“Answer the question, creature,” the Jatohr said, ignoring her protest. “Are you alone or are there more of you?”
Una thought of the rest of the landing party, who were possibly still in the vicinity. The Jatohr weren’t searching for them . . . yet.
“I’m alone,” she lied. “One of a kind.”
Her interrogator retreated to confer with hir colleagues. Once again, Una found herself at a loss to comprehend what was being said.
“Please, speak in Usildar. I can’t understand you.”
“We were not speaking to you, creature.” The spotted Jatohr gestured toward a waiting pod and gurgled a command at the guards, who began to march her toward the aircraft. “You are being transported to our sanctuary. Offer no resistance.”
“Sanctuary? You mean the citadel?”
“There is no difference,” the Jatohr said. “Do not feign ignorance.”
Apparently the decision had been made to take her to the citadel for further examination or interrogation, perhaps by a higher authority. Una was open to the idea of meeting with the Jatohr’s leaders, but not on these terms. The fact that the aliens persisted in referring to her as a creature rather than an individual did not bode well. She could be looking at dissection rather than diplomacy.
“Wait!” She struggled against the guard’s metal claspers. “Let’s talk about this!”
“Come quietly, creature. Do not compel us to employ any more force than necessary.”
The claspers tightened around her wrists, squeezing the bones together painfully. Grimacing, she abandoned her struggles rather than waste energy on futile displays of defiance. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves. She needed to keep a cool head about her, as she had been trained to do.
You’re Number One, remember? You can do this.
Still, panic fluttered in her gut as she was dragged toward the open hatchway. Una wondered if she would ever see the Enterprise—or Illyria—again. For all she knew, she could end up spending the rest of her life in some alien menagerie.
“Not so fast!”
Tim Shimizu emerged from the shadows, stepping out onto the airfield. A crimson beam stunned one of the guards escorting Una toward the pod. Hir facial tentacles drooped limply as s/he toppled over onto the tarmac, letting go of her arm.
“Sorry about that,” Shimizu said, “but you’re not taking her anywhere.”
Anxious Jatohr hurried to check on their fallen comrade. Clearly, they valued Jatohr life at least.
“He’ll be fine,” Shimizu said, despite the slug’s lack of gender. “Just let my friend go.”
But the other guard refused to let go of Una’s wrist. A solitary globe-light dipped toward Shimizu.
“Watch out for the globes!” she called out. “They have an attack mode!”
“Got it!” He blasted the globe out of the sky, then turned his weapon back on the Jatohr. “Don’t try that again. Just let us leave in peace.”
The Jatohr had other ideas.
“That cannot be allowed,” said the lead interrogator. “Surrender your weapon, creature, or you will be removed from this plane.”
Una remembered the Usildar’s claim that the Newcomers could make their enemies vanish into thin air. She still didn’t really know what that entailed, but feared that she might be about to find out. Watch yourself, Tim. We have no idea what these beings are capable of.
“Not a chance,” Shimizu replied to the Jatohr’s ultimatum. “This laser is our ticket out of here.”
“You are mistaken. Surrender your weapon,” the interrogator repeated. “You will receive no further warnings.”
Shimizu targeted the interrogator. “Right back at you.”
A new voice intruded on the standoff.
“All right. That’s enough,” Martinez said loudly. He marched onto the scene, backed up by the rest of the landing party. His laser pistol was drawn, but pointed at the pavement. “Everyone, calm down. I’m sure we can still work things out as long as nobody does anything we’ll regret later.”
His words seemed intended for the Jatohr as well as Shimizu and the others. Una couldn’t believe that he was risking the entire mission for her sake. She blamed herself for this disaster. If only she hadn’t let her overconfidence get the better of her.
“Commander,” she said, “you don’t have to do this.”
Martinez shrugged. “The cat’s out of the bag. Our duty now is to keep this situation from escalating any further.”
