Episode #38:

Rishan Artifact #4

(Stardate 49456)

By

Jay P. Hailey

And

Dennnis Washburn

I shut off the log and sat back in my command chair. I made a point of staying on the bridge of the Discovery for at least an hour each day. It was an effort. Nothing had happened for quite some time, except more space going by, light-year by light-year. That was a good thing. The phrase "No news is good news" was very clear to me now, but it tended to lead towards sloppiness as I got comfortable.

Technically a Starship Captain isn't required to go to the bridge ever, unless there is an emergency. All the stories I had ever heard about bad captains started by mentioning that the person in question hadn't been to the bridge in a while.

Therefore, I made a point of visiting the bridge every day.

"Captain, I'm scanning an inhabited world ahead." Kamaline said.

"Really? Where is it?" I asked. Inhabited planets were usually worth a look, but I didn't really want to back track.

"Ahead of us, Sir, bearing 21 mark 07. Range two light years." She said.

"Officer of the Bridge, we will conduct a fly-by survey of that system. Make the appropriate adjustments and log the order. Kamaline, start planning your sensor runs." I said.

Everyone said "Aye, Captain," and began to work on their part of the fly-by survey. I felt sort of let down. My part of the survey had already been completed.

-*-

Dinner with Aaron and Elizabeth was the usual fun time. I made Aaron tell me stories. Now that I knew he was over six hundred years old he didn't have as much to hide.

"So I told him, I said 'Lee, they're setting you up. Ruby and his cronies are setting you up as the patsy in this', but ol' Lee Oswald, he didn't want to hear it. He figured he was fighting for the cause, and so his ears were already closed." Aaron shook his head sadly and that was the end of his story.

I had no idea if he was telling the truth, but it didn't matter. Aaron's stories were always entertaining.

My communicator went off. I tapped it. "Go ahead."

"Captain, we need you on the bridge." Kamaline said.

I really didn't like the tone in her voice. "I'll be right there." I turned off the comm-badge. "I'm sorry, but duty calls."

"Quite all right. Come back later if you can." Aaron said. It was easy to be comfortable around him.

"Thank you." I got up and walked quickly out of the house. The kids and cats were outraged that they hadn't received their quota of attention. I walked down the path towards the turbo lift. Aaron's house was on the starboard side of the Discovery in a large area that was three decks tall and stretched a third of the way around the Saucer section. Like the livestock pens in an equal section on the other side, it was all open inside, except for tubes that lent the hull strength and carried power and turbolift feeds down to the deck level.

I walked along the path near several other houses. There were people out, enjoying a holographically projected evening. I didn't wave or pay any particular attention to them. Despite my best efforts, there was still a gap between the crew and the colonists on the mission. It wasn't an angry or vitriolic separation, but it was a definite one.

Latimer detached himself from a lamp post and drifted towards me. "Hello, Captain." He drawled. Latimer was one of the old timers among the El-Aurian colonists. That meant that he was somewhere in excess of six hundred years old. He looked like an older man, but walked with a casual rolling gate and showed no physical signs of his age.

"Hello, Mr. Latimer." I said. "I'm sorry but I can't talk right now."

"You're pretty tight with ol' Aaron there, aren't you?" Latimer asked.

I got to the turbo lift station and pressed the call button. "Well Elizabeth is great cook and Aaron's stories are never boring."

Latimer chuckled. "That's true as far as it goes. I just wonder if you've thought this whole situation through?"

The door opened and I stepped into the turbo lift. I held the door for Latimer but he wasn't following me. Latimer's obscurity irritated me. "What precisely are we talking about, Sir?"

Latimer stared at me intently for a moment and then grinned. "I think I've said my piece. Thank you, Captain."

I let the door close and the turbo lift whisked me to the bridge.

-*-

"Kamaline has discovered humanoid life on the planet, Captain." Mendez report as I stepped off the turbo lift. "They're primitive, no generated energy signatures."

"So why does that require my presence on the bridge?" I asked.

Kamaline put the results of another scan up on the main view screen. I recognized the distinctive energy signature of a Rishan artifact.

"Oh." I said. "Where is it?"

Kamaline put up a graphic that showed the location of the Rishan artifact on the class M world just ahead of us. "It's right under the natives largest city, Captain."

"Oh, Ghod." I breathed. The Rishans were a powerful and advanced race. They had evolved beyond the level of most humanoid life in the galaxy. They disappeared suddenly some thirty thousand years ago, but left complex ruins behind. Because the Rishans were so advanced their left overs were dangerous to less well developed species like humans and most Federation peoples.

I had almost lost my first command, the USS Harrier, to a Rishan artifact and I had encountered two more.

The primitives of the planet below were in terrible danger from the Rishan artifact under their feet.

