by Greg Cox
“Surrender,” Rolop said, his vocal cords straining to approximate the aliens’ crude vocalizations. He would give them one chance to submit voluntarily, but only one.
“Never,” Janeway said. “Now get off my ship.”
Rolop could not comprehend this creature’s colossal foolishness. Very well, he thought. He did not need his fangs or claws to reduce these arrogant humanoids to nothing more than an afternoon snack. He would personally drain every last morsel of energy from this so-called captain.
“Feast!” he barked to his subordinates. “Gorge!”
Together they unleashed their hunger upon the gathered neffaler. The humanoids fired their weapons at Rolop and the other Ryol, but their pathetic energy beams seemed, if anything, even weaker than before. Rolop let the crimson radiation wash over him, the minor pain of its attack merely egging his hunger and his fury to ever greater heights. Howling louder than all the energy beams combined, he tapped into the awesome voraciousness at the center of his being and flung it outward at . . .
Nothing?
It was as though he had hurled his hunger into a bottomless void. There was no life-force to latch on to, none at all. He saw the humanoids in front of him, felt the pang of their energy blasts, but he found no precious vitality to sustain him against their constant barrage. Unsatisfied, his hunger grew ever larger, coming to feel like a gaping wound in the center of his chest, a wound that sucked the emptiness into his body. The void rushed along his spine and spilled out behind his eyes, consuming his brain in its awful nihility. He had opened his mind to drain the life from his prey, but now he found himself unable to bar the doorway to his being against the emptiness that had invaded him. His own hunger was reflected back onto him.
His arms and legs extended, Rolop twitched convulsively. His triumphant howl metamorphosed into a shriek of agony. His eyes flashed from black to green to black over and over again, his pupils dilating and expanding at an increasingly frantic rate. He heard two more shrieks join his own, and realized that Manow and Shiila had to be suffering in the same manner. Instinctively his eyes sought out his comrades.
Mistake! The instant that his gaze connected with Manow’s, he felt his uncontrolled hunger shift its focus from the empty humanoids to his fellow Ryol. At the same time, another hunger—and another—grabbed on to his soul and started tearing it apart. Rolop let out an ear-piercing scream, trapped in a destructive three-way circuit with the other two Ryol. He felt as though he were being pulled out of shape in three different directions. Unrestrained appetites tugged and tore at the roots of each hunter’s essence, consuming each other in a frenzied attempt to evade the emptiness leaching away their strength.
Rolop tried to call back his hunger, but it was too late. The more energy he lost, the more he needed, and the more his lust for life-force, any life-force at all, ran wild and uncontrolled.
His vision dimmed. Everything grew darker, until he could barely make out the shadowy outlines of the humanoids and their engine rooms. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t breathe. A sense of dizziness rushed over him as his legs seemed to dissolve beneath him.
He lost consciousness before his head hit the floor.
• • •
On the floor of Engineering, Captain Janeway and the security team lowered their weapons. The twitching bodies of three Ryol, still displaying the full horrific details of their natural form, rested uneasily at their feet. Janeway waited several seconds, just to see if the Ryol were likely to attack again, then decided that this battle had been won for now. She turned toward Tuvok. “They appear subdued,” she stated.
“I concur,” Tuvok said, placing his phaser in its holster. Not far away from him, Ensign Kim breathed a sigh of relief. Now that the psychic attack was over, color began returning to his face.
“All right then,” the captain said. “Mr. Carey, you can do the honors.”
Janeway and the other crew members flickered momentarily, then disappeared. At the same time, an identical assemblage appeared to materialize on the catwalk far above the defeated Ryol, appeared being the operative word.
In fact, Janeway knew, she and the surviving security officers had been on the catwalk all along, but the holographic projectors Lieutenant Carey had rigged up around Engineering had diverted their images to the floor below, while simultaneously providing a primitive sort of cloaking effect to conceal their actual location from the Ryol search party. It’s all done with mirrors, she thought, a slight grin upon her face. “Well done, Mr. Carey,” she said. “A successful—and effective—illusion.”
