa” in Tau, literally “human helpers”.

So maybe Ruul is a human defector, or maybe she’s from a far-flung colony world that the Breen took over, or which joined voluntarily. In any case, now she is not human, she is Breen.

sander233

Will not be shaken
And jump into this
And be persuasive
Just carry on...

'Cause I want to fight
I want to fight
I want to prove I'm right...

- Chevelle, "Forfeit"



W I L L . N O T . B E . S H A K E N

USS James Watt, orbiting uncharted planet Upsilon Hydra VI (class-P)
Stardate 50028.47 (2373.01.10.0923)

"What a hopelessly desolate place," Captain Gordon Kinkaid remarked. "You're sure about those readings?"

LCdr. Stennis, the ship's science officer said "Aye, sir. Our sensors show high concentrations of dilithium and decalithium near the planet's surface."

"A surface which, I am obliged to remind the Captain, is buried under at least one hundred and forty-seven meters of solid ice," Cmdr. Rolek, the executive officer announced with typically Vulcan realism.

"Not completely solid," Stennis pronounced. "I'm also detecting large deposits of gas under the ice, including trimethane and deuterium." She looked up from her sensor display. "I think it's worth sending an away team down to retrieve ore samples and determine the feasibility of a mining operation."

"I must concur," said Rolek. "The Federation must be prepared for the possibility of extended hostilities against the Dominion, as well as potential conflict with the Klingon Empire, if Gowron carries out his stated intention to annex the Archanis sector. Any additional sources of energy we can secure will prove advantageous. However, I cannot think of any crewmembers who deserve such a disagreeable assignment." He raised an eyebrow. "Except for Lieutenant LaRoca, of course."

"I do have an Andorian geologist in my department who would not mind the conditions," Stennis mentioned.

"First off, let's make sure we're not trespassing on anybody's property," said Kinkaid. "Mr. Noyin? Does anyone have any claim to this system?"

The Benzite ensign at the helm checked the navigational charts and inhaled through his respirator. "Not that I can see, sir. We are over fifty lightyears from the boundaries of the Klingon Empire." He took another breath of concentrated benzene and continued. "The Gorn Hegemony has indicated ancient claims to several nearby systems but has made no move to colonize them, and I don't think they would be interested in this planet."

"Agreed," Kinkaid grinned. "Alright, let's stake a claim and start prospecting. Assemble the other department heads in my ready room so we can decide who to send down there."



Three hours later, on the surface...

"Mr. Sander, you are the most practical man I know, highly adaptable and a solid leader." That all sounded good in a performance review - not so good as reasons why he was assigned to lead an away team down to this horrible iceball. He wasn't complaining aloud, though. His second-in-command for this mission was doing enough complaining for all of them.

"Chingame, I'm gonna freeze me huevos off down here," Lt. jg. Carlos LaRoca muttered as soon as he stepped off the shuttle. "Gregorio, tell me what the f*ck I did to deserve this, and stop me if I ever try doin' it again."

"C'mon, homes," Lt. Greg Sander said in a voice he hoped would be annoyingly chipper. "The sooner we get to work, the sooner we can finish, and the sooner we can leave."

"You know I don't know sh*t about mining, ese."

"But you know a lot about explosives. That's at least half the job," Sander told his friend. "Plus, you're the ship's foremost expert on 'roughing it.' Get base camp set up while I talk to our expert on ice and rocks."

Sander left LaRoca still grumbling but at least working while he found the ship's Andorian geologist.

"Ah, just like home!" Clearly senior specialist ch'Rennel was enjoying himself. "Nothing like a breath of fresh, ice cold air to get the blood flowing, eh, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, until it freezes," Sander growled. The mixed-race officer's competing physiologies left him most comfortable in temperate weather. He lacked his Vulcan grandmother's tolerance for heat or his Klingon grandfather's ability to withstand extreme cold. "So what do you think? Can we have the Watt just zap a hole through the ice with the phaser array?" Sander asked hopefully.

"Oh, no, that would be a terrible idea!" the geologist exclaimed.

"Why?"

"Well, first of all, it would leave us with a dangerous climb down to the surface and back up again to retrieve our ore samples-"

"We could call for a site-to-site transport," Sander countered, even though he hated using the transporter. His wife had died two years ago when her survey team attempted to beam out through a heavy field of ionizing radiation. He knew it was a freak occurrence, and that transporters were statistically far safer to use than shuttlecraft, but ever since then he'd been extremely uncomfortable with the idea of being converted to energy and back.

"-And also if the phaser hits a pocket of liquid hydrogen or trimethane it would produce a massive explosion and kill us all!" the geologist went on.

"Again, we could just beam up to ship first, or take off in the shuttle," Sander pointed out.

"I suppose... But correct me if I'm wrong, but the purpose of this expedition is to investigate the viability of long-term mining operations, yes?"