"All right. We'll enter standard orbit and see if we can figure out what's going on down there. If we can I want to get that Artifact away from those people." I said.

"Aye, Sir." The Discovery altered course to enter orbit.

-*-

We could see that the people on the planet were just learning how to make steel tools. Their capital city was a maze of huge stone walls and grand palaces. Around it thousands of people toiled in fields. From the costumes it seemed as though there were peasants, military people and some sort of religious sect.

We began to prepare bugs. They were a variety of camouflaged sensors that we would discretely beam into the city. Then we would listen to their language and get detailed scans of their every day lives.

As soon as the Discovery stabilized her orbit I open my mouth to order the beaming. The Discovery shuddered. There was a golden translucent glow visible through the view screens and the overhead windows on the bridge.

"Report." I said. I had a very bad feeling about this.

"Some sort of force field has englobed the Discovery." Kamaline reported.

"Its energy readings are off the scale, Captain." Stephanie Anderson, my Chief Tactical Officer said.

"We're being held in position, Captain." Mendez said quietly.

Kamaline put up her scans of the force globe and we could all see the characteristic patterns of Rishan energy in it.

"Ah, hell." I said, reporting everyone's emotional reaction.

-*-

For the next couple of hours we tried every step in the book for breaking out of alien force globes. We fired pin point phaser strikes. We tried clever energy interference patterns. We tried subspace resonance frequencies using the big transmitter in our main deflector. We tried shooting beams of every particle we could think of both saturation and in pin point focus.

The golden force globe ate it all without a sign that it noticed.

There was one gap, one weakness in the globe. There was a three-centimeter hole in the globe facing directly towards the planet below us. We could clearly see through it, but nothing we tried could make that hole bigger.

We could beam though the hole. So I ordered our bugs dropped through the hole. The Rishan artifact was on the planet. It seemed as though we might have to go down there.

Mishimi Miatsu called the bridge "Engineering to Bridge. We have a problem."

"Hailey here. What's your problem Mr. Miatsu?"

"The ship is beginning to over heat, Captain." Miatsu said

"What?" I said, horrified. Was the golden globe that perfect?

"Yes, Sir. We need to shut off main power quickly. Auxiliary power will shortly follow." Miatsu sounded apologetic.

My head throbbed. The engines of the Discovery generated a huge amount of heat. A lot of this heat was thrown overboard. The golden force globe was reflecting this heat back at us. With the warp core on line the Discovery would bake herself shortly. The auxiliary fusion generators worked by crushing deuterium with intense heat and pressure until it fused. Then conduits of super hot electro-plasma throughout the ship transferred power. So they generated a lot of heat too. They had to be shut down too.

"How long until we reach thermal balance?" I asked Miatsu. How much would we have to shut off to keep from baking the ship? How much would I have left to work with to get us out of this mess?

Miatsu hesitated. "Never. By shutting down main and auxiliary power we can live for eight more hours, but nothing will stop the heat that has already built up inside the globe."

"Do it." I said. "Shut down everything possible."

The Discovery began to close down.

-*-

Snoopy and I beamed down into the native capital. I was dressed in the bulky robes of a relatively high ranking religious caste member, while Snoopy was dressed as a middle ranking Military caste member.

It is bad form for a Captain to beam down for that type of away team duty under most circumstances, but everyone else was doing something more important. They were investigating out of the way corners of this planet. If I didn't succeed, then everyone and every possible piece of equipment would be beamed off the Discovery before she became uninhabitable.

Snoopy didn't even bat an eye when I told him that we would be working together. It was an admirable feat of acting. Snoopy was a special talent as a Security Officer. I was what you might call untalented, but only if you were being kind.

The first thing that hit me was that the city smelled bad. Primitive cities do. Humanoids and their associated animals have a very dirty lifestyle all told. Pre-technological cities always smell like open sewers, because essentially, they are. Primitive technology cities always smell like noxious chemical plants, which they are.

Trying not to wrinkle my nose uncharacteristically, I walked towards the large temple set into the fifth ring of the city. I figured that the temples and religion of the natives might contain clues. There was a serious question as to whether the natives knew anything of the powerful artifact under their feet. The biggest building at the center of the city was the main temple.

Temples, cathedrals churches and tombs often explained themselves if one knew how to read them. I didn't expect to figure the temple out by myself. Snoopy and I would take recordings on our tricorders and then upload the recordings to the ship. My science crew would spend their last few minutes on the Discovery trying to decipher what our tricorders sent them. I just hoped that there would be a clue, a break in the temple that could lead us further along.

The fifth ring temple was ornate and extravagant. It proclaimed in frescoes and stained glass how the natives were descendants of the sky gods, and how the throne of the gods gave them the power of the gods. I figured that this was our break. We took the tricorder readings discretely and counted our lucky stars when the religious caste members ignored us utterly.

