The forest was
quiet, save for the sounds of the wind blowing through the evergreen branches,
the birds singing and the occasional rustle of the leaves on the forest floor
as small quadruped animals scurried about, burying nuts for the approaching
winter.
The quiet was
soon overshadowed by a dim hum that grew progressively louder. Several of the rodent-like creatures popped
their heads up in curiosity and alarm before running off as bright light filled
a small clearing in the woods and six people materialized on the planet’s
surface.
As the hum of the
transporter faded, Commander Alasdair Wallace removed his tricorder from under
the heavy jacket he wore over his uniform and started scanning the vicinity
while Commander Tom Paris looked around the scene, taking a deep breath of the
fresh, oxygen-rich air, slowly releasing it in a cloud of condensed breath.
“There’s a slight
chill in the air,”
“Aye, tis a wee
bit nippy,” Wallace agreed as he completed his scan. “Temperature is 4.4o Celsius. Air is oxygen/nitrogen, just as th’ ship’s
sensor’s reported. Oxygen percentage
slightly higher than Earth’s atmosphere.
Local time is almost high noon, so I don’ think it’ll be getting’ much
warmer than this, Commander.”
As Wallace
continued to give his preliminary report, the other four members of the away
team, Starfleet Marine Gunnery Sergeant Christopher O’Laughin and three members
of the USS Dauntless’ Fleet Space
Cadet unit,
“Are there any
people here?” Cadet Clark asked as he handed another tricorder to Gunny O’Laughlin. The Marine non-com slung his compression
rifle, which he called Betty, over his shoulder and accepted the device as he
replied.
“Naw. The Cap’n said this planet is uninhabited, ‘cept
for lower life forms. That’s why the Cap’n
agreed t’ let you cadets join the away team and perform the survey. Nothin’ here much bigger than a dog.”
Almost as if in
response to the Marine’s words, a small creature covered in pure white fluffy fur
stepped out of the brush at the edge of the clearing. It stared at the away team with dark, almost
black eyes for a moment before giving off a yip-like bark, its pink tongue
hanging out of its mouth as its curled white tale started wagging back and
forth. The whole animal was not more
than thirty centimeters long from its black nose to its curled tail.
“Oh my God, it is
so cute!” Cadet Koester squealed before dropping to one knee facing the
dog-like creature and holding out a hand toward it.
“Careful, Cadet,”
“But it’s only a
puppy,” Gem said as she gestured for the animal to come closer. It quickly hopped into the clearing, running
around and around Gem, under her bent leg and over her foot, before finally
coming to a stop right in front of her, its tail still wagging furiously, its
mouth looking like a silly grin as it panted happily. Gem reached into one of the packs the away
team had beamed down with and pulled out an emergency ration bar, ripping open
its wrapper and breaking off a chunk.
The dog-like animal reacted immediately, its look becoming intense as it
sat back on it’s haunches like a well trained pooch. The other two cadets laughed as Gem fed the ration
to the creature.
“Great, now it’ll
never leave us alone,” O’Laughlin remarked to Wallace.
Space,
the Final Frontier…
These
are the voyages of the starship Dauntless!
Star
Trek: Dauntless
“Nanook” By PJK
“Status?” Captain
K’danz requested as she stepped out on the bridge, quickly grabbing the
tactical console when the Dauntless
shuddered unexpectedly.
“We’ve gotten
caught in an unexpected ion storm, Captain,” Lieutenant Tom Riker replied from
his post at ops. “Came up on us before
we knew it.”
“The ship is
handling the storm alright, but I had to take down certain systems,” Commander
Dar, the starship’s half-Klingon chief engineer and K’danz’s husband reported.
“What systems?” K’danz
asked as she sat in the center seat and turned to face the engineer.
“I’ve re-routed
power from the holodecks and all the replicators on non-crew quarter decks to
supplement the shields. And of course we
won’t be able to use the transporter or launch or recover any shuttlecraft
until after the storm dissipates.”
And how long do
we expect this storm to last?” K’danz asked as the starship shuddered
unexpectedly again.
“Current
estimates indicate the ion storm will continue for at least the next eighteen
to thirty six hours,” reported Commander T’Ashara from her post at the science
console.
“Has anyone
informed the away team yet?”
“I was just about
to, Captain,” Riker replied.
*
* * *
“Daun…ss to aw.. ..am,” said the
static-filled voice of Riker over
“This is
“That’s b….se we’re
in the mi… of an ion stor., Com….er. We’re
try..ng to boost our gain. How are you
re..ing now?”
“A little better,”
“Affirmative. It looks like we won’t be able to beam you b..k
aboard for a while.”
Paris sighed as
he looked over to where their equipment, having finished their survey, had been
packed up to await their return of the ship and at the three teenaged cadets
happily playing with their newfound friend, who never left Koester’s side
throughout the entire mission. “How long
is a while?” he asked.
“Prob…y about a
day,” Riker replied. “We’ll keep you
informed. Dauntless, out.”