"Yeah..."

"And typical long-term mining operations do not have a Steamrunner-class starship in geosynchronous orbit, or their own Type-Seven heavy shuttlecraft."

"True," Sander said, grudgingly acknowledging the Andorian's logic. "So how do we reach the surface, then?"

ch'Rennel grinned. "Why, we tunnel, of course!"



James Watt, Captain's ready room, two days later...

"...We finally reached the surface this morning," Sander reported. "We've started excavations into the bedrock. Our scans tell us there's a good dilithium vein about ten meters down."

"Can you estimate how long it will take you to complete your extraction?" Cmdr. Rolek asked.

"We could be finished within twenty-four hours. Definitely by the end of the day tomorrow."
"Alright. How are you on supplies?" Kinkaid asked.

"Our supplies are adequate. Having a shuttle with an onboard replicator really helps. I'd probably have a mutiny already if we had to rely on field rations. But team morale is generally good. Even LaRoca quits griping as soon as he gets his coffee."

"Alright then. Keep up the good work." Captain Kinkaid closed the channel, leaned back in his chair and sighed. He looked up at Rolek, who was holding a PADD, and asked "Is that the security report?"

"Yes sir. Nothing unusual except for the personnel quarters inspection. Lieutenant V'tec inspected LaRoca's room personally. Her contraband search turned up a box of unregistered ammunition for that ancient gunpowder pistol of his, and a small bottle of tequila."

"That's it?" Kinkaid asked, unimpressed.

Cmdr. Rolek nodded. "And then she accessed his replicator and retrieved the recycled patterns he had stored." He handed off the PADD to the Captain.

Kinkaid scrolled down the list and shook his head.

"Captain to the bridge!" Ens. Noyin called. "Three Klingon ships just decloaked behind us!"

Kinkaid stood. "Raise shields and hail them. Find out what they want."

The ship rocked as a photon torpedo splashed against the aft shields.

"I think they want us to leave!"

* * *

Will not be shaken
And jump into this and
Be persuasive
Just carry on and
Make my mind up
To go through this, or
Be firm and sit
In silence

'Cause I want to fight
I want to fight
I want to prove I'm right
I want to fight
I want to fight
So turn and forfeit

(Forfeit...
Forfeit...
Forfeit...
Forfeit)

Learn from this
Prehistoric dance and
Refrain from talking
It solves our problems
Medicated
Could do some good, or
Find a way to relate
Or just shut up

'Cause I want to fight
I want to fight
I want to prove I'm right
I want to fight
I want to fight
So turn and forfeit

(Forfeit...)

Forfeit!
Forfeit!
Forfeit!
Forfeit!
Forfeit!

I want to fight
I want to fight
I want to prove I'm right
(I want to fight
I want to fight
I want to prove I'm right)

I want to fight
I want to fight
So turn and forfeit
(I want to fight
I want to fight
So turn and forfeit)

So step up
So step up
And forfeit

So step up

Forfeit!
Forfeit!
Forfeit!
Forfeit!
Forfeit!

Pete, Sam and Joe Loeffler of Chevelle - "Forfeit"

Surface

"You want some?" Carlos LaRoca offered his hip flask to Lt. Sander.

"That tequila? Sure." Greg took a sip. "You know they're gonna toss your quarters, right?"

Carlos shrugged. "So I left a half-empty bottle of the cheap stuff and a box of hollow-points for them to find. I stashed all the good sh*t in the replicator pattern buffer."

"You don't think V'tec will think of that?"

"Nah. She's so by-the-book, if she-"

"Watt to Survey Team."

"Sander here."

"We have a situation up here, Sander," Captain Kinkaid announced. "We're taking fire from Klingon warships. We can't drop shields for transport and your shuttle will never make it through."

"What set them off?"

"I don't know, they're not answering our hails. But it looks like Gowron's making good on his threat. These guys seem to think we're at war."

"Okay, so what's the plan?"

"We're outmatched here. We've called for backup but there are no Starfleet ships in range. We have to withdraw. Do you think you can hold out until reinforcements arrive?"

Sander looked at LaRoca, who scowled, but nodded. "We have a defensible position and plenty of supplies. We'll hold out as long as we have to."

"I hate to leave you down there but we don't have a choice. We'll be back for you, Sander."

"Understood. Good luck, sir."

"Same to you. Watt out."

LaRoca searched the sky overhead. "There they are," he pointed. "See those green flashes?"

"No," Sander replied, "but I don't have your eagle eyes."

"Klink disruptors, from three different ships, rolling attack pattern between a pair of ships firing bursts, probably BOPs, and sustained fire from a battlecruiser... um, photon blast. Looks like the Captain just left them a parting gift."

Carlos looked over at their shuttle. "We'd better get the Carnot moved into the tunnel. It makes awfully tempting target sitting out in the open."

