[2009: SEP-OCT] End of Days

[+ Kaedyn Zehn]

((IKS Reclaw))

“Help us,” the voice crackled, echoing around the dimly lit room, “Somebody... please help us.”

Jados, son of Heran, looked up from his computer and stared at the large object in the middle of the cargo hold. Finally, he had managed to interface with the mysterious device that they had found adrift in space.

Moments earlier he had been cursing his rotten luck. Had he been on a Starfleet vessel, he had no doubt that this would have been easier. Klingon ships rarely had the most rudimentary scientific equipment. He turned his attention back to his computer, desperate to make the device give up more of its secrets.

“Help us. Somebody... please help us.”

The terror in the woman’s voice, like nothing the young scientist had ever heard before, chilled Jados to his very core. Who was she? What did they need help from? He didn’t entirely understand the information readout on his monitor but from the numerical data it seemed likely that the message was the last file on the probe.

Engrossed in his research, Jados hadn’t noticed the doors to the cargo hold slide open or the massive hulk of a man that was the ship’s captain approaching him.

“You have been down here for hours, science officer,” he growled placing an emphasis on the young half-human’s job title. Klingon warriors did not become science officers; human half-breeds did.

“My apologies, Commander,” Jados said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Do you know what it is yet?” Kran demanded.

“It may be a communications device,” Jados began, “it’s actually quite interesting, it seems to be...”

The commander growled a string of colourful Klingon expletives. It was clear that he did not find a communications probe as interesting as a weapon or some artefact that could fetch a high price.

“So it is worthless?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” the young scientist replied, “I am waiting for the results of the dating analysis, but it appears to be several centuries old!”

“And?”

“W-w-with your permission,” Jados stammered, “I would like to keep studying it.”

“Do as you wish,” the Captain replied, “it is junk.”

As he turned to leave, Jados stood and took a few tentative paces towards him.

“One more thing, Commander... Have you ever heard of a race called the Fellarans?”

((Fellara Prime))

President Mor Hilarri looked out over the cheering crowd and grinned broadly. In many ways, it had felt as if the last few weeks had been a dream but here she was, delivering her first speech after becoming the first President of her people's newly formed World Government.

"We have overcome great challenges," she said into the microphone, "and we continue to face even greater challenges but we shall face them together, knowing in our hearts that we are stronger as a whole than we could be apart."

The crowd erupted into thunderous applause.

"I am excited," she said, struggling to be heard, "I say, I am excited to see what comes next. As our people look to the skies towards the new frontier and take our first tentative steps to other worlds, who knows what kind of wonders we will encounter. You've heard me say it before, and I have meant it every single time: the future begins today! Thank you."

Her husband and sons joined her on the stage and they waved into the vast expanse of the crowd for several minutes. In the corner of her eye, she spotted her chief of staff waiting at the side of the stage; his face was expressionless and jarred with the smiles that surrounded them. Maintaining her smile, she whispered to her husband and they exited the stage as quickly as they could without causing a stir.

"What is it?"

"You are going to want to see this," the Chief of Staff replied.

((IKS Reclaw))

“Fellarans? No, never heard of them,” the Commander replied.

“From some of the text that the computer has translated, it would appear that a race called the Fellarans created the probe,” Jados explained.

The Captain looked down at him for a moment as if pondering the question further. After a few moments, he shrugged and carried on out of the cargo bay, leaving his science officer alone.

Jados returned to his computer and ran a search in the ship’s database for any information on the Fellaran race. While it was certainly possible that it had came from far away, he shivered slightly that the way the commander had never heard of the race. Perhaps it was because of the message of terror that he had just heard.

As the computer search ran he stared at the probe.

((Fellara Prime))

The President entered her new office without time to take it all in. Many of her cabinet members were already there and she could tell from their body language that they weren't there to celebrate. The tension in the room was almost tangible.

"Surely there can't be an emergency already?"She asked, moving behind her large desk. "I've only been on the job for a few hours."

"We're not sure, Ma'am," her defence minister explained, "early this morning one of our satellites detected something strange in orbit."

She sat down at her desk, placing her hands in front of her and interlocking her fingers.

"I am going to need more information than that," she said, calmly.

"We believe it is a vessel..."

((IKS Reclaw))

Jados stared at his computer screen in wide-eyed wonder. He had managed to download hundreds of image files from the probe, the first of which was an image of a Fellaran. On the man’s hairless head, the skin was a pale yellow, which subtly changed to pale green at his neck. His eyes were much larger than most other races and were a dark shade of orange. The next image was a female, her features were more delicate and her skin was uniformly yellow.

