The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [51]
“I understand that too, sir.” La Forge looked around the bridge at his crewmates and friends. He wasn’t as self-conscious as he thought he’d be, arguing with the captain in front of everyone. “I know you could say they’ve survived over six hundred years, they can get by for another day. But when I think of the Narsosian I found, her body by the beacon…I just don’t want any of them waiting anymore.”
Picard exchanged a look with Riker. Then he nodded his head with a smile. “How can I stand in the way of such enthusiasm? Lieutenant Commander La Forge, you will take an away team into the clouds of Askaria.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Picard turned toward the screen, watching the orbiting scramjets. “We don’t know how they’re living down there. I’m reluctant to have you fly in.” He looked back at La Forge. “Your team will beam over to one of the scramjets and use its elevator. Knock on their front door, if you will.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Take Mister Worf and Counselor Troi with you.” Picard looked at Riker. “I’m confident you can handle the first contact, Will. Just get another security officer to accompany you and Data.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Everyone dismissed. It’s time we introduced ourselves.”
“Warning: oxygen supply is critical. Refill now.”
La Forge took a deep breath, knowing it might be his last. He looked around the sky as best he could, hoping to see a shuttle appear. Nothing.
And then movement. A shape appeared from the clouds, rushing toward him. His spirits soared, and he felt as though he’d gotten a shot of tri-ox.
“Over here!” he yelled, then laughed at himself. Yelling wouldn’t help over a comm signal, and he was the only thing here, easy to spot hanging from the inflated shelter. Besides, odds were they’d picked him up with sensors, not just stumbled upon him in this vast atmosphere. He looked forward to the teasing Riker would give him when he heard about it. Maybe it was Riker himself piloting the shuttle.
But then the shape dissolved into several shapes. Dozens of shapes. There was no shuttle.
A group of flying creatures banked away from him, then swerved back again. They looked like manta rays, broad and flat, their wings at least three meters wide. They were tan on the underside and blue on the top, camouflaged to blend with the clouds. The mantas dove beneath him and raced away as more animals burst from the same cloud bank, clearly in pursuit.
These creatures were long and slender, squidlike, with more than half of their eight-meter length made up of tentacles streaming behind them. They were pinkish in color, indicating they probably spent more time higher up in the reddish clouds. There was a dark hump on their back by the tentacles. Along the tops and sides of their bodies were clusters of small appendages, grouped around a central protrusion; on every squid several of these protrusions extruded a yellowish, ropelike substance into the air.
Confused, La Forge kicked his legs, burning precious oxygen to get a better look at the squids—six of them had appeared from the cloud—as they pursued the mantas. His eyes followed the ropes upward. High above he saw the ropes attached to what looked like large billowing parachutes made of the same substance as the ropes. As he stared at the parachutes, one of them tilted, seemed to hang in the sky. Following its ropes downward, he saw that one of the squids had fanned out its tentacles, forcing itself into a wide, high arc as the small appendages on one side of its body reeled in rope to the protrusion, which now looked more like a mouth devouring the yellowish substance.
Finally he understood that the squids were actually flying on silken sails that they wove and controlled, directing them to different atmospheric layers and winds as needed. The squid that now pirouetted toward him was apparently coming for a closer look, maybe to see if he’d be tastier than a manta.
Shifting his