Sander nodded. "Move it. I'll brief the team."


Half an hour later

Two birds of prey - a Qul'dun -class and a Hegh'ta heavy - dropped into the atmosphere and started swooping low over the ice at barely subsonic speeds.

Lt. jg. Evan Blake, an unpopular security officer that only LaRoca liked, watched them as they worked their way closer. "Are they looking for us?"

"Must be," Sander told him. "Klingons aren't stupid. I'm sure they figured out that we're down here prospecting for dilithium."

"Uh, should we be out here?"

"I've got my tricorder rigged to emit a dampening field," Sander announced. "They could fly right over us and they won't pick up our lifesigns. They will find the tunnels we dug, though."

LaRoca approached them from behind. "We've got the shuttle moved as deep into the ice cave as it'll go. Sarah is replicating the last of the stuff we need, Lucas and Lonnie are pulling out the critical components."

"Why aren't you helping them?" Sander asked.

"I'm not allowed to play with power tools, you know that." Carlos LaRoca watched the Hegh'ta bank low over the glacial ice. "What exactly is stopping them from just zapping us from orbit once they find us?"

"Nothing, unless they want these tunnels for themselves. And hopefully their commander has some sense of honor." Sander shrugged. "Zapping us from orbit wouldn't be sporting, now would it?"

Carlos frowned. "Remember what they taught us at ATT..."

"Yeah, 'never count on the enemy to play by the rules.'"

"And 'every dirty trick you can think of, assume the enemy's planning to use it,'" LaRoca added.

"On the other hand, we've got a lot of tunnel to go through, most of which connects to natural gas pockets in the ice," Sander reasoned. "With our dampening fields set up, it'll be awfully hard for them to nail us down, especially from orbit."

They watched the circling birds-of-prey narrow their search area, and finally set down on the glacier field a few kilometers away. Troops disgorged from their boarding ramps, and more men and heavy gear materialized in a reddish glow, beamed down from the battlecruiser.

"Looks like they're gonna make camp," Blake stated the obvious.

LaRoca sized up the opposition. Sixty Klingons on the ice already, with probably five times that number waiting on the three ships. "So what's the plan, ese?"

"Hold out, parlay, and hope they don't get frustrated enough to just melt us out of the ice," said Sander.

"That's a terrible plan."

"Gotta better one?" Sander asked.

"Yeah." LaRoca unslung his phaser compression rifle. "We fight 'em off."

"There's only eight of us," Sander pointed out, "and only us three have had any real tactical training."

"I like Sander's plan better," Blake announced.

"Shut up, TRIBBLE," Carlos growled. "Nobody's asking you."

He looked to Sander, staring pointedly at his ridged forehead. "Think like a Klingon for a minute. If we show them we're not afraid of a fight, we earn their respect, and then they'll be less likely to just turn our tunnel network into a puddle."

"We could also provoke them to charge through our tunnels with their bat'leths."

"At least we'd see it coming, ese."

Sander considered for a moment. Despite his heritage, he'd never really studied Klingon culture or the warrior's way of thinking. His son was much more interested, but Greg had always thought more like a Human, with a healthy dose of practical Vulcan logic.

Carlos had a good point, though. Klingons would be more likely to respect them if they greeted them as warriors, rather than hiding in the tunnels or trying to talk their way out.

"We'll need to disguise the tunnel openings," he said finally, "and we'll need camouflage uniforms... and more rifles."



USS James Watt, outer Upsilon Hydra system, 106AU away

"I'm not picking up any weapons fire, at least from the ships," LCdr. Stennis announced.

"There are two possibilities:" Rolek declared, "either the Klingons have not found our people, or-"

"Or they want the mine they dug for themselves," Kinkaid finished. "Stennis, you said those BOPs have landed?"

"I think so, sir. At least, I'm not picking up any emissions from their impulse engines."

"So we assume it's the latter." The Captain sighed. "How long until the Thunderchild gets here?"

"Captain Hoffman said she was thirty-two hours away at maximum warp," Rolek said.

"Dammit." Kinkaid went over the projections again. With the Klingons effectively holding his people hostage, his options were extremely limited. There was a tiny chance that he could drop out of warp on top of the enemy, disable the D-7 before either it could fire at the surface or the birds of prey could get off the ground, then either destroy the grounded birds if they weren't parked to close to his people, or engage them as they climbed to orbit and defeat them. But the chance was far too slim for him to risk eight lives on.

Besides the dependable and multitalented Greg Sander, he had his best geologist, a veteran quartermaster, a top-flite field medic, two talented young engineering rates, and a very competent security man on the away team. And Carlos LaRoca... despite his many faults, he was extremely good at his job, and was exactly the sort of man you wanted by your side when you were stranded planetside with dozens of Klingon warriors between you and safety. "I sure hope they can hold out that long."