Snoopy and I left the temple and began to walk around the fifth ring while waiting for some result from the shipboard analysis. A Military man came up to us and saluted. I guessed that the religious caste was the dominant. That's why I was dressed as a priest. I drew myself up and gave the military man a haughty stare.

"Greetings." He said. Our universal translator beeped quietly. It didn't have enough of the native language to make an accurate translation. The translation "Greetings" was the best guess.

"Greetings." I allowed.

The military man peered at me. "May I ask your business?"

"My business is religious caste business." I answered with my best annoyed nobleman voice.

The Military man looked at Snoopy and then at me. "Sorry to bother you." He said. Then he turned and walked away.

I told my heart that it was okay to beat again. "I think we just might have gotten away with it." I whispered to Snoopy.

He gave me a non committal smile. "Let's keep moving, Sir."

We walked on.

A couple of blocks later a squad of soldiers boiled out of an alley ahead of us and began to run at us. I looked behind and there was the Military man and another squad coming up behind us. "Maybe we didn't." I said.

Snoopy grabbed me and we ducked into a building. We skittered to the back of the building and Snoopy drew his phaser. Belatedly I began to paw after mine.

A squad of soldiers led by the Military man came through the door. Snoopy let them get right on top of us before he stunned them all with a quick wide swipe of his phaser.

"Hailey to Discovery." I called. "Two to beam up."

We sparkled out of the room, away from the unconscious soldiers.

-*-

As we materialized on the transporter pad we saw a lot of activity in the hallway outside the transporter room. Mendez and Kamaline were waiting for us.

"Report." I said.

"We have found a good sight for the bailout. We're beaming now. The use of auxiliary power for transporters has cut us down from six hours remaining to about three." Mendez reported.

"Your guess seems correct. Some of the religious doctrine you discovered can be interpreted as referring to the Rishans and the artifact. However that is not confirmed. We might be guessing wrong. One thing is suggestive. The Capitol city is the oldest city on the planet. Scans reveal that it has been inhabited and rebuilt over the course of thousands of years." Kamaline said.

"As if the city were intended to keep the artifact in the control of the leaders of the city?" I asked.

"That's one way to interpret it. Not the only way." Kamaline cautioned.

"We'll use that as our working premise. Beam us into the main temple in the heart of the city." I said.

Mendez looked dubious. "Are you sure Captain?"

"Yes! Continue the evacuation and take care of the crew, Commander!" I said. The transporter sparkled us away.

-*-

We materialized in the main temple. There were members of both the religious caste and military caste moving around the edifice. It was a massive gothic structure, a monument to power. Whose power? I hoped that we could find out before it was too late.

Snoopy and I marched into the flow of traffic and moved deeper into the temple like we knew where we were going.

There were paintings and frescoes on the walls, statuary and idols in various nooks.

Once, on a trip to the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris I was told how the entire building contained the lore and dogma of the early Catholic Church. The main temple of this planet was at least as complex as the one at Notre Dame, but no one was explaining anything to me.

As we went further into the central temple there was less traffic. Snoopy was able to begin scanning more openly.

"Captain, there's a problem." He whispered at me. His body language was casual but his eyes were troubled. He shielded the tricorder with his body and showed it to me. Deeper into the temple there was a dampening field. It was hard to tell but it looked Rishan.

"There's no way the natives could set up a dampening field." I said.

"What if it's not the natives?" Snoopy asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"What if it's the artifact?" Snoopy pointed out.

"It doesn't matter. We've got to try." I said. I wasn't thinking clearly. I felt stupid and angry that I had been caught by another Rishan artifact.

Snoopy shrugged and deeper into the temple we went.

-*-

The deepest part of the temple had very thick stone walls and the door was a huge wooden and iron barrier. There were two religious caste members out front. Snoopy and I walked right up to them.

"What is your business in the Holy-of-Holies?" One guard asked. It was ritual question. As soon as he had finished both guards looked at us and their eyes grew wide. Somehow they knew that we didn't belong there.

They drew their swords very quickly. Snoopy was only a fraction slower getting his phaser out. He stunned the two surprised guards.

Then we had to manhandle the two huge gates open. The two doors were well balanced, but it was a huge amount of work to get them moving. The well balanced hinges did nothing about inertia.

Once inside we had to manhandle the large doors closed. A contingent of Religious caste guards tried to swarm through the doors as we closed them. So I had to close the doors while Snoopy held them off.

The inside of the Holy-of-Holies was an ornate altar room. There was huge stone table carved ornately, and equipped with variety of odd utensils. The walls were covered with artworks all depicting the people of this planet doing strange and obscure things.

