DISCLAIMER: The following is fan fiction utilizing events and characters from the "Star Trek" television series along with material from a few of the feature films. It is fan fiction only… there is NO intent here to collect income or infringe on the trademarks, copyrights, or patented work of others. Please DO NOT use this material for anything other than pure reading enjoyment. If you have been missing at least occasional new "Star Trek" episodes in your life, this is the place to come.
Star Trek: Dark Archon
I have not kept up with the "Star Trek" novels the past few years. Since many of the book plots have at times varied from what we see on screen anyway, this storyline is based primarily upon the episodes that we have viewed at home on TV and the movies we've watched while munching popcorn in the movie theatres. Be prepared, there's more than one SURPRISE coming… starting right now! It may not be completely clear at first as to just what exactly is taking place, but that's part of the fun… isn't it? Feel free to review away, by the way… if you post spoilers I fully expect they will attract additional curious readers to the party!
Chapter I: Staging Ground
The piercing cries of the unknown animals snapped him back to attention, and the only thing that was certain in the human's mind as he ran through the frozen wasteland in front of him was that the planet he stood upon was freezing cold. Everything else was a complete enigma, beginning with his immediate surroundings.
Where the hell am I?
The human shook off the confusion, his years of training automatically controlling the instinctive urge to panic. Behind him, the continuing shrieks of the unknown creatures pursuing him cut through the chilly morning air and generated another adrenalin surge… driving him onward in his race to survive. The ongoing puzzlement lingered in his mind as he fought his way through frost covered bushes sprouting what looked to be tropical leaves. All of the vegetation surrounding him, in fact, appeared to be plant life that would more commonly be found in a much warmer environment.
Except – according to the current weather conditions – his surroundings were no longer even close to anything resembling a tropical environment.
All of the trees, leaves and other brightly colored red, green, and yellow foliage now appeared to be dying from the glittering, thick morning frost that coated them so spectacularly. Under different circumstances the frozen jungle surrounding him would have provided him with both a remarkable view and a puzzle to analyze. Right now there was no time to do anything except react to what was happening around him. The adult human's memory was filled with conflicting chaotic sounds and images – he had no recent recollection of anything other than awakening to the sound of the beasts that now chased him. It was completely astonishing; he was running for his life on a planet whose environment made absolutely no sense to him.
Glancing down at the jacket he wore the familiar insignia of a Starfleet badge reflected the new day's sunlight back up into his eyes. A virtual sea of memories flooded back into his thoughts, and again the human wondered how he had ended up on this planet. He quite literally had no idea what was taking place; only an intuitive certainty that his life was in grave danger. What pursued him was primeval and savagely wild; the beasts that chased him intended to kill him without a second thought and then feast on his dead body.
I'm a Starfleet officer and the Captain of a starship. Or at least I used to be.
He remembered that startling fact suddenly, his memory jarred by the familiar shape and gold coloring of the badge. Clouds of white mist poured out of his mouth as he exhaled and, glancing up briefly, the human noticed a large gap in the tree line ahead. He paused for a moment to think, continuing to gasp for breath as his body tried to adjust to the unexpected exertion of the all out sprint. The screams of the animals chasing him continued, growing louder with each passing second. The Captain could hear them crashing through the underbrush just as he had, except that the speed they moved at was substantially quicker than his own irregular pace.
The human breathed deeply for a few seconds longer and then leaped into the air, grabbing onto a frozen, low hanging tree branch and letting his weight – more than a few pounds too heavy for this kind of workout – pull it free. The heavy piece of wood separated from the tree with a loud crack and the Captain hefted the makeshift club with the first glowing embers of a growing confidence. I may be a bit out of shape, he thought calmly to himself, but I'm still going to make certain I put up a decent fight.