Tunnel

"You want me to do what?"

Sander handed SSpc. ch'Rennel, the Andorian geologist, a phaser rifle. "Go outside with us and fire this at the Klingons."

"Listen, just because I come from a militant race doesn't mean I can use a weapon. In fact, I've done my best to renounce my people's belligerent nature. I abhor violence..."

"Well, the Klingons don't. I don't care if you actually hit anyone or not, but I need all hands on deck to show force, otherwise we're going to have more violence on our hands than any of us can handle."

ch'Rennel sighed. "Very well..." He looked over the phaser rifle. "How do I set it for stun?"

"It already is." Sander picked up his own weapon. "Okay, guys, here's the plan: we're going to shoot at the Klingon perimeter, pick off the guys looking for us and put them on the defensive. Everyone remember your training for open field encounters - two shots, then move at least twenty meters before you draw return fire. Your weapons are set to heavy stun. Theirs will be set to kill. Your camo jackets and dampening fields should keep you hidden but if things get too hot, fall back to the tunnels. Okay?"

"What if we get hit?" Angie Sharma, the team nurse asked. "I'm equipped to treat frostbite, not disruptor burns."

"What about peoples' limbs chopped off by bat'leths?" Carlos asked unhelpfully. "Can you treat that?"

"No, I can't."

"Follow the plan," Sander ordered, "remember your training, and try not to get shot. Or cut to pieces."


Klingon patrol

"Tell me what I did to draw this duty," Bekk Jeruk grumbled, "and stop me if I ever try to do it again."

Lt. T'kol just chuckled. "Come! The sooner we find and capture these Federation Ha'DIbaHpu', the sooner we can leave and set the miners to work."

"Why must we take prisoners? Would it not be honorable to give them a glorious death?"

"Have you not studied the enemy?" T'kol retorted. "Humans and their friends do not value honor over their lives. If we take them as hostages, Starfleet will bargain to get them back. Besides," he grinned at the young Bekk, "if we have no prisoners, guess who will be assigned to the mining detail."

Jeruk grunted. "Bekks, naturally."

"Does your tricorder tell you where they are cowering?"

Jeruk checked the device, and tapped at it for a moment, trying to make it give him useful information. "No lifesigns, but there is a cavern in the ice about half a kellicam ahead of- unh."

The phaser bolt struck him in the side, just below his armpit. He pitched forward onto the ice, unconscious.

"Bekk? What is wrong with yuuuugh..." T'kol was hit squarely in his solar plexus, and he felt all the air escape from his lungs as he fell to the frozen ground, twitching. In the moment before he passed out, he saw a white shape rise from the ice about forty meters away. It turned a bronze face on him and flashed him a smile.


Sander

For a pacifist, ch'Rennel caught on quick. Of course, typical Andorians took to sneaking around with a phaser rifle like a polar bear to snow. ch'Rennel insisted that he was not a typical Andorian, but once he figured out the auto-targeting function, he actually seemed to enjoy stunning Klingons senseless.

After knocking out the patrols they encountered, they approached the perimeter of the encampment. The Klingons' camp was dominated by the 100m wingspan of the Hegh'ta bird of prey. It didn't look that big in space - at least not next to a D-7 or a Steamrunner - but it looked huge parked on the ground, dwarfing its Qul'dun-class sister.

"See that fat one with the targs, standing watch?" Sander asked.

"Um..." ch'Rennel was gawking at the grounded birds.

"Pay attention," Sander hissed. "You'll need to neutralize the lookout, and his targs. Be quick with it. War targs are bred for intelligence and ferocity. With their master down, they'll home on the direction of fire and tear you to shreds if you don't knock them out."

"Um, okay. Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna find a spot where I can snipe their officers. Don't shoot until I start shooting, unless you get found out. Okay?"

"Alright... So I shoot this guy and his targs, then what?"

"Then you RTB with Sarah, Angie and the engineers. Once we take down their perimeter, LaRoca, Blake and I will force them to take cover. Then maybe they'll be in the mood to talk about letting us go."


Klingon camp

Commander Greba was rarely in a good mood, but this situation had her seething. Her ship's sensors couldn't find the Starfleet mining crew that she knew had to be somewhere in those tunnels in the ice cap. Now, none of her scouts were reporting in. And when she called her perimeter lookouts to ask if they could see the scout teams, they failed to answer. A comm-check to her ship told her that the issue wasn't with her equipment.

"Sorroth!" she called to senior lieutenant. "Find that lazy petaQ Mabur and tell him to answer his Hu'tegh comm! And tell me if you can see any of the scouts from his position."

"Understood, Commander." Sorroth took five steps out of the command post and got shot in the stomach. He threw up and collapsed in a puddle of his own vomit, which quickly froze.