Snoopy scanned around the room. "There," he pointed. The tricorder revealed a carefully concealed door. Getting it open proved a challenge. While we struggled with it, the large door behind us began to boom rhythmically.

A complex mechanical lock triggered the door. Snoopy lucked into it while exploring the golden artifacts scattered around the room.

As soon as the door opened, a howling mad man came out. He was not dressed like the other members of the religious caste. He was dressed in simple robes and was bald. He reminded me of a Buddhist monk.

He landed a good shot to my face before Snoopy stunned him. My head rang. My jaw hurt and my neck threatened to stiffen up, but I was so adrenalized that I was able to ignore all this.

I picked myself up from underneath the ascetic and tapped my comm-badge. "Hailey to Discovery."

Mendez answered "Discovery here, Captain. Are you at the artifact?"

"No, Commander, although we have discovered a secret passage that may lead to it."

"We're having trouble reading you, Captain. Can you tell what is interfering with your signal?"

"I think the artifact is generating some sort of interference. It will likely get worse before it gets better." I said.

"Would you like some back up? We can't beam directly to your site, but we can put people twenty meters away from the center of the temple." Mendez said.

I thought about it. Anyone beaming down would beam right into the middle of the religious caste people trying to get to us. The reaction probably wouldn't be too good. "No, Commander. How is the evacuation coming?"

"Uh, there have been a few problems, but we're on top of it, Sir."

That didn't sound good. "Keep on it, Commander. I'll let you know what we find, if possible."

Mendez sounded dubious, "All right, Captain..."

-*-

At the foot of a spiral stone staircase, we lost the phasers. The beams were too weak and were draining the power cells too quickly. Any closer to the effect and they wouldn't even fire at all. Our tricorders and comm-badges had stopped functioning halfway down the stairs. Snoopy and I held short swords that we took off stunned monks. Not that we would have anything like the skill of someone who had grown up with them, but it was better than hurling bad words.

It was pitch black down there. There were no lights or torches or anything. There was a heavy acrid smell in the air. I couldn't identify it. We understood the darkness when another monk tiptoed out of the darkness on cat's feet. His eyes were a mass of scar tissue. It was lucky for us that there was still some light coming from the staircase or we wouldn't have seen him. He whipped his sword passed Snoopy's ear. Snoopy just barely got out of the way. I admired the clever Religious caste. In the darkness, blind men would have an advantage. They would already be adapted to it. Most humanoids are visually oriented. Even a master swordsman who was used to seeing his opponent would be at a disadvantage in the dark against a blind man. Fortunately, we weren't quite blind. I stepped up behind the blind monk intending to hit him on the head with the hilt of my borrowed sword. Knocking someone out is not as easy as all the holo-dramas would make it. I hoped that with the metal hilt and some leverage I could hurt him bad enough to move us down his priority list. Like somewhere past breathing.

He heard me behind him and easily parried my strike. I cringed. He used his blade to parry. Those were my fingers in there! I needed those! I stepped back as the monk swept his sword past me. That would have been my gut.

Snoopy, acting with much greater dexterity than I had cracked the blind monk on the back of his head. The blind native fell to the floor and the grabbed his head, mewing. It made me sort of sick, but I had been in battles before. All the emotions go on hold. Plenty of time later, if there is a later.

I stood there and thought for a moment. We needed light. I took off my ornate cloak and ripped a sizable piece of it out. I grabbed the monk's sword and wrapped the pieces of my cloak around the blade towards the end. Then, using a maximum power phaser burst, we barely managed to set it on fire. It wasn't bright and it was smoky, but it worked.

Then we saw the next part of the trap. A tiled walkway meandered through the chamber. There was water all around it. Anyone who hadn't memorized the maze took a bath.

There was a shadowy figure on the platform that marked the far end of the walk-way. He was standing stock still, listening.

We quietly tiptoed along the walkway, away from the stairs and out overhead light. As we got closer, the figure resolved itself. It was another blind monk. We were being as quiet as I thought any two human beings could be but the monk raised his crossbow and fired a bolt right at me. As his hand tensed on his trigger, I stepped to the side. He tried to adjust his aim, but not quite enough. I stepped half off the tiled walk way and fell on my ass. The bolt whizzed by over head. Snoopy was padding quickly over to the blind monk when my wet foot began to burn mightily. That wasn't water in the liquid filled chamber, it was acid. I cursed and began to quickly strip off the native costume I was wearing. I could focus if I concentrated very hard. I concentrated as though my life depended on it. It didn't seem to hurt too bad. I was wrong. I was so adrenalized and scared that my pain receptors weren't working quite right.

After I wiped off my foot with more of my cloak I got up and began to limp towards Snoopy.