The Jatohr clustered together, facing the new arrivals. The aliens outnumbered the Starfleet team, but not by a large margin. There were barely more than twice as many Jatohr as crew members from the Enterprise.
“Identify yourselves, creatures.”
A veteran of many previous first contacts, Martinez took being called a creature in stride. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Raul Martinez, representing the United Federation of Planets, a peaceful interstellar alliance that poses no threat to you and your civilization.” He kept his weapon lowered at his side. “May I ask where your people hail from?”
The Jatohr conferred unintelligibly before responding.
“What do you and your Federation want?”
Martinez nodded at Una, who was still being held captive several meters away. “For starters, you can return our companion to us as a gesture of good faith. I suspect that there has been an unfortunate misunderstanding here, but nothing that can’t be resolved amicably.”
Una didn’t begrudge Martinez making this first contact, given the circumstances; he was certainly in a stronger position to negotiate terms at the moment. It troubled her that Martinez had to make nice with the invaders who were oppressing the Usildar, but, of course, he wouldn’t be in this position if she hadn’t carelessly let herself be captured. But what else was I supposed to do? she thought. Let Gagre stow away aboard that aircraft?
“Your request is denied,” the Jatohr said. “This specimen requires further study, as does the remainder of your party. Discard your weapons and prepare for transport to our sanctuary immediately.”
“No doing,” Martinez said. “That doesn’t work for us.” He raised his laser pistol. “We don’t want conflict with your people, but nobody is going anywhere unless I can guarantee the safety of every member of our party.”
“We offer no guarantees, only a warning.” The Jatohr’s artificial voice conveyed nothing but confidence. “Cooperate or you will be removed permanently.”
Martinez frowned. “What do you mean by that? I told you before, there’s no need for threats.”
“Not a threat. An ultimatum. Surrender your weapons.”
Una watched the confrontation apprehensively. A sick feeling grew in the pit of her stomach, even though there was no visible reason to be worried. Aside from their floating stun-globes, the Jatohr appeared to be unarmed. So why were they acting like they held all the cards?
“Commander—” she began.
“Sit tight, Lieutenant.” Martinez kept his pistol aimed squarely at the Jatohr spokesperson. Shimizu, Griffin, and the rest of the landing party were armed and ready as well. “One thing you should know about my people,” he warned the Jatohr. “We’re peaceful, as I said, but we don’t take well to threats.”
“That is unwise.”
The Jatohr issued a decisive gurgle—and the landing party vanished.
It happened so instantaneously that it took Una a moment to process what she’d just witnessed. One moment the landing party was facing off against the Jatohr, then they simply blinked out of existence. Only a split-second, almost subliminal flash of white light marked their abrupt disappearance. Una suddenly found herself the only Starfleet officer in sight.
She gasped in shock.
“What? What did you do?”
“They have been removed,” the Jatohr stated. “Do not invite the same fate.”
> She stared numbly at the empty stretch of tarmac where her landing party had been standing only moments ago. Guilt and horror struck her like a shockwave from an exploding star. Her legs buckled beneath her.
Tim . . . Martinez . . . the whole team . . . . they’re all gone.
And it was all her fault.
Nine
“Please tell me. What did you do to my friends? I have to know.”
The Jatohr pod soared above the forest, carrying Una toward the citadel, but she had not left the memory of her team’s shocking disappearance behind. Confined to the cargo area at the rear of the aircraft along with stores of harvested mushrooms, her wrists bound by the same synthetic webbing used to bale the other cargo, she called out to the Jatohr pilot and passengers—who studiously ignored her.
“Answer me!” Una shouted. A metal grille separated her from the passenger compartment. “I’m talking to you!”
A Jatohr turned hir head toward her. Tentacles twitched irritably. She recognized hir as the slug Shimizu had stunned before. Dark brown blotches speckled hir slimy yellow hide. She didn’t need to be able to read hir inscrutable countenance to guess that s/he held a grudge. “Silence, creature. Save your breath for our leaders. They will surely have many questions for you.”