"Qa'jay?" Greba cursed and started to move to investigate. She froze as her second engineering officer made a gurgling noise and fell after getting shot in the throat. "Fall back to cover!" she ordered. "Starfleet has snipers!"


LaRoca

"This is just too easy," said Carlos, as he sighted an officer running for the safety of one of the ships. He fired a phaser bolt which struck the Klingon warrior in the leg. LaRoca smiled as his target went down screaming.

He zoomed out on his scope to find someone else to shoot. He spotted somebody pointing right back at him, having seen the flash of his rifle, with three warriors taking aim with their disruptors. "Oops." LaRoca fired a snap shot that just missed the pointing Klingon's head and probably singed his hair. Disruptor bolts impacted the ice all around as Carlos rolled away and slid down the ridge and out of the line of fire.


Sander

"Damn." Greg watched from his vantage point as both LaRoca and Blake fell back from return fire. And then the Klingons brought out mortars. "Oh, ****!" He squeezed off three quick shots at one of the mortar crews, making them run behind a stack of crates.

The other crew already had cover, though, and they started lobbing photon shells in LaRoca's direction. Sander yelled into his combadge "Carlos! Get outta there!"


LaRoca

Carlos LaRoca did not need to be told. The antipersonnel cluster shells raining down on his position would make his staying there a very unpleasant prospect. "Ay, chingues, voy'a perder mi culo aqui..."

He spotted a narrow crevasse in the ice - the only thing that offered him any sort of cover. He had no idea how deep it was though, or if he'd be able to get out again.

He heard a whistling noise and it sounded way too close. He jumped into the crevasse feet first as the shell impacted a few meters behind him.


Tunnel - fifteen minutes later

"Sarah, did LaRoca make it back?"

"No, sir, not yet." PO1 Sarah Brooks didn't seem too concerned about that. But then, she owed LaRoca eighty strips of latinum from the last time they'd played poker with real money.

Sander looked back up the tunnel, and tapped his combadge again. "LaRoca, come in."

"He could be trying to keep radio silence," Blake suggested.

"Carlos, at least tap back if you're alive," Greg Sander hissed. But there was no response.

"Or maybe his earpiece is broken?" Blake offered, hopefully

"What do we do now, sir?" Brooks wondered.

Sander tossed his phaser rifle away and pulled the hood back up on his parka. "I'm going to do go down to the Klingon camp and negotiate a cease-fire, and hopefully get the Watt back here to pull us out." He turned to Blake. "You up to another round out there? They should be more talkative if they know I have a friendly sniper."

"Of course, sir. You can count on me."

Sander fixed him with a hard stare. "LaRoca rigged charges to seal the tunnels. If I don't make it, RTB and seal yourselves in. Hold out until the Watt shows with backup."

Lt. jg. Evan Blake nodded grimly.

"I have something that might aid you in your negotiations," ch'Rennel announced, coming up from the excavation site. He held up a greenish crystal.

"What's that?" Sander asked.

"Dilithium," ch'Rennel announced as the rest of the away team gathered around.

"But dilithium crystals are white or pinkish," Machinist's mate Lucas Kostka pointed out, somewhat unnecessarily.

"Well, these crystals have been fractured and irradiated, by either some exostellar event or some archaic weapons technology." ch'Rennel flipped the piece of rock to Lt. Sander. "Show that to the Klingons. The planet's worthless - there's no point in fighting for it."

"No point for us, but the Klingons have never needed an excuse." Sander pocketed the crystal anyway. "I'll keep an open comm. Be ready to move one way or another."
Brooks nodded. "Good luck, sir."


Klingon camp

Commander Greba was sipping a raktajino as she pored over the survey images her ship had taken before setting down. At least one good thing had come out of the now-ended alliance with the Federation - they had shared coffee. It assaulted the senses, but stimulated the mind, and a splash of ra'taj liquor at least made it palatable. But besides the Humangan surprising warriors' drink, the Federation was completely worthless.

And now the Ha'DIbaHpu' had made fools of her warriors, stunning them and leaving them out on the ice in untidy heaps of their own humiliation. It could have been worse. They could have all been killed.

Getting beaten by the Feds was a dishonor on her men. Getting them all killed without a single Human corpse to show for it would have brought dishonor upon her.

Her commstrap toned. She glared at it a moment before answering. "nuqneH?"

"Commander!" one of her security troops reported. "We have taken a prisoner!"

Finally something to show for this debacle... "Excellent! Bring the Ha'DIbaH to me." She stood and brushed the frost from the targ hair of her jacket. Even in this hut, protected from the elements and the damnable Starfleet snipers, cold ruined everything. Even her coffee was already tepid.

"He... uh, requests you come out to meet him, Commander."

"He requests? did you not explain to him that he was my prisoner!?" Greba seethed.