“Break out the
survival tents, Gentlemen. Look like we’re
spending the night.”
*
* * *
An hour later, as
night started to fall, three tents were assembled around a circle of stones
which contained a roaring fire. The away
team had decided to make the best of the situation and turned the mission into
a camping outing, Gunny O’Laughlin telling some old ghost stories around the
campfire.
“…And when they
got home, there was a hook
attached to the door handle!” O’Laughlin said, ending the story with a maniacal
laugh. Both Gem and Emma gave the
obligatory screams, causing the little white dog-like creature who had curled
up by Gem’s feet, to look up, his ears fully raised and a look of curiosity on
his face, before all six members of the away team broke out in laughter.
“Ooh, look!” Emma
Foster said as she pointed toward the sky.
Everyone looked skyward to see what looked like glowing curtains of
light filling the sky with green, gold and blue radiance.
“Northern lights,”
“Borealis effect,
caused by th’ ion storm th’ planet is passin’ though hittin’ th’ atmosphere,”
Wallace explained as he too watched the lights dance across the sky.
“Is the ship up
there in that?” Chris Clark asked. “Do
you think we can see it?”
“Too small to
see, Cadet,”
“Aye,” Wallace
agreed.
Suddenly the
quiet of the camp was broken by a low, deep, menacing growl coming from the
woods just outside the light given off by the campfire. Wallace immediately grabbed his tricorder and
started scanning as O’Laughlin picked up Betty and held the weapon at the
ready.
“I’m detectin’ a
life-form readin’, Commander,” Wallace said.
“Though just barely. Whatever it
is seems t’ have a natural ability t’ avoid detection.”
As everyone
strained to look into the darkness, the growl could be heard to move closer to
the clearing. Suddenly the little
dog-like animal stood up, staring into the darkness from which the growl had
come, and started barking.
“Shhh!” Gem
implored the little animal, but it just continued barking. Frustrated, she grabbed the animal and shoved
him into her sleeping bag, zipping it closed and tossing it into the tent she
shared with Foster, but its muted barking could still be heard.
“Where is it?”
“Hard t’
tell. Like I said, I’m barely readin’
it. It could be anywhere from five to
fifty meters away.”
The growl sounded
again from a slightly different direction before it was replaced by the sound
of large feet moving through the brush.
The bushes at the edge of the clearing started to rustle and finally
parted to admit a huge bear-like creature into the firelight.
The animal
resembled an Earth polar bear and, as it stood up on its two hind legs, the
away team could see it was at least four and a half meters tall and weighed
more than nine hundred kilograms. It
roared as it looked at the startled humans.
O’Laughlin was
the first to fire, sending a compressed phaser beam into the creature’s chest,
allowing the three teenaged cadets close to where it had emerged to scramble
behind the three adult men. But while
the phaser beam singed the creature’s fur, it did little else to the animal
except enrage it further. As both Paris
and Wallace started firing their own hand phasers at it, the bear-like creature
charged into the clearing and leapt over the campfire, attacking
“Phasers aren’t
hurtin’ it, Mister Wallace,” O’Laughlin said with a hint of desperation in his
normally steady voice. Meanwhile
Wallace looked at
his useless phaser before throwing it to the ground and pulling out his
tricorder once again. He quickly started
pressing buttons on the panel and the device started beeping what sounded like
a countdown. Silently, the science
officer counted off in his head before tossing the tricorder toward the
creature and yelling, “Everyone, close your eyes!” A moment later, the tricorder emitted a bright
flash and piercing noise as its circuits overloaded, a makeshift flash/bang
grenade. Startled, the bear-like
creature released
“Thank you,
Alasdair,” the first officer said before assuring everyone he was alright, only
suffering a few scratches.
“Is it gone?”
Cadet Foster asked, peering off into darkness where the creature had
disappeared.
“Yeah,” O’Laughlin
answered, his face a scowl. “But
probably not for long.”
* * * *
Both Gem and O’Laughlin
had started dressing Commander Paris’ wounds as Wallace tried to contact the Dauntless.
“We still can’t
beam you back yet,” K’danz’s voice said.
“T’Ashara says the storm is decreasing, but the transporter is still
inoperative for at least the next six hours.
How badly hurt is Tom?”
“Not too badly,”
“Aye, I think the
“What was it?” K’danz
asked. “I thought our initial orbital
survey indicated no large life-forms?”
“It was big and
hairy, is best I can describe, Cap’n. An’
it barely registered on close-range scans, so that may be why we didn’ detect
it from orbit. I only hope there aren’t
a lot of them around here.”
“Well, Dar is
trying his best to modify the pattern buffer to compensate for the ion storm,
but he’s dealing with a lot of peripheral damage too. If we can bring you back aboard early, we’ll
let you know. Dauntless, out.”
“Well, it looks
like we’re stuck here a little longer,” Wallace remarked, addressing his fellow
away team members.
