Star Trek™ Corps of Engineers: Remembrance of Things Past Book One

by Terri Osborne

  “Are you okay?” Carol asked.

  “Yeah, just couldn’t sleep.”

  Carol arched a dark eyebrow. “You couldn’t have known the replicators would fail. Why grow your own beans? Why not just let the replicators make the coffee?”

  “Because,” Inana said, a slight smile appearing on her lips, “oh, call me old-fashioned, but I hate the taste of replicated coffee. Since it takes so long for the plant to grow properly, I had some seedlings treated with growth accelerant before we left Earth, and you have no idea how fast they’re growing in this soil. We got the first batch of beans to roast just a couple of weeks after they were transplanted.”

  She’d only dabbled in hydroponics, but nonetheless, Carol was suitably impressed. “Doesn’t the soil here affect the taste?”

  Carol got a chuckle out of the verve with which her comrade drank the brew. “Nope,” Bart said in between gulps. “Not a bit. Carol didn’t say you were an agrobiologist.”

  Before they could get any further, however, another woman walked into the tent, followed almost immediately by Commander Corsi. “Lieutenant Vale,” Carol began, giving the woman a visual once-over. The black-and-gold uniform was drenched from the rain and—from what she could tell—Vale had changed her hair color to a nice auburn since the last time they’d met. But there was something in her eyes, a look of dread tinged with fear that even sent a small shiver up Carol’s spine. “Can we help you?” she said.

  Vale stood just inside the tent’s doorway, staring straight ahead.

  “Christine?” Corsi asked.

  Vale didn’t respond.

  Inana took a step toward her—

  —and that was when Vale flinched. Shaking her head as though clearing cobwebs, she asked, “Wha—What am I doing here?”

  “Christine,” Inana began, “where did you think you were?”

  Vale’s cheeks turned a deep crimson. It looked as though she’d been frightened to her core. Swallowing hard, she said, “I should check on Captain Picard.”

  “Christine,” Inana tried again. Where had this persistence come from? “Are you seeing things that aren’t there? People, maybe?”

  Vale quickly glanced her way, eyes haunted. “I should check on Captain Picard,” she said again, this time far more insistent. Turning on her heel, Vale ducked around Corsi, left the tent, and went back into the rain before anyone could ask another question.

  Carol could hear Inana’s sigh all the way across the tent, even with the rain outside. “That’s six.”

  “Six?” Bart asked.

  “Six who’ve had hallucinations.”

  “How bad are these hallucinations?” Corsi asked.

  Inana visibly shuddered. “Bad. Everyone’s had a memory they would rather forget manifest in front of their eyes.”

  Carol raised an eyebrow. “You never went to med school, how do you know she was hallucinating?”

  “I know.” Inana gave a half-smile and shook her head in disbelief. “You still won’t give me any credit, will you, Carol? How could someone who’s so conscious of a culture and its stereotypes be so ignorant of when they’re applying them themselves?”

  Abramowitz stopped cold. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  Carol swallowed hard. She’s right. You had your mind made up about her years ago. But here it is. She’s got the life you wanted, and you damn well won’t admit it to yourself.

  A flash of memory leapt into her brain: Carol and Gabriel studying the basics of stratigraphy back at Oxford, one keeping the other awake, even though they both were interested in the class. Long nights spent over raktajino, textbooks, and discussions of the various methods of archeological geophysics.

  But that had been decades ago. Carol knew she bore little, if any, resemblance to the person she’d been then. Oh, that part of her was still there, but it was buried so deep, only being around Gabriel again had even cracked the carefully crafted box she’d shoved those emotions into years ago. Even if time hadn’t added more levels of change to her own personality, the Dominion War had definitely made up for it in spades. If it had done that for her, why couldn’t it have done the same for Inana or Gabriel?

  Fortunately, Bart chose that moment to save her behind. “I’ve got it.”

  “What?” both women asked, turning toward him.

  Bart pointed toward the paper with the rubbing. “You were right to take this rubbing, Inana. It’s High Gretharan, but it’s not that far removed from the Vigenère cipher. Letheans don’t quite grasp the concept of hiding something in plain sight. They figure if they can’t see it telepathically, they’ll root around in the person’s mind until they can. Whoever carved this must not have shared the decryption. There’s no way anyone could have known what this meant without experience.”

  Carol clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “I knew that genius mind of yours would come in handy. So, what’s it say?”

  The women flanked Bart at the table. Faulwell pointed at a particularly ornate glyph, one that looked almost Egyptian in its intricacy. “See this? It’s the glyph for ‘battle’ or ‘attack.’ But over here,” he said, pointing toward a glyph that more resembled a shield than anything Carol could recall seeing, “that one can have two meanings: either ‘protect’ or ‘deflect.’”

  “So we’re dealing with something that can protect against a Lethean attack?” Corsi asked, stepping over to the table. “That would be really handy.”