Further images were of locations, presumably from their homeworld; buildings and works of art. He was incredibly taken with the images, which gave the impression of a peaceful people: there were no images of violence or war, as was the norm in Klingon art.

He felt as if he was discovering the race for the first time, like an exploring finding a hidden tribe in the middle a jungle. Although, he conceded, it felt more like unearthing a tomb.

((Fellara Prime))

The cabinet stared at the live satellite images of the object in orbit. It certainly looked like a vessel, and just from the design it didn't seem too friendly. So far their instruments could only tell that the object was in orbit, that it appeared to be made from a metal alloy that they had never encountered before and that it was giving off heat. Attempts at communications had been made, so far to no avail.

"Anything?" the President asked.

"Not yet," the Chief of Staff reported. "We are playing the greeting on a continuous loop now."

"Until it makes its intentions known, we must regard it as hostile," the defence minister muttered.

"Ma'am," her scientific advisor began, "we've spent a lot of time and resources building probes to send out into space. What's to say that what we're looking at isn't such a device? It would seem to be clear evidence of alien intelligence."

"That doesn't mean they aren't hostile," the defence minister shot back.

The President placed her elbows on the conference room table and briefly placed her face in her hands. Her cabinet fell silent as she looked up and stared at the image on the display.

"Why are you here? And what do you want?"

((IKS Reclaw))

No results.

The, albeit limited, ship’s database had no information on a race called the Fellarans. Crest-fallen, but still determined to find an answer to the historical puzzle that he had been presented with, Jados began to consider options to expand his search for information. He set up an interface with the Klingon archaeological database, which seemed the only Klingon route to find out more.

However, he was not just a son of Qo’nos but also of Earth and he knew that as noble and magnificent as his father’s race could be, his mother’s people had a much better aptitude for sciences. It was, perhaps, why becoming a science officer seemed to isolate him from other Klingons and highlight his mixed heritage. The Federation would not view the pursuit of this mystery as a waste of time or a flight of fancy.

He sent a message to the bridge requesting permission to contact the nearest Federation vessel regarding the probe and the race that he was desperate to find out more about. After explaining why he wanted to do so, and assuring the Commander that he was also exploring Klingon avenues of investigation, he was allowed to transmit his findings to the nearest Starbase. Now he had to wait for more answers and, in the meantime, continue to explore the contents of the probe.

((Fellara Prime))

There was a barely audible gasp of shock from the cabinet as the screen showed the image of an alien sitting in a darkened room. The poor lighting and dark shadows across its face only served to highlight the differences in its appearance from the Fellarans.

The President calmly rose to her feet, after several days of the mysterious object being in orbit, the aliens had finally made contact. This would be the most communication of her political career, her life and maybe that of her entire race.

“I am President Mor Hilarri of the Fellaran United Government.” She began.

The alien spoke in a low, unintelligible growl. A panel of experts, although such a thing scarcely existed in a society that had never encountered an alien race, had been brought in and were sitting around the walls of the room. The President glanced at the man who had been identified as an expert linguist. He was staring at the screen as the alien spoke.

“My apologies,” the President said in a calm, diplomatic voice, “we cannot understand your language yet.”

The alien continued to speak in its low, growl of harsh sounds.

“We are working to learn your language and hopefully we will be able to establish a dialogue...”

The screen went black.

“They have terminated the transmission,” the defence minister reported.

“That didn’t go very well,” the President said, slumping back into her chair and rubbing her left temple. This wasn’t how she had hoped to spend her first week in office. She had been elected on a global wave of optimism about the future. Her own optimism had begun to wane at the first sight of the mysterious object in the sky and had been all but destroyed by the failed communication.

“We will get to work immediately on analysing their transmission to see if we can do something with their language,” her Chief of Staff said, “I’m sure all such encounters are fraught with problems.”

“I hope so,” the President sighed.

((IKS Reclaw))

Jados was excited when the computer reported that his analysis into the age of the probe was complete. It had taken the computer on the old Bird-of-Prey longer than he had expected to conduct the analysis but now he had the results.

Two hundred and fifty years old.

He leaned back in his chair and stared over at the large probe. He had detected no evidence of warp drive, so assuming that it hadn’t passed through any spatial phenomena and that it had been launched not long after construction, he could determine an area of space that it could have theoretically came from.

He was an important step closer to his puzzle.

((Fellara Prime))

In the small library adjacent to her large office, Mor Hilarri sat in darkness. Moments earlier, her Chief of Staff had reported that the satellite network had detected additional vessels in the Fellaran system. As yet, all attempts to communicate with the aliens that now seemed to fill their skies had failed.