Ahead of him some sort of dinosaur appeared in the clearing he had spotted – it appeared to be a velociraptor or at the very least something remarkably similar. The beast was almost 2 meters in height, covered with dark, mottled reptilian scales and it hissed at him and opened its mouth to reveal razor sharp teeth. Breath misted in front of its nose as the creature first exhaled, then shrieked in rage at his presence. It waved its arms at him and flexed its claws – the muscle structure running along its hind legs looked to be tremendously strong and there were sharp claws also to be found on its hind feet dug deeply into the frozen ground upon which it stood.
Those other animals chased me this way deliberately and herded me right into a trap, the Captain realized grimly. Determined to survive at any cost, he raised the tree branch and set his feet firmly in the ground… to lose one's footing now would mean instant death. Accepting his challenge, the dinosaur launched itself at him with a speed that was unbelievably swift – the Captain saved himself only by instinctively swinging his club without hesitation. The frosted, broken end of the tree branch connected solidly against the side of the beast's head and forced its direct frontal attack toward the Starfleet officer's left.
Both man and beast landed together on the ground in a tangle of arms and limbs, and the dinosaur's left arm took a vicious swipe at the officer's ribs and tore long gashes into his side. Uttering a cry of agony, the Captain kicked angrily at the beast and shoved himself away from it. His intelligence and training allowed him to recover more quickly than the stunned animal, and he nimbly sprang to his feet and swung the club harder this time – again connecting with its skull. The dinosaur's cry was shriller as it howled in pain, but it shrugged off both attacks and attempted to regain its footing. Bright red drops of the officer's blood spattered onto the white, frost-covered ground in front of him and the human stood – stunned – and stared at the unexpected sight for a brief moment. The abruptness of his injury was staggering, and he felt the first signs of light-headedness that indicated the onset of shock.
Crying out with rage and fierce determination, the Captain swung his makeshift club at the animal again – so hard this time that the heavy tree branch cracked cleanly in half. Stunned, the reptilian creature dropped to the ground and writhed in agony as it tried to recover from the severe beating that it had received. Behind them, the sounds of the other pursuing beasts were now so close that the human was left with little choice. He dropped the remnants of his club and ran for the open clearing, sprinting as fast as his feet would carry him on the slippery frozen ground. He exploded out from the trees onto what should have been dark rocky soil, but the freezing temperatures had coated everything with frost or – in this case – a thin layer of ice. As though running on broken glass, the Captain's feet left spiderweb-like cracks in the ground wherever he stepped. The ice was not nearly thick enough to hold his weight, but fortunately it was not slippery enough to slow his progress significantly.
Ahead of him was a very long frozen riverbed stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions. The surface of the river had long since frozen over as a result of the subzero weather. The morning sun was beating down on the surface of the ice, creating huge clouds of drifting foggy mist very similar to the result of dumping dry ice in a bucket of water. The thickness of the ice was unknown at present – the Captain couldn't even see it in fact. Based on the angry cries of the animals steadily approaching from the rear he did not hesitate for an instant. Ripping off a section of his torn shirt as he continued to run the man from Starfleet pressed the fabric firmly against the wounds along his left side and disappeared into the center of the fog and emerged onto the frozen river.
The icy surface felt firm enough beneath his feet until he ran out several dozen meters. The unnerving sound of the frozen surface cracking as he moved spurred the human along at full speed, and for a moment he actually felt confident that he could reach the opposite bank before the pursuing creatures caught him again. Once more his unique, innate ability to sense danger saved him, and he lunged to his right as a dark shape materialized out of the mist behind him. A dinosaur skidded past him on the ice and its greater weight shattered the cracked ice upon which he had just stood. Screaming in rage the animal plunged into the frozen water below and then resurfaced almost immediately with an additional howl of anger. The claws from its arms dug noticeable trails into the ice surrounding the hole it had created as it struggled to free itself, but the human didn't wait around to see whether or not the beast was successful in escaping.
Returning his attention toward what he believed was the opposite side of the river he continued running, doing his best as he progressed to catch a glimpse of anything more than a meter or two in front of him. Approximately three meters above him the Captain could see the bright intensity of the sunlight beaming down from a cloudless blue sky, but virtually everything else below that height was completely obscured in the swirling haze of white fog. Occasionally he would cross areas where the mist temporarily cleared for a brief moment in time, but moving toward those spots always led him back out into the intense sunlight. Wherever the rays from the hot sun struck the ice, more of the hazy vapor could immediately be seen rising from the river's frozen surface.