“But my companions,” she persisted. “Did you kill them, transport them, or what? Are they still alive?”
“Forget them. You will not see them again.”
“That’s not an answer, damn you.” She kicked against the metal grille with her foot. “Tell me what you did!”
The Jatohr turned away from her. “That is not for you to know. Now stay silent or you will be subdued.”
A stun-globe, which had been loaded into the cargo area with her, hovered menacingly nearby.
They’re hiding something, she guessed. Or perhaps they simply didn’t want to share the secret of their ultimate weapon with an alien spy. She could appreciate that, she supposed, even if it left her in agony of suspense regarding her lost shipmates. Grief tore at her heart as she acknowledged that the Jatohr had probably spoken the truth.
She’d never see Tim or the others again.
Her throat tightened, but her Starfleet training and experience kept her from breaking down. She could mourn her lost comrades later, if and when she was safely back aboard the Enterprise; in the field, she needed to remain focused on the mission. This was still her landing party, even if she was all that was left of it. Blinking away a tear, Una steadied her breath and inspected her surroundings.
The pod was making good time toward the citadel. Although opaque when viewed from the outside, panoramic one-way viewports offered Una an excellent view of their progress, which could be tracked by the disturbing increase in environmental contamination as they neared the alien outpost. It was still night in this part of Usilde, but the pod’s cruising lights picked up the noisome gray fungi infiltrating the once-verdant jungle. The sight still troubled Una, despite her own difficulties.
There’s more at stake here than my fate or even the landing party’s, she reminded herself. An entire world is being stolen.
In no time at all, the citadel and surrounding lake came into view. Una braced herself as best she could, but was still slammed roughly into the metal grille as the pod dived toward the algae-covered lake, entering it as gracefully as a shuttlecraft making a smooth descent into a planetary atmosphere. Plunging beneath the surface, the amphibious craft cruised toward the underside of the citadel, which appeared to be rooted to the floor of the lake. Landing lights, directly ahead, outlined the entrance to an underwater hangar, whose doors dilated open like the iris of a mechanical eye.
Una peered from the rear of the ship, straining to see more of what lay ahead. Despite her dire circumstances, she felt a thrill of excitement at the prospect of actually entering the citadel and discovering its secrets. She was truly going where no Starfleet officer had gone before.
Here’s hoping I survive the experience.
A flurry of movement, outside the pod, drew her attention and she turned her head just in time to glimpse, through a starboard viewport, a large, multi-armed creature swimming through the murky, abysmal waters. A cephalopod of some sort, like a terrestrial squid or cuttlefish, the creature was at least ten meters long from its pulpy, bulbous red head to its flared tailfin. Muscular arms or tentacles surrounded a glossy black beak that looked big enough to crack a human arm to pieces. Disk-shaped suckers lined the underside of the tentacles, while the suckers themselves were barbed with claw-like hooks, the better to latch onto prey. Una recalled a similar tentacle dragging that giant dragonfly to a watery demise before and was grateful that the sturdy hull of the pod was between her and the lake creature. Round yellow eyes, roughly fifteen centimeters in diameter, inspected the pod briefly before the creature jetted away by expelling water from its mantle. Una watched it disappear into the depths.
“Those predators in the lake,” she asked, “are they native to this planet, or did you bring them with you from . . . wherever?”
She suspected the latter, given their proximity to the citadel. The lake creatures were probably another invasive life-form, like the fungi and algae. Both squids and slugs were mollusks after all, sharing a common evolutionary process of development. The predatory cephalopods might well be related to the Jatohr, at least as much as other mammals were related to some humanoids.
“Quiet,” the testy Jatohr replied. “Speak only when questioned.”
Una bit her tongue. It seemed that, as far as the Jatohr were concerned, first contact was a one-way street. There was a chance that their leaders would be more communicative, but what she’d seen so far offered little grounds for optimism in that respect. The Jatohr were making the Romulans seem welcoming.