“Well,” Carey said modestly, “it helped that Lieutenant Torres has been experimenting with ways to bring The Doctor to Engineering, in case of a medical emergency.” He inspected one of the projectors he’d mounted to the scaffolding behind him. “There are still plenty of bugs to be worked out before we can get it working on a regular basis—the power differential between the holographic resolution system and the main energy transponders is a real headache—but it seems to have worked out okay this time around.”
“I’ll say,” Janeway agreed. She climbed down a service ladder to take a closer look at their defeated enemies. The three Ryol lay in graceless positions upon the cold metal floor. Their faces had a starved, emaciated look while most of their muscles seemed to have literally shriveled upon their now bony bodies. The Doctor was right, she thought. Holograms definitely disagreed with the Ryol. She still wasn’t sure exactly why or how holographic images interacted with the parasitic abilities of the Ryol, but it seemed obvious that these Ryol had gotten a sizable taste of their own medicine. “Too bad,” she mused aloud, “that we can’t project holograms onto the bridge.”
Carey shook his head. “Not without installing the necessary equipment first.”
Janeway’s grin gave way to a somber expression. Now that Engineering had been successfully defended, reclaiming the bridge had to be her next priority, but first there was some cleaning up to do after this fight. Moving quickly and efficiently throughout Engineering, she checked on the injuries of the fallen security officers, discovering, to her relief, that there were no fatalities among the Voyager crew. While Tuvok dispatched a third of the security team to check out the turbolift for more Ryol, she contacted The Doctor via her commbadge.
“Janeway here,” she said. “We have three, maybe more, Ryol prisoners. They’re all unconscious now, but I want them all doped up enough to stay that way until they’re safe in security cells. I’m sending a team to pick up your two prisoners as well. Be prepared to assist them.”
“I’m a doctor, not a jailer,” The Doctor replied, “but I’ll do my best. Has there been any more word from Kes and the others on the surface?”
“Negative,” Tuvok reported to both the captain and The Doctor, joining the discussion from a few meters away. His voice contained no hint of anxiety or concern. “We must assume that all Voyager personnel still on Ryolanov are hostages, and that the Ryol remain in control of the bridge.” Tuvok considered the matter for a moment before speaking again. “One salient point, Captain. Over the course of the battle, I did not observe the Elder’s daughter, nor is she recognizable among our transformed prisoners. Did you detect any evidence of her presence?”
“No,” Janeway answered, not bothering to conceal her own anger. “Not yet.”
But just wait until I get my hands on Laazia, she thought, and her snake of a father. She glanced back over her shoulder at the withered shaggy bodies of the Ryol search party. I don’t care who or what you really are. I’m taking my ship—and my people—back.
• • •
Laazia had gone berserk. Lifting Paris up by his collar, she let loose an incomprehensible string of whistles, chirps, growls, and barks. Paris couldn’t make out a word she was saying. Probably just as well, he thought. I don’t imagine it’s very complimentary.
Deactivating the Universal Translator had left Laazia an inarticulate beast trapped in the nerve center of a completely alien envi
ronment. She could no longer communicate with the computer, translate the controls, extract useful information from her hostages, or even threaten Paris in a coherent fashion, not that she was having too much difficulty conveying her feelings about Paris himself.
She tossed him savagely against the nearest wall, so that his shoulder bounced painfully against the door to the captain’s briefing room. Yellow-alert markers still flashed upon the walls, matching the spots of lights appearing before his eyes. The collision reopened the wounds on his back, releasing fresh streams of blood to stream down his body onto the floor.
In her fury, Laazia regressed to her most primal form, growing larger and more animalistic. Long curving fangs protruded from a wolflike snout while the soft golden down covering her body sprouted unruly tufts of coarse blond fur. Graceful fingers devolved into menacing claws that slashed and tore at everything that came within her reach, including the empty air. Snatching up her velvet cloak, she reduced it to shreds of purple cloth in a matter of seconds, then turned her claws on the padded backrest of the captain’s chair.
