The human game is called tablut, and it is an interesting one, in that the sides and their objectives are so greatly imbalanced. The black side must move its king-piece to a corner of the board and escape, and this is generally easy. The white side must surround the black king so that escape is not possible, and that is surprisingly hard. Winning as white, then, is a challenge.
I win two successive games, and am considering turning up the difficulty settings on the computer, when there is a knock at the ready room's door. "Enter," I say.
It is Laska. "We have something on sensors," she says.
"What is it?"
"Undetermined." Her craggy face gives nothing away. "We would like your decision on whether or not to investigate further."
She is not normally so timid - but, in this situation, we are all exercising more caution than usual. I turn off the holographic game board and stand up. "Let me see what you have, and I will make a decision."
We stride together from my ready room, out onto the bridge. It is busier than usual, with all the science stations in use - mostly, monitoring the situation on the ground. That situation is not clear - Rrueo and Shohl are holed up, with their teams, in the Tiazans' building, and there are things moving nearby, but we do not know what those things are. Yet.
The station Laska takes me to, though, is running long-range sensor probes away from the planet itself. The warrior on duty stands aside at our approach, and Laska manipulates the controls with the ease of long practice. "There," she says.
I look closely. The sensors have picked up a mass... high albedo, suggesting it is metallic... but the plotted diameter and the detected mass do not conform; the mass reading is too low for a solid metal mass like a meteoroid. My mind races to the inevitable conclusion; low mass, large size, metal... a hollow metal thing.... "A derelict ship," I say.
"That seems most probable," says Laska. "Do you wish us to investigate?"
I think for a moment, but only a moment. "We learn nothing if we do not. It is another piece of the puzzle - perhaps, if we have enough pieces, we may begin to solve it." I turn and stride to the command couch. "Lay in a course, one-quarter impulse. Comms. Advise the Anar and our allies of our activities."
Goroke turns at my command, angling out in a shallow arc, away from the planet, into space. I study the image on the sensors. It is dead, whatever it is; inert, its temperature consistent with heating only from the radiance of Tiaza Zephora's sun. It might have been here a long time....
A faint uneasiness comes over me, and I frown. Something has happened.... I check the readouts on my command console. Again, that faint feeling of wrongness. My eyes narrow as I scan the data. "Inertial dampeners are fluctuating," I say. "Why?"
M'Rel, the Klingon operations officer, grimaces at that. "I did not detect - but yes, sir, you are right. There is... something happening." He glowers, hunching over his console, punching in commands. "First-line diagnostics show no malfunctions - "
"I am detecting transient kinetic surges," Siowershoe speaks from one of the science consoles. The little alien's flat, long-eared face is hard to read, but her voice sounds excited. "Possibly spillover from a subspace disturbance. Attempting analysis now."
"Carry on. Comms. Get me the Falcon." A short pause, during which another queasy tremor shakes my ship, and then a face appears on the screen: an Andorian, Grau's first officer. I might pity her if I had time: her life must not be easy. "I have a possible threat to my ship," I tell her. "I require access to my weapons."
She looks at me, hard-eyed. "What's the nature of the threat?" she asks.
"S-s-s-s-s. I do not know, yet. I would rather not find out too late. Transmit the unlock codes."
"No," she says, flatly. "If you don't have anything to shoot, then you don't need your guns."
I recite a quick calming mantra under my breath. "You exceed your authority," I tell her. "Let me speak with Grau."
"The Admiral is resting, and should not be disturbed."
I find I cannot resist the opening. "And yet, she is. Now wake her."
"No." Her antennae twitch. "I'm not going to bother the Admiral when I already know what her decision will be. Call if you have something concrete to worry about. Falcon out."
"S'ss-tt'kkraa-hh'kkjiii!" I snarl, relieving my feelings.
"A competent executive," Laska observes dryly, "unafraid to take responsibility, and clearly cognizant of her commander's intentions. Perhaps we should recruit her - she is wasted in a slackly organized military like Starfleet."
"But for now she is an obstacle." I mull things over, whispering a sutra to bring clarity of mind. We can override the software lockouts and bypass the physical restraints on our weapons systems, but to do so would be a direct breach of our agreement with Starfleet - and I still have no real targets to shoot -
I am still musing when the air thickens and glows, and the portal opens, and she steps out.
She is tall and lithe, and her body is an adolescent's dream of femininity, all lush curves and opulent flesh... and her face is a shrivelled nightmare dominated by a grinning mouth over-full of dagger-sized teeth. The Ravager hisses at me and gathers herself for a leap -
I am a Harbinger of the Grand Maelstrom, and the power comes almost unbidden to my mind, the force rising and then shooting out towards my enemy. The psychokinetic bolt strikes the Ravager at the apex of her leap, and drops her to the deck in a graceless sprawl of limbs.
I draw my weapons. The Tiazans took my disruptor pistols, so now I carry a pair of sonic antiproton guns, designed for Nukara, adequate for most situations. I aim with both eyes at the centre of her cartoonish chest, and I fire.
A single bolt of scarlet energy would punch a fist-sized hole through an unprotected humanoid torso, while the sonic shockwave would liquefy the internal organs. It takes a dozen shots before the Ravager stops moving.
"Fek'lhri!" The outrage in Laska's voice is palpable.
I snarl. "Where there is one, there are more!" I hit the comms panel. "All decks! Red alert! Fek incursion! Arm yourselves and fight!"