Snoopy was having his own brand of fun. By the badly inadequate light of our improvised torch, he was doing his best to stay away from the blind monk. The blind monk couldn't hit Snoopy, because my Security Officer could see the blow coming. Snoopy couldn't hit the monk because the monk could hear the blow coming. It was uncomfortable for both of them. Trying to sneak and hobble at the same time I shuffled over and picked up the monk's discarded crossbow.

The monk heard me and turned to attack me.

"Captain!" Snoopy cried. He attacked the monk trying to distract him from me.

I focused on cocking the crossbow. Then I picked an arrow out of quiver and set in the crossbow's groove.

Snoopy yelled. I raised the crossbow to see Snoopy staggering away holding his arm. It was bleeding a lot. I sighted in somewhat on the monk and squeezed the trigger.

Crossbows are a lot louder in person than you might think. It made a loud "Thwack!" and jumped in my hands. The monk fell down and started to scream. I could understand why. He had an arrow stuck through his hip.

Wincing I hobbled over to Snoopy and said "Let me see it."

He gave me his arm. I wished he hadn't. Ninety percent of the accidents you see in engineering are burns. The rest are radiation poisoning, chemical poisoning or crushing injuries. You almost never see huge sharp cuts. Snoopy bled on me pretty badly while I focused as hard as I could on what to do. I cleared away Snoopy's costume sleeve and used the rest of my cloak as a bandage, and then tied it with bits of my shirt. Too much more of this and we'd be naked and dead.

I tied the bandage as tight as I dared, while Snoopy used uncharacteristic language. "That ought to do it." I guessed.

Snoopy nodded. "You'd have done okay in Security." He grated.

"No way." I huffed. "You guys get shot at. Let's hope the artifact isn't too far away."

Snoopy nodded. I grabbed the crossbow and the makeshift torch. It was beginning to burn out. Snoopy and I had to coordinate to tie some of his costume onto the tip of the sword. He didn't have all of his hands in working order and I didn't have much balance left.

We walked through a corridor filled with a variety of deadfall and pits. With the improvised torch, they were easier to see. We avoid all the traps. I don't recommend walking a narrow ledge with burned foot. It makes concentration difficult.

-*-

We came to a huge set of doors. We tried them and mercifully they were not barred.

A huge circular chamber rose to a dome over our heads. The rock was perfectly smooth. In the center of all this was a huge machine that looked like partially melted alien technology. A large globe was radiating a pretty multicolored swirl. It was held in what looked like frozen mercury.

There was a semi-circular panel that was clear and it had multiple colored icons floating inside it.

There were about a dozen natives. Most were female except for one real old man.

I pointed at the clear semi-circular panel. "You think that might be the control panel?"

Snoopy shrugged. "Could be."

We began to shuffle towards it. The women moved to impose themselves between us and the device. The old man raised his arms and started to curse us. I assume that's what he was doing because our universal translators were not working.

I raised my borrowed crossbow at them and waved it in what I hoped was a suggestive manner. I put a sneer on my face and said. "Back off! Now!"

The women stopped and glared at me. They weren't going to risk catching an arrow to keep us away. I tried not to let my relief show. I don't know if I could have shot anyone else with the crossbow. I could still almost hear the monk screaming and moaning.

"Go see if that's the control panel." I said to Snoopy.

"Isn't that your job, Sir?" Snoopy asked doubtfully. He was right, not only was I an Engineer and trained to deal with all sorts of machines, but I was the Captain and it was my fault that we were down here to begin with.

"You can't hold the crossbow on them with only one hand. I have to cover you." I said.

Nodding slowly Snoopy approached the Rishan artifact.

I made threatening motions at the women when it looked like they might interfere. They didn't like Snoopy getting that close to their machine.

Snoopy reached out for the machine and a beam of light came out of the big globe. The beam was centered on Snoopy's head. As it faded, Snoopy turned to me. His eyes were glowing the same way the globe on the Rishan artifact was.

"Invader!" The words came out of Snoopy's mouth, but it wasn't Snoopy talking. "This is planetary traffic control unit 144795. You have violated this unit's traffic pattern. Identify!"

"I'm Captain Jay P. Hailey of the Federation starship Discovery. We are on a peaceful mission! We mean no harm!" I yelled at the machine.

Snoopy got a thoughtful look on his face for a second. Then he became angry again. "I have no registry for a Discovery, or a Federation. Surrender or be destroyed."

"We surrender!" I said. Perhaps I sounded a little hysterical.

"Your surrender is accepted." Snoopy said. "Jay P. Hailey, you have committed several violations of standard space traffic regulations. You will recall all units and crew of your vessel and depart this system immediately. Return to your homeport and expect a harsh message to your licensing body. You are denied permission to operate a space vehicle in Rishan Space. An appeal may be filed with the proper authority. Leave now."