  “Not necessarily,” Bart said. He pointed toward a bizarre circular glyph near the bottom of the rubbing. “This, this usually gives the connotation of enclosing. I’ll be damned. These are instructions on how to use something—this obelisk, probably—to deflect a Lethean attack. Inana, did you find anything buried around the obelisk, or maybe inside it?”

  Inana visibly thought about it. “Yeah. I think…” She wandered between two of the large tables, sifting through the padds, books, and other paraphernalia before coming up with a small, cube-shaped stone. From the way her body leaned forward when she carried it, it must have weighed a lot more than it looked. “There was a crevasse in the obelisk. Inside we found three of these.”

  “Three?” Carol asked, raising an eyebrow. “Where are the other two?”

  “In the artifact tent. Paul was cleaning the other two for study. Why?”

  “Trivarum olibece,” Bart said. “With the three taken, freedom is loosed.”

  That was when the light went off in Carol’s mind. “A ay olibece tubia muci.”

  Inana gave her a puzzled look. “And freedom requires learning and memory?”

  Carol nudged Bart aside. Now that she had some kind of idea how the encryption worked, she was able to pull a bit more from the glyphs in the rubbing. A brief glimmer of hope flickered in her mind. “Okay, Bart, tell me if I’m reading this wrong, but from the looks of it, removing these three stones from the obelisk activated some sort of defensive shielding. Any warrior of Grethar within the field would have the full access to all of their training and knowledge. Memory and learning, open to all. Knowledge and power, free to the call.” Her stomach flipped as she raised her eyes to Inana and spoke the next passage. “Only Krialta can make it fall. Krialta holds power over all.”

  Corsi raised one blond eyebrow. “Rhyme scheme sucks.”

  “Wait a minute,” Inana said. “Did that really say Krialta?”

  Bart double-checked Carol’s reading and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Now this is starting to make sense. Gabe thought he’d found a temple.” Inana rummaged around further on the workspace, until she came up with a padd. “Yeah. He mentioned it to me, but the aerial survey didn’t indicate that any structures the size of a temple remained intact.”

  “But he still thought one had?” Carol asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If it’s putting out a field that’s affecting our equipment, he might be right. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest we get these three stones to that temple,” Bart
said. “Where did he think it was?”

  Inana pulled out the aerial survey of the site. It took her a moment, but she finally pointed to an area that, from the pictures, was overgrown by vegetation. “There. It’s about a kilometer from here.”

  “Then let’s go,” Corsi said.

  Grabbing four palm beacons from a supply table, Inana handed one to each of them as she said, “Carol, there’s an antivenin kit in that blue carry case. Bring it with us, just in case. Rain tends to bring out some of the meaner reptiles around here. Bart, there are blades for getting through the overgrown land areas against the cabinet. Bring as many as you can. We’ll get the other two stones on the way.”

  Sarjenka and Dantas led the way as their motley band of wounded trundled back toward the shuttles. When they finally arrived, Sarjenka opened the hatch on the Kwolek, while Dantas took the others to the Shirley.

  “Commander Data, could you please help me get Captain Picard in the rear of this shuttle? He’s got the more severe reaction. The others we should be able to treat in the other shuttle. There’s no room here with the supplies.”

  Sarjenka went into the forward part of the shuttle, hoping she might at least be able to get some power going to the equipment. She pressed every button she could reach, but nothing happened. They were stuck with what little light was coming in through the shuttle’s front window.

  “Here,” Data said. “Allow me.”

  Data tried everything she had, with the same lack of results. “Curious,” he said. Walking back to the rear section of the shuttle, he shifted some of the crates around, and then lifted a small door in the floor. He leaned over, taking a closer look. “Very curious.”

  He removed two leads from the floor, then opened a panel on his forearm and plugged the leads into the opening. “Very curious.”

  “What?”

  “The shuttle appears to be without power. I cannot locate a cause. I cannot even make a connection with the ship’s computer.”

  “The thoron field,” Sarjenka said, her resignation working its way into her voice. “It must have expanded.”

  Another image flashed in her mind at that point, bringing a stabbing pain with it. This time, it was the bridge of a Starfleet vessel—Galaxy-class if she remembered her ships of Starfleet course simulations correctly—and Captain Picard was standing front and center, disdain in his voice as he spoke to…Data…about her.

  In Sarjenka’s mind, the pieces began to fall into place like dominoes, and the wall that had been so carefully constructed fell. “I was on the Enterprise, wasn’t I? When you saved my world. Somehow, I ended up on the Enterprise with you and Data.”

  “Yes,” Picard said.

  “Why didn’t I remember it until now?”

  Data and Picard exchanged a look. The captain gave him a nod. “Tell her,” he said.

  Data opened his mouth, and then quickly closed it again. He seemed to think over just exactly what he was supposed to be telling her. Growing impatient, she decided to get the ball rolling. “Somehow, years ago, when you were orbiting Drema IV saving my world, I ended up being taken on board the Enterprise…with you, Commander. Who was the dark-haired woman?”