The stranded dinosaur's shrieks had stopped and left in their wake an eerie stillness. The human paused for a moment before adjusting his direction once more. The ice beneath his feet continued cracking under his weight, breaking the brief period of silence almost immediately. Angry but determined he kept his pace rapid and continued moving in what he hoped was the right direction. It was impossible to see the far side of the river so he had absolutely no idea how far he had to go in order to reach it. As if things weren't difficult enough, the brief fight with the dinosaur and continuing loss of blood had disoriented him to the point where he wasn't even certain he was still running in the correct direction. Getting lost within the fog bank had been a tactical risk, but that too was giving him a chance to escape pursuit. Unfortunately for him, if the creatures that pursued him were like others of their kind, they would most probably navigate by scent.
A stiff breeze was blowing across the river and the Captain realized that he was not even close to being dressed for weather of this kind. He hastily finished tying the strip from his uniform around his wound and then blew harshly into his fingers to try and warm them with his breath. That was when another of the dinosaurs appeared suddenly from out of the mist, howling with delight at its surprise appearance in front of its helpless prey. It knocked the Captain flat on his back and he slid across the ice, hearing the ominous sounds of additional cracking beneath him. Rising immediately to his knees and then rolling to his left he managed to side step yet another attack. Two dinosaurs passed close by him this time, and as they stood together howling at him they too plunged through the ice and into the frozen water beneath.
The Captain continued crawling across the cracking ice for another ten minutes or so until he reached a sandy shore. It was possible he had arrived at the very same side of the river he had recently departed from, there was simply no way to tell. Behind him the shrieks of anger from the drowning dinosaurs gradually faded away… to his relief there was no further sign of pursuit. Emerging onto the frozen sand of the river bank the human forced himself to stand. His eyes scanned a nearby tree line carefully, and – when there were no indications of danger – he moved toward the closest tree and snapped off another branch large enough to serve as a new club. This limb was longer than the first one he had selected, so he stepped on it near the bottom and snapped off a section, leaving behind a very sharp point that could be used for stabbing an enemy if the need arose.
Blood was still flowing from his wound, so the Captain sat down with his back against a tree and let the sun shine down on him. The warmth of the strong sunlight revived him somewhat, but he could tell that he was drifting gradually into shock. He had no food or medical supplies; only the torn, sweaty uniform he wore was available to help him staunch the flow of blood and bandage the wound. Resting for a few moments the human stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket in an attempt to warm them up. Seconds later he fainted from shock and blood loss, and shortly thereafter he died quietly.
Even though he could monitor everything from orbit, the Sentinel waited until he was sure that the fight on the planet's surface had ended. With all major life signs terminated he transported himself down to the Earth human's final location, finding the recently deceased Captain curled up tightly beneath a tree and still holding his new club tightly with half frozen fingers.
The Sentinel shook his head with complete disbelief at the Starfleet officer's ability to survive under duress… most of the tests that he had run on other species had ended almost immediately with the first dinosaur encounter. The animals were proven killers, and very adept at tracking and killing bipedal, sentient life forms. This candidate's ability to adapt and evolve, however, had allowed him to take advantage of the unique environmental conditions around him. Along with his natural instinct for sensing danger when it was near, he had made full use of his higher intelligence and given himself the best possible chance to survive. It was only the harshness of the surrounding climate, combined with the superior size and number of his enemies that had inevitably managed to defeat him.
Even so all of the reptilians had perished first.The Sentinel bent over, picking up the still form of Captain James T. Kirk in his arms and cradling the body close to him protectively. As he beamed back aboard the Dokimasia a thought occurred to him…
He would need a much hotter environment for his next sequence of tests. Perhaps it was not yet too late to salvage the jungle conditions covering most of the land on the continents of this world.