Snoopy's eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the deck. My communicator beeped wildly. I touched it.

"Mendez to Hailey!" I could hear my executive officer yell happily.

"Go ahead!" I yelled, not so happily.

"You've done it! The field is down! We're free!" Mendez said.

"That's good. Look-" I started.

Every soldier in the whole capital city burst through the big door with torches crossbows and ten thousand types of bladed weapons.

"Wait!" The old man yelled "God has spoken through these aliens!"

The soldiers stopped dead, uncertain as to what to make of that pronouncement. I drew my phaser. I noticed that all of the women were scrambling off the floor. They must have thrown themselves to the ground when Snoopy was taken over. I received several hateful but smug glares. I was going to get it now!

I held up my phaser carefully up, not pointing it where anyone could see it. "Commander Mendez, emergency. Beam us up right now." I said as calmly as I could.

The bugs on the skin feeling started and we started to sparkle away. Several crossbow bolts and a number of feminine looking throwing knives bounced off the annular containment field as Snoopy and I made good our escape.

-*-

In Sickbay I was making a pest out of myself. I demanded my uniform and was not too patient while T'Sing regenerated the skin on my right foot.

Dr. Burlington was working on Snoopy. He still had not regained consciousness.

"What wrong with him, Doctor?" I asked.

"How the hell should I know!?" Dr. Burlington yelled. "I'm still trying to figure out what happened to him! Now be quiet and let me work!"

T'Sing finished up with my foot. She put the bandage/slipper on and said. "You will experience heightened sensation from this foot until you rebuild the callouses on it. You should limit your activity on this foot to levels consistent with your level of recovery."

"Okay." I mumbled. "Thank you Healer."

"One does not thank logic." She reminded me as she moved off to help with Snoopy.

The Discovery began to move. I supposed it was away from the planet. With the full range of transporters working on the problem, it hadn't taken long to bail off the planet and back onto the ship.

Mendez came into the sickbay. He looked troubled.

"Report, Commander." I said.

"We have recovered all crew and equipment from the planet and have set course away from the planet. We'll go to warp soon and leave the system behind." He said.

"That's good." I smiled. I had gotten off much, much luckier than I deserved.

"There's a problem." Mendez continued. "The Colonists are under lock down conditions."

"What?" I asked, stunned.

"That was the problem I mentioned earlier. As soon as the emergency was announced, the colonists started some sort of riot or uprising. I had to lock down the security fields." Mendez said. "Stephanie still hasn't found anyone who'll tell us what it's about."

"Ah, hell." I griped.

-*-

Flanked by Stephanie and four Security people, I walked through the Colonists housing areas. They weren't rioting now. The virtual walls that gave the Discovery her structural strength had been thickened and reinforced cutting the ship into separate boxes, at least temporarily. Stephanie had been telling me what she knew of the uprising. When the emergency was declared, acts of sabotage on the Discovery occurred, internal communications was knocked out and the turbo lifts to the colonization decks were cut off. When Security finally got down there, there were groups of colonists running around with clubs and shivs. A lot of them seemed to be placed to hold off or delay security, while others ran around inside the colonists area. Stephanie still hadn't figured it out all the way and it made her touchy.

The locked down areas were being searched cube by cube and all improvised weapons were being confiscated. There were a number of resentful stares, but no speaking as we closed in on Aaron and Elizabeth's house.

There were a number of young men and women standing around inside in the cube that held the house. Theodore, Elizabeth and Aaron's oldest son was there. When he saw me he struck the odd "Seig Heil" pose. Many of the colonists had been likening us to the Nazis and me in particular to Adolph Hitler. I didn't understand completely why, but after some research I understood how deep and angry an insult it was.

The side of the cube nearest us was turned off. I led my group into the area followed by three more quads of security. They began to search the young people for weapons.

We marched up the steps onto the porch of Aaron and Elizabeth's house. I noticed the younger children staring at us through an upstairs window. The cats were nowhere to be seen.

I knocked on the door. After a few minutes, Elizabeth opened the door. She looked a little harried. "Captain? What can I do for you?"

"Elizabeth, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I wonder if I might speak with Aaron for a few minutes?" I said, as courteously as possible.

Elizabeth looked troubled for a few moments and then seemed to make a decision. "I'm sorry, Aaron's not available. Won't you come in?" She opened the door and gestured us inside. As I entered I saw that Elizabeth already had house guests. It was almost a who's who of the colony. There was Latimer, The Smiths and Mrs. Johnson. All the people who I thought of as senior people in the colony effort were there, except for one.

"Where's Aaron?" Stephanie asked.

"He's not here, Ma'am." Latimer said definitely.

"All right." I said. "Perhaps you all could explain what has been happening this afternoon."