The pod entered the hangar via a large moon pool that was ringed by a promenade. Surfacing, the amphibious craft eased up a ramp onto the deck, where a voluminous bubble of pressurized air kept the water confined to the pool. Pale blue strips glowed overhead to illuminate the spacious hangar, which already held several other pods of varying sizes. The pilot gurgled a command to the pod, which appeared to be voice-activated to a degree. As the aircraft powered down in response, the Jatohr crew exited the pod and came around to the back of the craft. A rear hatchway opened, releasing Una.
“Come with us,” a guard ordered. “And be prompt about it.”
She offered no resistance this time, being as anxious as anyone to see more of the citadel. The wet deck was more slippery than she would have liked, but she managed to maintain both her balance and her dignity as she was escorted toward an inner door, which dilated before them. Silvery slime trails marked the paths of her escorts before evaporating into the air. Exiting the landing bay by way of an airlock, she got her first look at the interior of the citadel.
It was surprisingly beautiful.
The bay opened onto a spacious receiving area whose elegant lines and polished surfaces implied a sophisticated culture with an appealing sense of aesthetics. Walls, floors, and ceilings boasted a glossy, iridescent sheen not unlike the interior of a sea shell. Curved corridors and sweeping ramp ways shunned harsh right angles, flowing smoothly into each other; Una noted a conspicuous lack of steps, stairs, or ladders, which was understandable, considering the Jatohr’s slug-like locomotion. Taking it all in, she found that the basic design and architecture reminded her of a gargantuan nautilus shell she had once explored on Ravenna III, complete with spiraling ramps leading from chamber to chamber.
Makes sense, she thought. It stands to reason that intelligent gastropods would model their shelters on shells.
The lighting was gentle and subdued, easy on the eyes, but the air was damp and cool and smelled like rotting compost. Also, a persistent rumbling in the background grated on Una’s ears and would surely prove wearing over time; that the Jatohr endured it suggested that their auditory facultie
s varied from the human model, which followed logically from the fact that they had sensory tentacles instead of ears. She tried and failed to place the source of the deep, almost subsonic grinding; it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
All in all, she had to give the Jatohr their due. They might be heartless imperialists with no respect for Usilde’s indigenous people and biosphere, but she couldn’t fault their taste in decor. She’d toured Illyrian palaces and museums that were less striking, if perhaps not quite as smelly.
Not all menaces flaunt their pernicious qualities, she reminded herself. Kodos the Executioner was said to be a man of great refinement and culture.
A crowd had gathered to greet the returning Jatohr—and perhaps gawk at the mysterious alien “creature” apprehended at the labor camp. The size of the crowd suggested to Una that news of her existence had preceded her to the citadel. Straining eyestalks turned toward Una, who took the opportunity to examine the Jatohr right back.
Like the overseers at the camp, the assembled slugs sported a variety of colorations and patterns on their exposed heads and feet. The adults all wore artificial carapaces, although those waiting within the citadel appeared less heavily armored than those who had ventured beyond its walls, while smaller individuals, whom Una assumed to be children, were largely unclothed. She theorized that immature Jatohr were not fitted with their “shells” until they reached their full growth.
Observing the youngsters, she saw that the Jatohr had tiny, almost vestigial forelimbs that they presumably used to operate the larger, prosthetic limbs displayed by the adults. The Jatohr appeared to have helped evolution along by building themselves better extremities, not unlike the cybernetic stilt-walkers of the T’Wispian marshes.
One small grouping of Jatohr, composed of a solitary adult and a couple of youngsters, broke away from the crowd to rush toward the arriving crew and captive. For a moment, Una feared that they were attacking her for some reason, but then the group flocked to her old friend, the speckled Jatohr who had been stunned earlier. The adult Jatohr gurgled in an agitated manner and palpated “Speckles” with hir tactile tentacles, while the children squeezed between them, making anxious noises of their own. Speckles responded by stroking the other adult’s face in what Una took to be a reassuring manner. Their claspers clasped.