Paris watched her growing frenzy, aghast. How could he ever have been fooled by Laazia’s former beauty? He doubted that he would ever fall under her spell again, no matter how hard she exerted the energy-sapping force behind her eyes, now that he knew about the savagery that lurked within her soul. “Would you believe,” he said, “I actually . . . danced . . . with her once?”
“I’m sure you only did it for the good of the ship,” Chakotay quipped. Purple bruises mottled his face, but there was an angry gleam in his eyes.
“Of course!” Paris inched away, as much as he could with his hands tied behind his back, from the rampaging were-creature. Boy, he thought, am I glad that you can’t understand what we’re saying.
But there was no way to escape her for long. Crazed green eyes turned toward Paris. Froth sprayed from Laazia’s deadly new jaws as she advanced on Paris, all ten claws extended, a ferocious growl rumbling from her chest. Universal Translator or no Universal Translator, there was no mistaking her intentions. Paris realized he was only heartbeats away from going the way of the indigo cape.
So long, Dad, he thought, feeling strangely fatalistic in the face of certain death. You always said I’d come to a bad end.
An unpleasant odor made him wrinkle his nose in disgust. At first, he thought it might be Laazia’s foul beastlike breath, but then he realized it was coming from all around him. What’s this? he thought, confused.
Laazia smelled the strange odor, too. She stopped, less than three meters away from Paris, and sniffed the air with her flaring nostrils. He heard Chakotay start to cough over by Harry Kim’s usual station. Puzzled, and more than a little grateful for this odd reprieve, Paris tried to place the peculiar aroma. It was heavy and thick and somewhat medicinal. Kind of like incense, he thought, Or . . . anesthezine gas!
All at once, he realized what the captain was up to. Laazia must have figured it out as well, because she lunged at Paris, intent on tearing out his throat before the gas knocked her out. Her outstretched claws, still stained with his own blood, came flying toward him.
No way, Paris thought, suddenly feeling not so philosophical about dying after all. He threw his entire body as hard as he could, so that Laazia’s talons missed him by a matter of centimeters, smashing instead into the door to the briefing room. He heard her claws scratch against the firm duranium door.
Laazia tried to rouse herself for one more strike at her hated nemesis, but the anesthezine had done its work. With a final slurred snarl, she dropped limply onto the floor of the bridge, less than a meter from where Paris lay gasping.
Raising his weary head from the floor, Paris glimpsed the telltale sparkle of a transporter beam only a second before he passed out.
CHAPTER
16
THE CAVERNOUS CARGOHOLD OF THE ANCIENT SHIP MADE for a damp and gloomy prison. The temperature plummeted as the night wore on, and B’Elanna could feel the chill creeping into her bones like a computer virus spreading through a database. To her relief, though, no other hostages were brought to join them in this improvised dungeon. Perhaps they were still the only captives of the Ryol. Stay calm, she told herself. Hold on to your temper. A rescue mission has to be in the works—unless the Ryol have already taken control of the ship.
Torres squatted upon the sandy uneven floor, resting her back against an outcropping of rock that had torn its way through the bottom hull of the old starship. Tiny amphibians fluttered their wings overhead while water dripped from one of the broken support beams protruding from the ceiling. Not trusting their ability to keep an eye on their prisoners in semi-lit gloom, the Ryol had embedded several more light crystals in strategic locations around the walls of the chamber, placing Torres and the others beneath a constant white glare that was already getting on her nerves. Kes and Neelix sat nearby, holding hands and doing their best to reassure each other. Torres felt a pang of loneliness, envying her fellow crew members their close relationship.
“Of course,” Neelix said abruptly, slapping a spotted hand against his forehead. Kes huddled silently beside him, seeking refuge, Torres guessed, from the psychic cries of the long-dead neffaler. “I should have remembered. The Empty Ones.”
“What are you talking about?” Torres asked.