Everyone looked casual and disinterested. Elizabeth said. "It was an escape attempt."

I stared at her. "An escape attempt?"

"That's right. They were trying to go over the wall." Elizabeth said, looking Latimer right in the eye.

I was stunned. "How can you escape from a starship?" I asked. I had a picture of men in prison uniforms tunneling out of their cells and through a ship's hull. A fatal mistake that would be.

"Well it seemed as though you gave us quite an opportunity, there Captain." Latimer said wryly.

I couldn't believe it. "The Discovery was only a couple of hours away from being uninhabitable. You were going to waste valuable time having a riot when you could just as easily left the encampment when the bail out was over?"

"Well, there, Captain, there were a couple of things we had to work out amongst ourselves." Latimer said.

"What do you mean by an escape attempt?" Stephanie asked Elizabeth.

"It seems pretty self explanatory." Elizabeth said.

"An escape attempt. You mean like from jail." I said. I had the feeling that my brain was catching up from a million miles away.

"Exactly like from a jail." Latimer said acidly.

"But, but..." I sputtered.

"How much do you know about what brought us out here, Captain?" Elizabeth asked.

"I know what Aaron told me," That got some sniffs of disdain from the group. "I know that you are from an advanced race called the El-Aurians. I know that there was dispute over whether to interfere with the Federation. I know that it was resolved in favor of you making this colonization attempt to Beta Howard

223."

"Yes, but do you know how it was resolved, Captain?" Latimer asked.

"Well I assumed that it was thoroughly discussed..." I fumbled. I really had no idea how the scheme to colonize a planet a thousand light years outside of Federation space had come about.

"Discussed, hell!" Latimer said angrily. "I was rounded up! I didn't volunteer for this mission!"

"What!?" I said, shocked. "Is that true for you?" I asked Mrs. Johnson.

Her eyes bored right through as she simply nodded. I looked around at the others, they were quietly affirming this, too.

I looked at Elizabeth. "You turned my ship into a prison barge?"

"Do you mean to tell me that you didn't know?" Latimer said. He was about as shocked as I was.

"Were is Aaron?" I grated.

They looked stubborn. Elizabeth looked uncomfortable.

I tapped on my comm-badge "Computer, locate Aaron Sheffield."

"Aaron Sheffield is located in his residence on Deck Fourteen." The computer replied.

I looked around for a second and I saw the coat closet in the main entry way. Elizabeth was standing right in front of it. I marched over. "Excuse me, Elizabeth."

Again Elizabeth looked conflicted, but only for a moment. She stepped aside. I opened the door and there was Aaron, bound and gagged in the closet.

I looked at him for a beat. His eyes were very angry and his skin was flushed red. One of his eyes was puffing up. I turned to Stephanie. "Get this son of a bitch to sickbay."

-*-

"That would be the gravest possible mistake." Aaron said in a quiet tone of voice.

"Aaron, I have had enough of you manipulating me and leading me around by the nose. I am not inviting debate or discussion. We're turning around!" I said. "Your choice is if you want to ride back to Federation with us or if you want to hop into your shuttle and go your own way."

"And if I ride with you?" Aaron said mildly. His odd animalistic gaze was turned on me and it was making me nervous.

"You'll do it in hibernation or in the brig. I'll give you a choice there, too." I snapped.

"I believe I'll take my chances in Rosinante." Aaron said. "You had better believe me, turning around is not an option for you."

"I don't take well to threats, Mister Sheffield!"

"That's not a threat, it's information you don't have. The Federation can't afford to let these people back in. It might be a Klingon ship doing an Admiral a favor, or it might be an independent contractor or it might even be a Federation starship but your cargo is not going to make it back into the Federation. They'll destroy you first."

I hissed as I realized what he was saying. The Discovery was carrying extremely toxic cargo. Not in terms of chemicals, poison or radiation, but in terms of ideas. The whole reason for this mission in the first place was to keep the culture of the El-Aurians from spreading too far in the Federation. If Starfleet Command was willing to strand 800 men, women and children out in the boonies, then cold blooded murder was not too far behind.

And I was caught right in the middle of it.

"Get the hell off my ship." I grated.

-*-

I had the Discovery halted. I didn't know yet if we were going forwards or backwards.

Dr. Burlington reported to me about Snoopy. "He's suffering from a sort of neural overload. That possession you describe was telepathic in nature. There was a lot of data in there. Snoopy's brain wasn't well equipped to deal with it."

"What's the prognosis?" I asked. I felt miserable. That should have been me.

"I just don't know yet. There could be brain damage or psychological problems. On the other hand, he might not remember anything and act like nothing happened. There is no way to tell, yet." Dr. Burlington said.

"Thank you, Doctor."