Suddenly, Gem’s
puppy-like companion started barking again, staring off into the darkness of
the woods in a different direction then where the bear had disappeared. Gem, leaving O’Laughlin to continue bandaging
Commander Paris, tried to catch the little dog and shut him up when the bear,
its chest still burned and blackened by the Marine’s compression rifle, jumped
into the circle of firelight only meters from the young woman. Koester froze in fear as Emma Foster
screamed.
The bear growled
again, sniffing the air and looking around before its gaze settled on Paris and
O’Laughlin, apparently drawn by the scent of the first officer’s wounds. It roared again, its fetid breath filling the
air, before starting to move toward the two men.
Gem’s little
companion, which had been barking madly since the bear-like creature appeared,
ran around in front of it, continuing to bark.
The bear seemingly ignored him as it stalked toward the two unarmed men,
O’Laughlin having made the mistake of leaving Betty leaning against the tent he
was to have shared with Cadet Clark when he retrieved his first aid kit. Gem moved to grab the puppy away, but was
held back by Wallace, who had moved around the campfire when the creature had
reappeared.
“But he’ll be
killed!” Gem pleaded.
“So will you,”
Wallace implored.
The little puppy
continued to bark incessantly as the bear-thing moved forward, the fur on his
back starting to bristle. Still ignored,
the animal’s bark turned into a growl and, to everyone’s amazement, the little
dog started to grow.
“What…? What’s happening?” Gem asked, her eyes wide.
“I dunno…,”
Wallace replied with amazement.
As the away team
watched in amazement, the little dog-like creature morphed into another bear,
only imperceptibly smaller than the first bear-thing. It roared at the first, displaying a mouth
full of sharp white fangs, before emitting its own growl.
The first
bear-thing stood up on its hind legs again, displaying its awesome height,
before lunging to attack the second bear-thing.
The two creatures grappled with one another, both slicing with long,
sharp claws and trying to bite. The two
creatures rolled around over and under one another, crushing the tent Paris and
Wallace would have shared, continuing to slash and bite, their roars and
screams filling the chilly night air.
All the away team could do was watch in horrified fascination and stay
out of the creatures ways, backing to the very edge of the campfire light as
far from the wrestling beasts as they could.
Finally, after
several minutes of fighting, one of the bear-creatures broke free, whimpering
in pain, and ran off into the woods, a trail of blood marking its path across
the ground. The second bear-thing
growled in the direction of its fleeing foe one last time, then turned to face
the away team. All six humans started at
it wide-eyed until its tongue flopped out of its mouth and it started panting
with a silly grin on its face. Slowly
the creature shrunk, until it was once again the size of a small dog, its head
cocked to the side with an expression of curiosity.
“Uh… Commander,
sir… Did that thing just… I mean…,” O’Laughlin stammered.
“Yes. Yes it did,”
“Good boy!” Gem
squealed with glee as she held out her arms, prompting the little animal to run
over and jump up on her leg. The
teenaged cadet reached down and held the animal in her arms, scratching behind
his ears as it happily licked her face. “Can
we keep him, Commander? Please?”
“You’re joking,
right?”
*
* * *
Several hours
later, the transporter aboard the Dauntless
hummed to life and the away team and their equipment materialized on the
platform. Immediately Doctor Justin
MacMillan and his staff surrounded
“How is everyone?”
she asked with concern.
“A wee bit
chilly, bu’ otherwise fine, Cap’n,” Wallace explained, already taking off his
jacket and handing it to a nearby ensign.
As the rest of the team did likewise, K’danz was surprised to see a
small white furry animal that looked like a dog in
“Cadet Koester,
why have you brought that animal aboard my ship?” the captain asked.
Gem looked over
toward Wallace with an expression that bordered on fear.
“Commander Paris
an’ I agreed she could keep th’ animal, Cap’n,” Wallace explained. “We didn’t want to upset him.”
“Upset him?” K’danz
asked, confused. “Why would you be
worried if he was upset?”
“Truthfully, Cap’n,
we were afraid if we tried to leave the wee creature behind, it might have
gotten angry.”
K’danz stared at
her chief science officer, but when no further explanation appeared imminent,
she dropped the matter, turning instead to Cadet Koester.
“Well, it appears
you have a new pet. You’re going to take
proper care of it I hope,” K’danz admonished.
“Very good care,
Captain,” Gem agreed, hugging the puppy closely.
“Very well. Does he have a name yet?” K’danz asked as she
reached over and started scratching the dog between its ears.
“Yes. I call him Nanook,” Gem replied before
grabbing her equipment and heading out toward the quarters she shared with the
ship’s counselor, Tanzia Gera.
“Nanook? That’s a strange name for a dog,” K’danz said
to Wallace and O’Laughlin after all the cadets had left the transporter room.
“Actually, Cap’n,
it’s quite fitting,” O’Laughlin said. “It’s
an old Inuit Eskimo word.”
“What does it
mean?” the captain asked.
Wallace and O’Laughlin
exchanged looks before the science officer finally replied.
“Master of Polar
Bears,” he explained.
The End
Return to 2385.
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