“An ancient myth,” he responded. “Little more than a spooky fairy tale, really, or so I’d always thought. Millennia ago, before we Talaxians, before even the Trabe, there was an almost forgotten empire that ruled much of what you call the Delta Quadrant. Legend has it that this empire eventually spawned a race of mutants who fed upon the souls of other living beings because they had none of their own.” He gave Torres a searching look. “I’m not certain exactly what they did to us before, but it sure felt like my soul was being yanked out of my body.” He shuddered at the memory, then stared down at the sediment around his feet.
“The Empty Ones?” Kes prompted him.
Neelix lifted his gaze from the floor. “That’s what the old stories call them. Supposedly all of the Empty Ones were finally captured, at great cost, and banished from the empire, never to be heard from again.” Neelix gestured at the wrecked starship enclosing them. “I think I can guess where they ended up.”
Torres snorted impatiently. “I don’t suppose these legends contain anything useful, like how to destroy these Empty Ones?”
“Not that I remember,” Neelix admitted.
Torres was not surprised. She had little faith in myths. The Klingons had a thousand old legends about Kahless and other great warriors of the past. As far as she could tell, they had never done her any good. Give me hard scientific data over fairy tales any day, she thought.
Still, she had to concede that the Ryol sounded a lot like Neelix’s Empty Ones. She’d experienced firsthand the awful energy-sucking void generated by the Ryol; it had certainly felt like her soul was being devoured. We need to get out of here, she thought, and warn the captain.
Footsteps echoed in the spacious confines of the cargohold. Torres looked up to see a typically skinny-looking neffaler ambling toward them, clutching what looked like a wineskin with both hands. The neffaler uncapped the vessel and offered it to Torres, who sniffed the mouth of the skin before tasting the contents. She was thirsty, yes, but suspicious, too. It wouldn’t be the first time an enemy had tried to drug her—or worse; the Cardassians thought nothing of poisoning the waterholes near human colonies in the Demilitarized Zone. On the other hand, she thought, why should they bother to drug us when they can already drain our life-force just by staring at us?
Thirst won out over paranoia, and Torres took a deep gulp from the wineskin. It was water, slightly warm but clean and refreshing. “Thank you,” she said to the neffaler as she passed the water over to Kes and Neelix. The dwarfish creature watched her with its—his, she corrected herself—large black eyes. On closer inspection, she decided that this particular neffaler seemed younger—and slightly less debilitated—than the o
thers she had seen. There was a cord around his neck, she noted, and something white and shiny peeked out from beneath the shaggy red bristles covering his chest. Whatever that something was, it reflected the light from the crystal nearby. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the neffaler’s chest.
The creature backed away nervously. Torres sat very still, making no threatening sound or movement, while the tiny neffaler gathered his courage. The frail frightened creature seemed like the polar opposite of a proud fearless Klingon warrior, which, perversely, made Torres like him even more. Slowly, apprehensively, the neffaler crept back toward her. “That’s it,” Torres said softly. “Good boy.” She forced herself to smile warmly at the little creature. It felt very odd.
To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure why she was so interested in finding out what the neffaler was hiding. A fully charged phaser rifle, set on kill, was probably too much to ask for. It gave her something to do, however, which certainly was better than sitting around brooding about what the Ryol were planning to do to her.
“What’s that?” she asked again when the neffaler came once more within reach. He looked down at his scrawny chest, then lifted up the object hanging from the cord around his neck for Torres to see. It was a whistle. A simple plastic whistle.
Torres emitted a puzzled grunt, startling the neffaler, who took a few steps back. What would a neffaler be doing with a toy whistle? She couldn’t imagine any of the Ryol giving one of their slaves a gift; could the whistle have come from Voyager? There was no way to be sure, but it seemed a plausible-enough theory. Perhaps there was some way to enlist this neffaler to help them?
“Starfleet,” she said, pointing at her own uniform. “Starfleet, understand?” The neffaler started at her with gaping black eyes. She had no idea if she was getting through or not. “Go get Starfleet.” She spoke slowly, afraid of confusing him. According to Kes, the neffaler were sentient, or at least they used to be. How much could this being really comprehend. “Bring Starfleet here, do you understand me?”