"He, well, he wasn't captured so much as he walked up to us and surrendered. After his snipers took down another patrol."

"Tell her that from now on, their weapons are set to kill," another voice said, speaking Humangan Hol.

QI'yaH... "Very well, I will come out to greet our... guest." She leaned out of her doorway and spotted the man, wearing a furry, white hooded jacket and dark goggles. She leveled her disruptor pistol at him. "Now then, Starfleet," she snarled in his language, "you can either join me in my office or I can shoot you where you stand, and let my men hunt down your Hu'tegh snipers."

"Hold your fire," the man hissed, looking down at his combadge. "Alright, I'll comply. But you should know that my men are in position to slaughter most of your troops and you should also know by now, they're pretty good shots." He walked towards her. "But I don't want that, and I don't think you do either. I come to you unarmed, in hopes that we can work out a way for my people to leave this planet peacefully."

"Ha!" Greba turned her back on the Starfleet officer and returned to her desk. The Fed and her security people followed her inside. "I know the ways of your Federation. 'Talk of peace, but prepare for war.' Isn't that it?"

"Something like that," the man said with a shrug, and removed his goggles. "Look, you can have this planet if you want it. But if you want it without my MACO assault team picking your people off left and right, then you need to let us leave. You get what you want, we get what we want."

Ghuy'cha'. To release the Starfleet people would show weakness. But to continue this untenable stalemate... "You do not want this planet?"

"Our geologists told us what yours will tell you," the officer said, producing a green crystal from one of his pockets. He placed it on her desk. "That's dilithium from the best vein we could find. The planet is worthless."

Greba frowned at the crystal for a moment, before barking an order into her commstrap for her scientists to take it away for analysis. "If this is true, then why are you still here?"

"Cold weather tactical exercises," the Starfleet Ha'DIbaH shrugged again. "As you said, we 'prepare for war.'"


Tunnel

"Chinga tus madres, didn't any of you idiotas hear me calling for help?" Carlos LaRoca demanded as he limped into the cavern.

"Uh, no?" Petty officer Brooks was the first to say anything. "Sander tried to contact you, but-"

"Sander. Where is that pendejo?"

"He's negotiating with the Klingon commander," Nurse Sharma announced. "And you're a mess."

"Yeah well, you know how they say 'look before you leap'? I didn't." LaRoca sat down and straightened his broken leg that he'd splinted together. "But considering I had Klingon mortar fire on my TRIBBLE, it seemed like the thing to do at the time." He gingerly peeled off his charred and bloody jacket. "Did Gregorio at least leave a comm line open?"

"Yeah." Brooks produced another combadge as Sharma treated LaRoca's injuries. "He's trying to bluff her out, but I don't think she's buying it."

LaRoca listened for a minute. "Yeah, he needs another bargaining chip." He stroked his moustache thoughtfully for a moment, and a malicious grin appeared. "Lucas, can you remote-activate Sander's tricorder?"

"Sure but why-"

"ch'Rennel," Carlos turned to the geologist, ignoring the engineer's question. "Get the mining transporter. I have an idea."

"Hold it," Brooks protested. "The Klingons will detect any transporter signal, and pinpoint us, and zap us from orbit!"

"No, they won't, 'cuz we're gonna do it sneaky. We're gonna piggy-back the transporter signal on the comm line's data stream, which will work because we're only gonna be transporting small objects. And even if they pick up the energy surge on our end, they won't be able to triangulate our position, 'cuz they only have one ship in orbit."

LaRoca produced his old Glock sidearm, and checked the chamber. "Trust me, this'll work."


Greba's hut

This isn't gonna work, Sander thought. He'd just been forced to pull back his hood, revealing his Klingon forehead ridges, and worse, his Vulcan ears.

"Mongrel petaQ!" Greba spat and sputtered. "You're not even a half breed! Your line is dishonored from the first unto the end!"

"And yet, I have defeated you," Sander declared, in her language, with all the confidence he could muster. "Think on this, Commander. What dishonor would befall your line, if you were to die here and fail your mission because of a degenerate Ha'DIbaHbe' puqloD like me?"

"I will succeed in my mission," she snarled back in tlhIngan Hol. "Even if I die, my warriors will hunt down your men and make them beg for death!"

Sander laughed a lot harder than he felt like laughing. "You only fool yourself with your words. Have you forgotten the score? Your warriors fell in droves. I've only lost one man. You are out in the open, exposed. My troops are concealed under the ice and masked from your sensors. We are not the hunted. You are."

"You are an insignificant speck! I have three ships and three hundred warriors. You will be slaughtered like targs. And if your mine is worthless you claim, we may as well destroy you from orbit. You are unworthy to die by the blade..."

"I think she could use some additional persuasion, amigo."

Sander stiffened, hearing the familiar voice in his ear. "Carlos?"