Laska is swearing fluently under her breath as she bends over the scanners. "Fek dimensional rifts should be blocked," she mutters. "When I find out who is responsible for the security lapse, I will decorate my quarters with their entrails!"
"I suspect," I say in a low voice, "that there are other factors at work."
Laska turns a troubled look to me. "The entity? If it is allied to the Feks -"
"It would explain some things, but not others. It would explain how Juregh's ground troops were destroyed... but whatever is moving in the night, now, is too peaceful to be Fek'lhri. Not enough information."
"Reports coming in," M'Rel breaks in. "Fighting on decks four through eighteen - situation appears to be controlled -" He pauses. "I have Lieutenant Tebrek from the mess hall on deck five."
"Put him through."
The security officer's voice is hoarse, edged with panic. "Hordlings, about a dozen of 'em - they went down, we took 'em down - but there was something else too, something big. Sir, we think it's headed for the bridge."
"S-s-s-s-s. Very well. Security detachments, clear the incursion and then make your way to the bridge. All bridge crew, stand ready. Thank you, Lieutenant Tebrek."
He is right: I can hear, already, the sound of vast footfalls in the corridors outside. The grips of my two pistols feel hot and slick in my sweating hands. "Stand ready," I repeat. "And secure bridge doors."
The footsteps grow louder, grow thunderous, then stop. All of us turn to the main bridge doors. There is a fumbling, scraping sound, and then the metal of the door bulges, visibly, as it is pressed on by some immense force. My lips and tongue move in a silent prayer.
The metal doors groan and deform, and suddenly one leaf bursts completely from its mountings and is hurled into the bridge, while the other side is beaten down, crushed out of shape. Snarling and scowling, the monster comes through, the acid on its breath already souring the air of the bridge. It is huge, twice my height, five times my girth. Muscles move like boulders beneath its blue-black hide. The Fek'lhri battle demon raises the axe-like weapon in its hand, and screams with murderous rage.
Siowershoe is first to react, a bolt from her disruptor carbine slamming directly into the thing's left eye. The little alien does not lack courage, I must grant her that.
The bridge erupts into violence, shots shrieking through the air into the battle demon, which shrugs them off like so many raindrops. One officer, bold or overly foolish, charges it with bat'leth drawn. The thing reaches down and shreds him with the talons of its free hand. It raises its weapon -
I curse and dive aside as I feel the energies gather in the air. With one gesture from that weapon, the demon evokes a swirling mass of flame that engulfs the centre of the bridge in a blazing shroud. I feel the sudden heat slam into me like a physical blow. From within the flames, I hear the brief appalling screams of those who did not react as swiftly as I.
I curse the thing, damning it back to the pits that spawned it, as I bring my pistols to bear and fire shot after shot into its head. I swear I see the antiproton bolts bounce off the dome of its armoured skull. I roll and dodge the spatter of boiling acid that it spits at me in return.
The sound of disruptor fire is deafening; the battle demon is surrounded by a green nimbus of shattering air. From the cover of one of the bridge's pillars, Laska snaps off a series of shots into the demon's loincloth-like garment. Scientifically, she is trying another vital spot... I remind myself to stay on her good side. I take aim at the head, fire a flurry of shots at its right eye. Siowershoe's shot must have ruined the left already... but I do not know if this creature even needs eyes.
Louder, deeper blasts of sound; security teams coming in behind the monster, firing heavy assault disruptors. The demon pivots with unbelievable swiftness, its axe sweeping round and shearing through the torso of one warrior. My guns are burning hot in my hands as I keep shooting. The demon's head is a lump of smoking meat - it has taken enough punishment to kill a regiment of mere mortals - and still it moves, and screams, and kills -
Then it slips, and stumbles, going down on one knee. I rise to my feet, my voice joining in the wordless yell of triumph that is growing all around the bridge. The barrage of fire intensifies; the demon's skin is boiling away. The axe drops from its hand and clatters to the deck.
The demon lurches, and falls. I am still shooting. As its head slumps towards the deck, I track it remorselessly with shot after shot. The firing continues for many long seconds, even after we are sure it is dead.
Cold choking mists blast down from the ceiling - fire suppression has come online at last. The command couch is smoking and ruined... as are the bodies near it. The stench in the air from the demon's corpse is abominable.
"Sweep all decks!" I shout. "Make sure all of them are dead!" I turn to M'Rel - the Klingon's face is twisted, a horrid burn mark showing on his left cheek. He must have caught a drop of the demon's acid - only a drop, or he would not have a head at all. "Get me the Falcon, now!"
M'Rel's hands are shaking, but he complies. After a moment, the Andorian's face appears once more on the viewer. My pistols are overheated, too hot to holster... so I stand there, holding them in my hands, with the body of the demon lying amid the smoking wreckage behind me as I face her.
"Now do you believe we face a threat?" I snarl at her. "I have Fek'lhri corpses on my deck this moment! They did not walk here! There must be Fek units in the vicinity, capable of opening dimensional rifts! Give me back my weapons!"
I will give her this much credit: she does not hesitate. "Transmitting unlock codes to you and the Anar now. And I'll alert the Admiral."
"Confirmed," says M'Rel. "Data transmission from the Falcon... received. Cannons coming online."
"And not a moment too soon," adds Laska in a matter-of-fact tone. "Now registering a Fek'lhri battle group, bearing five seven mark three seven eight, range two hundred... and closing. Fast."
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