-*-

"Captain, we have been able to puzzle out more of the native language and culture." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo reported. He was a mass of tentacles, looking something like an over built octopus. He generally was pink or lavender and smelled as though he had been bathed in strawberries. Today he was darker purple with tan splotches. I didn't understand what emotions this might signify.

"What did you find?" What had I missed the boat on? if I didn't dumb enough over the whole episode, then I would now.

"Well, the missing ingredient in the translation algorithm was that the natives are telepathic." He said, smelling of dark roses.

I rolled my eyes. No wonder the natives had broken our cover so quickly.

"We suspect that the Rishan Traffic Control Node you encountered was designed with a telepathic interface. The natives who have telepathic potential or abilities might be able to communicate in a limited way with the artifact. This seems to be a central point in their religion." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

"Wonderful." I sighed.

"There is some rudimentary evidence that the artifact is in fact altering natives to fit its telepathic interface over the course of time." My chief counselor and social scientist said.

"Hmph. That thing is too nasty for us to take on." I said. My knee jerk reaction was to protect the natives by eliminating the artifact. It was interfering in their natural development.

"Agreed. however it may already be too late." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said, smelling of roses and strawberries.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"We may be witnessing in this case a new race of Rishans being created."

I heaved a deep sigh. "There's something to look forward to."

The Rhondan swayed gently in his seat. "Yes, indeed." His vocorder blandly said.

-*-

Aaron was ready to go the next day. Elizabeth and the children would not be going with him.

"They're prisoners like the rest of 'em." Aaron said. He walked with his head held high through the colonists section, through the Discovery and to his shuttlecraft. I followed him, accompanied by Mendez and a lot of Security.

At the hatch to the Rosinante, Aaron turned. "Remember, you can't take these people home."

"Don't tell me what I can or can't do, Aaron." I said quietly.

"Right, well, God speed." He climbed into the shuttlecraft and began to warm it up.

We retreated to observation lounge.

"Captain," McCoy said over the intercom. "Mr. Sheffield is requesting permission to launch."

"Permission granted. Launch the shuttle craft."

The force field held the air in while the door to the shuttle bay cycled open. The Rosinante lifted off the deck and swooped out the door.

Later we saw the Rosinante enter warp. By the time she was out of sensor range she was making warp 9.975.

-*-

I went to go see Elizabeth.

"Will you be all right?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes, I'll be fine."

"I don't understand a couple of things." I said.

She looked at me.

"Okay, there are a lot of things I don't understand. You were married to Aaron, and yet, you were one of his prisoners?"

She smiled. It about broke my heart. She seriously loved that man. "You'd have to know Aaron." She said wistfully.

I just shook my head. I didn't really get it. I was overjoyed when Elizabeth made a point of inviting me back for dinner the next week.

-*-

Snoopy recovered. He woke up spouting gibberish. We recorded it. The computer said that it was an unknown language, but couldn't identify the type.

After he calmed down, Snoopy was able to speak rationally. He was subjected to a battery of tests. His brain was working as well as it ever did, but Snoopy himself was different. You could almost sense an alien presence about him from then on. It was disconcerting. Snoopy himself reported that he had dreams now that disturbed him, but he couldn't tell us anything about them while he was awake.

-*-

Latimer came to my office. I was surprised. We rarely saw any of the colonists outside their own sections.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Latimer?" I asked.

"Well, Captain a look out the windows tells me that we haven't moved in nigh onto a week." Latimer said.

"I haven't made up my mind about where we're going." I said. I didn't want to continue the way we were going, and I couldn't return the Federation. That left me seriously shy on options.

"Well, for what it's worth, we El-Aurians have taken a vote on the subject. We'd like to recommend that we press on ahead." Latimer said

"You want to continue into exile?" I said stunned.

"It's not like we haven't known that this was coming. And we know what the Federation's reaction would be if we tried to come back." Aaron said.

"But that's letting Aaron and his cronies win." I said stubbornly. "I'd hate to see that happen."

"Oh. You want us to take over the Federation then?" Latimer said quietly. I hate to play poker with the man.

I blinked several times. "Well, I... No. No, I don't. However, you don't have to go all that way. We could drop you out in the fringes, where you wouldn't be so far away. You might be able to get help, and you'd have neighbors..."

Latimer chuckled. "Neighbors like that we don't need. Besides, the dispute over the Federation is finished business. Putting us close to the Federation will just encourage the hotheads to try again in a century or so. It's really time for us to move on."

"Okay. Thank you Mr. Latimer. I'll bear that in mind." I said.

"Just Latimer." He said. "Well, with your permission, there's livestock to feed, and work to be done." He rose and left my office.

Later than day we resumed course for Beta Howard 224.

-End-

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.