Greba stared, checked the UT on her commstrap, and demanded "What is this 'kar loS'?"

"Put me on speaker, Gregorio."

"Someone who wants to talk to you," Sander told Greba, as he tapped his combadge. "You're on, Carlos."

"I'm sorry, commander, I didn't catch your name," LaRoca said, his voice tinny coming through the combadge transducer.

"I am Greba, daughter of D'roth, of the House of Terrath. Who are you?"

"I'm the man Lieutenant Sander thought he lost. And I'm the man who will kill you if you don't let us go."

"Kill me? While cowering in your burrow like a bok'rat? I'd like to see you try."

"Would you?" Her raktajino mug suddenly exploded.

"Qa'jay!?" Greba exclaimed, while Greg Sander bit his lip to catch a similar outburst.

"That was a bullet," LaRoca explained. "About ten grams of lead and copper, traveling at four hundred and sixty meters per second. I fired it here in my burrow, and my transporter delivered it to a point a few centimeters in front of your cup. With a slight adjustment I can drop the next bullet in front of your forehead. I know one-point-oh-five kilojoules doesn't sound like much, but when it's kinetic energy focused on a point that's only ten millimeters in diameter, that'll punch right through someone's skull - even one as thick as yours."

Sander suppressed his shock and mustered his Vulcan stoicism as he stood there with an indifferent expression. Greba, he thought, looked rather unsettled.

"Or I can transport a photon charge onto your ship..." LaRoca went on, as a Mk.III grenade - still in "safe" mode - beamed on to her desk, "like that one, only armed. You know, one of the biggest weaknesses of the Hegh'ta-class is that it's reserve deuterium tank is awfully close to the antimatter containment field generators..."

"If you blow up my ship, your Lieutenant here will die as well," Greba warned.

"You'll kill him anyway," LaRoca said dismissively. "He dies, you die, every warrior in your camp and on your grounded birds will die... Or you can accept Sander's terms and we can all go home. Up to you."

She looked at Sander. "Is he crazy?"

"Yes, and very dangerous," Greg told her.

"Listen, you guys nearly killed me with your mortars a little while ago," LaRoca said. "And while I was stuck in the ice, broken, burned and bleeding, all I could think of was my wife and son and how much I wanted to see them again. I want to go home and kiss my wife and hug my little boy. And if you won't let me do that, then I will have to kill you all."

Sander waited a long moment. "What'll it be, Greba? I can take the crazy man away, and you can claim victory after forcing an elite Starfleet assault unit to retreat, or we can all die here on this worthless iceball."

Greba looked at her smashed mug and the spilled coffee that had frozen on her desk. And she laughed. "You and your friend karloS will forfeit when you have won the fight? Perhaps there is honor in you yet. You have one hour to evacuate. Your ship will not be fired on. You have my word."

"Good. Then I promise not to pull the pin on this little grenade and beam it into your auxiliary engineering spaces."

"I'll be going, then." Sander struck his chest a Klingon salute. "Qapla', Commander."

Greba's mouth twisted into something between a sneer and a smirk. "Qapla'."



USS James Watt, departing Upsilon Hydra system at Warp 5 - one hour later

"So you managed to avoid fatalities to both sides?" Captain Kinkaid walked with Lt. Sander from the shuttlebay to the turbolift.

"It seemed like the best way to get the Klingons to take us seriously, without pissing them off too much," Sander replied. "Deck four," he told the turbolift, before continuing. "From what I was taught about the Klingon mindset, there's a fine line between commanding their respect and insulting them, and between killing a man in honorable battle and doing something that will provoke vengeful retaliation. Straight-up honorable combat wouldn't have worked with our numbers, so we had to tilt the odds a little."

"Well, obviously you stepped up and found the right balance," Kinkaid told him. "Well done, Lieutenant."

"Thank you sir, but to be honest, LaRoca deserves most of the credit. Fighting them off was his idea."

They reached sickbay, and found LaRoca with his back to the door, with his shirt off, sitting with his broken leg up on a biobed while Dr. Pat Christie waved a dermal regenerator over his burns.

"Que pasa, amigo?" Sander asked him.

LaRoca turned and lifted his head and response, and saw Kinkaid. "Cap. Sorry I can't salute you, sir."

Capt. Kinkaid made a dismissive wave. "Sander was telling me that you masterminded the away team's defense."

"I wouldn't say that, sir." LaRoca tried to shrug. "I had some suggestions, and I shot some people, and threatened to shoot some people... but he was in charge. He should get the credit."

"He will. But I know how you two work together. You both saved a lot of lives, against incredible odds."

LaRoca bobbed his head around. "Like they taught us at ATT, 'never bet against a clever man with crazy plan.'"

"Or a crazy man with a clever plan, for that matter," Sander added.

