Uneasy Alliances - Ch 4

Uneasy Alliances

By Quills

Contact: the_quill_pen@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star trek and I derive no financial gain from this story.
Codes: A Captain Soma Adventure
Summary: The crew of the U.S.S. Argo, under the command of Captain
Jonathan Soma is ordered to rendezvous with a mysterious party in a remote section of space for a mission that may lead both Soma and his crew into the hands of an enemy.

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Chapter 4

Soma kneeled next to Thala. She had been sitting in the only chair of the aft compartment, and much to his surprise, had apparently fallen asleep. The stubborn Andorian resolve. She hadn’t wanted to openly admit to being hungry, but tired as well. Probably not intending to fall asleep, she couldn’t resist closing her eyes for a few minutes.

He smiled in spite of himself. Hard to believe you’re such a little firebrand, he thought as he studied her soft features. Asleep, the hard and determined mask she wore was absent. Soma noticed that she actually had a very gentle expression to her features. Moving his hand to her face, he brushed aside a lock of snow-white hair covering her cheek.

“Wake up, Thala.”

Murmuring, Thala’s eyes fluttered as she began to open them. Looking up, she saw Soma looking down at her. In a half lidded dream like haze, she smiled at him.

“Thala”

Suddenly, she started, realizing what she was doing and to whom she was doing it. Sitting up abruptly, she straightened as the smile disappeared from her lips. Looking at Soma, she gave him a distrustful expression.

Soma rolled his eyes. “I thought you’d like to know…we’ve arrived at our destination.”

For a moment, the words didn’t register. Thala was busy pondering what he might have been doing while she slept. Then suddenly she realized what he had said.

“Oh,” she replied meekly. “Of course…thank you.”

Thala pushed herself out of the chair, quickly moving too the forward compartment. Soma stood, watching her walk away. Shaking his head, he smiled, and followed her.
Thala stood over the auxiliary sensor panel mounted into the side of the compartment.
Adjusting the display, she brought up the classified codes to communicate with the probe.
Sending a signal, she waited several moments for a response. When none came, she resent the signal. After nearly a minute past, she looked up at Soma.

“The probe is not responding,” she explained, “more than likely it was damaged when it crashed.”

“All right, we do it the hard way.”

Sitting down in the pilot’s chair, he looked out the forward view port to see the fourth planet of the Anteus system. It was very much like Earth he thought. Lush and green, with blue oceans tracing the shorelines of the continents. He found it remarkable that Vulcanoids evolved in such a lush climate. Nature finds a way.

“Have you ever been to Earth?” he asked.

Thala turned, looking at him curiously. “No, why do you ask.”

“That planet,” he said pointing outside the view port. “That’s what Earth looks like.”

Thala looked out the view port. She had seen planets with a similar atmosphere and topography, but had never given them more than a passing glance. However, she indulged Soma. He clearly wanted her to look at it and decided that she owed him something for her earlier behavior.

“Interesting”

Soma looked up and smiled. “It’s beautiful. Just like Earth.”

Thala shook her head. “If you say so Vulcan,” she said stressing the last word.

Soma chuckled, turning back to the controls.

“You know what’s odd.”

Thala glanced down at him. “I can not imagine.”

“This planet,” he replied. “It has no name.”

It hadn’t really occurred to her, but he was right. Planets usually were given some kind of designation; even an alpha numerical one. This one was simply referred to as the fourth planet.

“Perhaps it’s merely an oversight,” said Thala.

“We should name it,” he replied, looking back at her.

Thala’s brow went up in a mock Vulcan fashion. “This isn’t one of your Starfleet survey’s captain. I believe we have a mission to accomplish.”

“You’re intent on taking what little pleasure I can manage out of this trip,” he said turning back to the controls.

“I wasn’t aware that Vulcans were interested in pleasure.”

“Maybe I’ll show you sometime,” he said smiling. He didn’t bother turning around to see her expression, but he was quite certain her cheeks had turned several shades brighter.

Sometimes it’s just too easy, he smiled.

“I’m taking us into a low orbit, “ said Soma. “Are we still getting a signal from the probe?”

Thala turned to the side control panel. The probe was not communicating, but it was still emitting a low frequency sub space signal that could only be detected if someone were actively scanning for it.

“Yes, the signal is triangulated to grid coordinates A11,” said Thala looking at the small screen. “Set your heading for the central mountain range of the northern continent.”