  Data’s eyebrows rose. “Counselor Troi? She was trying to help you, to take you to get a treat, but you would not leave my side.”

  “What about the distress call? We have no record of that.”

  Picard coughed, pulling himself up in the makeshift bed Data had put together in the back of the shuttle. When he was finally able to stop, his voice rasped as he said, “You.”

  Sarjenka’s eyes shot open. “What?”

  “Data,” Picard said, gesturing toward Sarjenka with a hand. “Tell her. She has a right to know everything now.”

  Machete in hand, Paul cut a swath through the forest ahead of Sonya. “Be careful,” he said. “The snakes around here get nasty in the rain.”

  Sonya swallowed hard, aiming the palm beacon straight down at the path ahead of her feet. A snake might not be able to bite through these boots, but this isn’t the way I want to find out. “So, how far ahead is the temple?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the mental image of a ground full of writhing serpents. It was giving her the creeps.

  “A few more meters,” Paul said.

  He took another step, and then stopped. When she raised her light to his face, he’d lifted a finger to his lips.

  She stopped as well, listening to the forest around them. In the distance, she could hear a cutting noise similar to Paul’s machete through the overgrowth. Paul drew the gun and pulled back the hammer, waiting. After the looters, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to be ready, and drew the gun she’d brought. She’d only fired a projectile weapon one time, back on Teneb, but she thought she could remember how to do it. Her sister had learned how to shoot a projectile weapon years ago, back on Vieques, thanks to their grandfather thinking Belinda more capable of taking care of things if the family were ever in danger.

  Belinda.

  The image of her sister’s mocking face reappeared in her mind. A hand touched her back, and Sonya’s mind screamed.

  Corsi, Carol, and Bart followed Inana through the forest from the work tent toward where the archaeologist believed the temple to be. The stones had been nowhere to be found in the work tent, but when Inana had seen two machetes gone and the trunk where Christine had placed the guns opened, she had immediately suspected someone was trying to get them to the temple as well. The weight of the stone was heavy in Carol’s hand as they walked, following the cut path as closely as they could.

  Until they all heard Sonya Gomez cry out.

  Then caution went to the wind, and the foursome ran down the path toward the sound of the scream. When they got there, Cunningham was standing silent, staring in amazement at Gomez, who had collapsed to the ground.

  “Paul!” Inana said, shaking him by the shoulders. “Paul! What’s happening? What happened to Commander Gomez?”

  Cunningham blinked, seeming to come out of a trance. “No,” he whispered. His right hand, which had been hanging at his side with the palm beacon on Sonya’s twisted grimace, opened further, and one of the stones fell to the grass at his feet.

  Inana picked it up, rolling it around in her hand. “Paul, this is the one you were working on. Where’s the third stone?”

  On the ground at his feet, Sonya was sobbing at something only she could see. She thrashed around for a moment, beating on Cunningham’s boots as though she were trying to beat an attacker. Paul didn’t even flinch.

  “Dr. Cunningham!” Corsi said, using the sharpest commanding tone Carol had ever heard out of the security chief. “Can you hear us?”

  “Gone,” Paul said. “It’s all gone.”

  “He’s having a hallucination,” Inana said. She quickly and carefully patted down both Cunningham and Sonya, looking for the third stone. Carol began to worry when Inana slowly rose back to her feet. “It’s not here.”

  “What?” Corsi said.

  “The looters. They must have taken it.”

  Carol could hear Corsi’s teeth grinding.

  “Inana,” Bart said, venturing into the conversation. “We need that third stone. The obelisk is clear on that much.”

  “I know. Gabriel doesn’t have it. We all agreed that the artifacts would remain in the work tent unless we were actively looking at them. Gabriel was only working with the one we have with us. The other two were supposed to be left in the work tent. If there’s only one there, then the looters must have gotten it.”

  Carol and Bart exchanged a puzzled look. “Nobody else could have been working on it?”

  Inana shook her head. “Paul was still cleaning and photographing the third one. The second one was in storage. If he’s only got one, the other’s gone.”

  Corsi trained her palm beacon back over the path, and then followed it with a resolute step.

  “Where are you going?” Carol asked.

  “To get Vale,” she replied. “We�
�ve got looters to find. If we can’t find them, we’re all screwed.”

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  This is TERRI OSBORNE’s third trip aboard the da Vinci, following Malefictorum (the landmark fiftieth installment of the S.C.E. series) and Progress (which kicked off the six-part What’s Past miniseries). Terri’s short fiction has appeared in the Star Trek anthologies Deep Space Nine: Prophecy and Change, New Frontier: No Limits, and Voyager: Distant Shores. Forthcoming are That Sleep of Death, the fourth part of the six-eBook Slings and Arrows, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation; and “Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen” in the Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership, both due out in spring of 2008. Terri is also working on several other projects that will take her to the Ireland of the past, the Mars of the future, and other places both near and far. Find out more at her website at www.terriosborne.com.