She held her head in her hands, tears filling her eyes. It wasn’t meant to be like this, she continued to think, her people were supposed to have a bright future. They were supposed to be boldly stepping into that future together after having been divided for so long. She had been prepared for that but she wasn’t prepared for this.

They were truly staring into the abyss and, it appeared, the abyss was staring back.

((IKS Reclaw))

The results from the Federation Starbase had come earlier than Jados had expected. A tribute, perhaps, to the efficiency and scientific aptitude of humans that he prided himself as having inherited.

He was pleased to finally have some information about this race, although was quickly disappointed at the brevity of the findings. Most of what Starfleet had sent he had been able to determine or at least guess from the probe: they were a humanoid species that didn’t appear to have access to warp-drive and their homeworld was believed to be in or near modern-day Klingon space.

He felt a jolt of shock as he read the final line of the report.

“...believed to have been wiped out by the Hur’q.”

That he could cry at all was testament to his human side; that his eyes filled with tears was yet another aspect of him that was decidedly un-Klingon.

((Fellara Prime))

“I want to issue an Executive Order: only good news from now on,” the President said, as she entered her office, “is this good news?”

She could tell by the faces of the assembled staff that it wasn’t.

“Ma’am,” the defence minister began, “we’ve lost contact with the Colony.”

She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. The first Fellaran off-world colony, on a neighbouring planet, was the pinnacle of her people’s technological advances and a symbol of their future successes.

“Are the aliens blocking our transmissions?”

“No,” the defence minister said, “the communication relay station is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Approximately one hour ago,” her Chief of Staff began, “communications with the colony ceased. The space agency believed it to be a technical malfunction, possibly related to the presence of the alien vessel. A nearby satellite was diverted to the area to scan for the communication relay and found that the relay is missing from its geostationary position. Further scans have shown no sign of the relay station.”

“What was the crew complement of the relay station?” The President asked.

“47”

She sighed, placed the palms of her hands on the desk and stood up slowly.

“Please have the appropriate people join us in the war room.”

((IKS Reclaw))

It had been a few days since the message from the Federation, which had left Jados so depressed. He had continued to trawl through the archives of the probe and while he had been amazed at the art, music and literature that the Fellarans had created, everything was tinged with sadness. He was picking through the archives of a long dead people.

He would never look a Fellaran in the face and tell them that he had found their probe. He wondered whether any other races had contacted them before the Hur’q came. Had they been alone until then? A single planet all alone in the darkness.

((Fellara Prime))

“How can the whole colony be gone?”

There was a tense silence in the room as everyone came to the same realisation.

“It must have been destroyed from orbit,” the scientific advisor began.

“Which means,” the defence minister interrupted, “they have weaponry far beyond anything we have.”

The President felt faint. If these aliens could destroy a colony from orbit then they could easily target the planet and there was little or no resistance that could be offered.

“Ma’am,” one of the military officers spoke up, “We have an incoming transmission from the aliens.”

“Let’s hear it!” she snapped.

The image of the alien room appeared on the monitor. It was standing now, and the room was bathed in a brighter red light.

“Surrender,” the alien growled.

((IKS Reclaw))

It was with less excitement that Jados began reading the information sent from Klingon Archaeology society. Much of the information was the same as Starfleet had provided, but there were some important addition details: most notably, the location of their homeworld.

The planet, known to its original inhabitants as Fellara, was called Korch’eth by the Klingons and was the location of a major dolamide mining operation. The planet had become little more than a giant mine and had been for more than a hundred years.

“Well isn’t that convenient,” he muttered, “we get to build weapons and all it took was for the Fellarans to be wiped out...”

He was stopped by a thought that he couldn’t bring himself to think.

“No...”

((Fellara Prime))

“You will surrender yourself to us,” the deep voice rasped, “this planet belongs to us.”

The President rose to her feet.

“We will not surrender,” she said defiantly, “this is our home and we will not allow you to take it from us.”

“Then for you, today is a good day to die.”

The screen went black again...

((IKS Reclaw))

Jados stared at the probe, the realisation slamming into him like a shuttlecraft as he confirmed his findings. The probe was definitely less than 300 years old. The Hur’q had terrorised this area of space more than a millennia ago: they would have been long gone by the time the probe was launched.

“Help us. Somebody... please help us.”

The voice echoed through his head and he stumbled away from the probe. Where was the honour in this act? How could it be justified? How would he be able to deal with this? He caught sight of himself in a reflective computer panel and for the first time in his life the man with the ridged forehead looking back at him seemed monstrous.

“Help us. Somebody... please help us.”