Adjusting the controls on his board, Soma activated the fighter’s thrusters. The ship moved forward, gliding against the outer layers of the planet’s atmosphere. Descending, it passed through the layers until the light blue glow of the lower atmosphere’s solar deflection greeted them.

Leveling off, Soma brought the ship just above the planet’s cloud cover. He didn’t want to expose the inhabitants to any outside technology or other unexplainable phenomena an Andorian fighter might be linked to. The most logical course of action was to proceed to the mountain range and then locate the probe, land, retrieve it and leave without interacting with native inhabitants.

“Can you determine the exact location of the probe?”

“No,” replied Thala. “We’ll need to do a short range scan. This ship was designed for stealth and attack…not surveillance.”

“All right, I’ll begin our decent,” said Soma. “Give me an idea where the probe signal is coming from.”

Thala looked at the sensor display. “Proceed to the third cluster of peaks to your right. The signal appears to coming from there, but the native elements are proving more difficult to scan through than expected.”

“Stand bye to run a short range scan as we pass over,” said Soma. “I’ll try to give you time to run a complete scan, but if we need to make multiple passes, then that’s what we’ll do.”

The shuttle descended as it sped across the jagged canyon that ran between the mountain range. Tall snow capped peaks towered on either side as Soma maneuvered through the winding corridor.

“This region appears to be seeing it’s winter,” said Soma. “Snow’s covering everthing. Looks like Andoria. You’d love it.”

Thala glanced up from her display long enough to look out the viewer. He was right, it was very much like Andoria’s majestic snow covered mountains. Smiling, she looked back at her sensor display.

“We’re going to have to circle back,” she said. “Sensors were unable to get an exact position. However, contact is strongest on the far side of the third ridge.”

“I’ll take us back around,” he replied. “But even if we locate it, we may not be able to land anywhere near it. I didn’t see any clearings.”

“Well, let’s locate it first, then we-“

Thala stopped, turning back to her display. A red indicator light flashed. Tapping the control board, she brought up a new display screen.

“What is it?” asked Soma.

“I’m not sure,” she answered. “Sensors just detected an object.”

“In the air?”

Thala nodded. “Yes, and its composition is organic, but is far to large to be any kind of terrestrial avian.”

“How close?”

“Five hundred meters…approaching rapidly from astern.”

Soma considered his options. Whatever the object was, it was heading for them fast. They could fight, but they didn’t know what they were up against. In the open air, they were an easy target. Their best option was to seek cover and evade whatever was pursuing them.

“Stand bye, I’m going to do some quick maneuvering.”

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. The object is less than three hundred meters, directly astern.”

“Hold onto something,” he shouted.

Hitting the thrusters, he rapidly propelled the shuttle forward. Adjusting their heading, he set course for the wooded region just south of the mountain range.

“Soma! It’s still gaining,” she yelled looking at the sensor display. “Two hundred meters.”

“That’s impossible!” he said. “What the hell….”

“One hundred and fifty meters,” she called out.

“Dammit,” he cursed, “we aren’t going to make those trees if it keeps gaining at this rate.”

Soma decided on an alternate strategy. It was risky, but their current effort was doing nothing to help their situation.

Thala felt the shuttle change course, looking up, she shouted, “What are you doing?”

“Hold on, I’m going to try cross this things path and head away from it”

“What! You can’t be-“

Thala was thrown against the far bulkhead as the shuttle swung around. She grabbed a railing, holding on until the shuttle completed its one hundred and eighty degree turn.

When the shuttle had swung about, she steadied herself, looking out the forward view port. The object that had been pursuing them was now less than one hundred meters directly ahead.

“By the stars…what is it?”

Soma said one word, which proved meaningless to Thala, before the shuttle collided headlong with the object.

“Dragon”

TBC…

Continue to Chapter 5

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Two folks have made comments

I really like this story. A dragon? Very unexpected. And I hadn't thought of Andoria having mountains and snow - is that your idea or is that canon? I thought of it as having a different kind of light - lots of blues while I think of the Vulcans as having lots of yellow and red in their light.

It's purely mine. There is no canon that I'm aware of. I just look at it from an anthropological view. Blue skin and white hair
suggests a low sunlight environment...which suggests colder climate...which suggests snow. For all I know Andoria could be a tropical planet...but I gave myself some wiggle room and said it was the northern territory. ;)
Q