"Well, good work, both of you," Kinkaid said again. "I'll need to debrief you guys, thoroughly, but that can wait. Get some food and some rest."

"Aye sir," the lieutenants chorused as the Captain left.

"Okay, I think that's about all I can do," Dr. Christie announced. "You'll have a bit of a scar where this freezer burn started to heal before I could get to it. We can address that later but it won't be unsightly. I've repaired your concussion and your contusions, but there will be some bruising around the right shoulder. Your leg's alright to walk on, but avoid running, jumping, or mountain climbing. Swimming's fine." The short, balding and animated doctor injected a hypo into LaRoca's arm. "You can leave now."

"Gracias." Carlos slid off the bed and walked out, with Greg falling in next to him. "Let's eat, eh? I'm f*cking starving."

"Thanks dude," Sander told him once they were alone in the corridor.

"For what, ese?"

"For bluffing that Klingon out. I was pretty sure she was gonna kill me before you jumped in."

LaRoca said nothing until they were in the turbolift, on their way to the Five Port crew lounge. "I wasn't bluffing, homes."

"What do you mean?"

LaRoca stopped the lift. "I mean I was totally f*cking serious when I told her I'd blow up her ship, and you with it." He looked away. "I had it all figured out. I had the coordinates set in the transporter and everything. I knew I could call the Watt to warp back. They would've stayed in sensor range of us. I figured they would be able to engage the Klink cruiser before they figured out what happened, and fight it off without its birds. We'd get picked up, you'd get a posthumous Medal of Honor, I'd see me familia again."

Carlos looked back it his friend. "I'm sorry dude, but that's the way it is. Family comes first."

Greg Sander slowly nodded. "I understand."

Carlos sighed and looked at his feet. "I dunno. I was really shaken up. I guess I'm still not a good soldier. Dunno. Maybe that'll change."

Sander restarted the turbolift. "For your sake, I hope it doesn't."

. . .

Unknown

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cmdrscarlet

Prompt 3 - Out in the Cold

She released the trigger and the phaser beam stopped its continuous burn. The Breen soldier collapsed and fell into the river, shattering the thin layer of ice. He was quickly swallowed by the water and disappeared.

Kathryn released her breath and the puff of hot air quickly dissipated into the biting wind. Lowering the rifle, she looked back to the Breen campsite. Destroyed crates littered the area and the single temporary structure was covered with snow. Three Breen soldiers lay where they were shot down, their injuries still smoking from phaser blasts. Ian McKinnon appeared from the shelter with the third member of the Away Team. Travis Mechols was unconscious and his face was bruised and bloodied. The crewman was also without cold protective gear. Kathryn grabbed an arm to help carry the injured crewman away.

The duo shuffled quickly and quietly up the snow bank back to their own camp. It only took three minutes until they were in the cave. Kathryn fired her phaser rifle to a rock pile that turned red hot from heat. The injured crewman shuddered uncontrollably as they covered him up with a thermal blanket. Kathryn and Ian looked to one another and both started stripping their jackets.

"Ian, go watch the entrance." She started working on the straps to her boots.

"No, sir. I think it would be more appropriate for me to-."

Kathryn’s look interrupted Ian. "You are the sharpshooter between us. I don't know how many Breen are still out there. Go watch the entrance, that's an order."

Ian stood silent as Kathryn unzipped the field jacket. She wiggled out of it then noticed Ian had not moved. Sliding under the covers she purposefully cleared her throat. "Ian?"

He was startled at the sound of Kathryn’s voice. "Right. Yes, sir. Right away, sir." He shuffled away. "Of course, sir."

Kathryn huddled next to Travis and embraced him. His chattering teeth subsided as her body heat added to the blanket and steaming rocks. She started to shiver as his body sapped heat from hers.

After several minutes, both Kathryn and Travis were warm again. She started to crawl away when she realized Travis was aroused. He moaned a little. Kathryn quickly wiggled from under the blanket. She pulled up her pants and knelt to grab her jacket when Travis said, "Captain?"

Kathryn quickly responded, "Get some rest. You're safe."

Travis was still groggy and winced from the bruise to his cheek. "How long was I out?" He looked around briefly. "Where is Ian?"

"Guarding the entrance." She pulled the field jacket over her shoulder and noticed Travis was looking at her. "Crewman?"

"Uh, sir ... did we ... you know ..."

Kathryn looked puzzled for a second before realizing the implication. She smirked and simply replied, "no."

Travis raised his hands as if to push her away. "Not that I would! I mean, I would." His eyes got wide. "I mean, you're the Captain and all." He gulped with embarrassment. "Sir."

Kathryn giggled at his attempt to save face. "It's okay." She picked up her rifle. "I think I'm going to relieve Ian. Get some rest. That's an order."

Travis watched Kathryn walk away. He sighed longingly and said, "yes, sir."