Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [34]
Janeway began to wonder if these people hadn't been given some of their tools and technology, which seemed to postdate their lifestyle and brutish physiology considerably. It was possible the Televek had been here for quite some time.
When they completed their circle, the Drenarians held utterly still, as if they were waiting for something to happen, waiting for some kind of sign. Nothing moved. Even the breeze seemed to have died.
"Their actions tend to indicate that they are motivated by curiosity rather than hostility," Tuvok suggested.
"I agree," Janeway said. "That could be some kind of attack formation, but they don't look like a trained army. If they were, I don't think so many of them would have died the last time they tried this."
"The last time?" Kim asked.
"We have seen no deaths," Tuvok pointed out, still watching the Drenarians below. "To what are you referring?"
"I've seen these people before, in... in a dream. A vision, you might say. They died horribly. Phaser burns all over their bodies.
Chakotay has seen them too. I suspect the Televek were responsible.
Or will be. I have no way of knowing if, or when, those events took place."
The crouched Drenarians began inching closer to the shuttle now, drawing the circle smaller.
"But you suspect that what you saw has already happened?" Tuvok asked.
"I don't know, but it's certainly possible."
"If that is true, I am surprised they would come so near something like the shuttle," Tuvok said.
"So am I," Janeway replied. "They're either very brave and curious or utterly foolish."
One of the men had finally reached the shuttle. He used the tip of his knife to poke at its hull just aft of the port nacelle.
When nothing happened, he struck the hull solidly, producing a metallic thrum that echoed across the field. He drew back, startled, a motion imitated by the others, but their trepidation lasted only a moment. As they all drew near again another male began trying to work the tip of his blade into the seam along the edge of the rear hatch.
"They don't waste any time, do they?" Kim noted.
"Remarkable," Tuvok said.
"They're clever, from what I can see," Janeway muttered. "I doubt they have the means to get inside. Still, they could conceivably do more damage if we let them poke around long enough."
"But if they did get inside..." Kim said.
Before anyone could say another word they heard the quake. A low, distant rumble at first, it grew rapidly, approaching from several directions at once as the ground beneath their feet began to twitch.
The noise and the shaking seemed to build on each other as the quake rushed upward from the planet's crust, then swept through the bluff beneath their feet, knocking them to the ground.
"Grab on to something!" Janeway shouted, wrapping her arms around the smooth trunk of a stout young tree, pulling herself close to it as the growl of shaking earth became deafening. A hundred meters north of the shuttle the grasses abruptly heaved upward as a vast area of bedrock was pushed several meters skyward. An adjacent strip of land seemed to vanish entirely.
As Janeway watched the split in the earth travel still farther northward, racing toward the horizon, she felt thankful it had not come the other way and swallowed the shuttle whole. Below, the Drenarians were scrambling to gather together in the open.
They huddled close to the waving grasses, watchful of developing dangers. So helpless, Janeway thought, and no doubt frightened.
How could they understand what was happening to their world? As it was, with all the resources of Voyager at her disposal, she wasn't certain herself.
Suddenly Janeway felt the ground directly under her feet start to move.
Behind her a series of loud, echoing cracks sounded as trees began to snap in half. Then the tree trunk she was clinging to began to rise.
"Head for open ground!" she commanded, updating her strategy, pointing to the Drenarians. There wasn't any choice.