Down on Eden IV

There was nothing to see. The darkness of outer space had envelopped the two locked workpods as they plunged through the negative energy field surrounding the fourth planet. Every system had shut down in mere seconds, completely drained by the bewildering nature of the area they had entered as they fell powerless into the planetary gravity well.

After a moment, a faint glow appeared all around them. Steadily it grew and envelopped them both like a cocoon of heat and fire while a muffled roar rose with it. They had obvioulsy cleared the draining field and entered the upper atmosphere in mere seconds. They had been pushed through at twenty-five thousand kilometers per second the brief instant the micro-impulse engine of the Sphynx workpod had been able to function before being shut down by the negative energy effect.

In her small, narrow cabin, Governor Sufra was panting heavily as she watched mouth open in fear the mustached man in the cockpit of the other craft facing her merely two meters away. The Starfleet officer was working frantically with fiber optic cables he had extracted forcibly from a panel at his left, hooking them with haste to some piece of equipement at his feet. Then, there was a brief, dull, weak flash of sparks around them that seemingly ran accross their hulls and coalesced at several points on the Sphynx workpod. A static charge had built from the friction and it was now drained by the vehicle's systems.

It was not much, but it was just enough to allow Robert Moore to fire up his chemical thrusters in a very precise sequence all his hands and feet played together on the controls of his workpod.

The thrusters tanks were almost full but the power to activate them had lasted just a few seconds; just enough to reorient their mass into the right angle for a perfect atmospheric entry. With enough luck, they would build enough of a charge again for him to repeat the feat and allow them a soft landing, somewhere on the blue, green and brown surface of the planet they now began to discern through the thick white clouds and the fiery halo surrounding them with heat, tremors and the sound of fury.

Inside the Sphinx' cockpit, Moore was almost cheerfully humming his favorite song 'There ain't no fighter pilots down in hell' while periodically looking up at the Bajorian to give a reassuring nod to the terrified woman.

In truth this was nothing new to the man, having performed numerous orbital drops both in work and for recreation this would be his third powerless drop from orbit.

But of course, he never tried it in a tow truck before.. and never with a jump buddy.

Currently he was faced with the dilemma of bringing both his ship and the pod to a relatively safe landing on the planet below, given that the tow ship was now considerably nose heavy, not to mention lacking the power to even attempt it, was proving to be something of an obstacle.

He could cut the Governor free, this would allow him the ability to use the thrusters to slow his decent allowing him to 'plane' the Sphinx so he could at least pick where he would come down. 

Yes, this seemed the like the best option he thought and then grinned in amusement at himself. because he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did that, because that would be taking the easy way out. 

Just then his head cleared up and the slight pain he had felt in his joints vanished, he murmured "The field.."

With the sudden realization that the energy draining field was gone he again started building up a static charge.

"Yes!" he said happily as it started charging, but they weren't out of the woods yet, he'd have to wait until the last possible second before using that charge or they would run out before they could touch down, and that would be mostly guess work on his part.

He again looked over at the Bajoran woman across from him and wondered who she might be; too old to be a Dabo girl certainly, so some member of their religious order? he shrugged and gave her a 'thumbs up' gesture.

With any luck, he'd find out soon enough.

In the cockpit facing him, the woman confirmed his second hypothesis readily enough. She slowly managed to go down on her knees, as much as it was possible to do so in the tiny one-seat cabin, hands crossed over her heart, head bowed, eyes closed. There was a sudden calmness on her face that could only be that of one resigned to one's fate.

Everyone's a critic Moore thought to himself

The heat halo around them dissipated enough to discern that the cloud covering they fell through was quiclky thinning. Then, a vast expanse of blue-green water stretched below them, doted with several distant islands covered with thick, dense vegetation. one of the larger ones caught Moore's eyes; a thin, gray plume of smoke rose from it. It didn't come from the top of a mountain as would any volcanic emanation, but from a large stretch of forest where a small fire was raging at the end of a long dark gouge between the trees.

Moore started his final decent, It would be tricky but he was, of course, absolutely sure of his own abilities and was already seeing the near perfect landing in his head. Sure, the work pod would bounce a bit, shake up the woman a little but she had God, or whoever the Bajorians prayed to, looking out for her right? she should be fine.

Deep down he was already annoyed with her for not giving him credit for saving her life, her kind never did.

Making sure the drop zone was as clear as possible he applied the thrusters for maximum breaking and at the exact point of terminus he released the pod, sending it bouncing away at a relatively slow velocity into an open area.

It bounced 3 times and rolled a bit further before coming to a stop in a pool of some sort, only a few feet deep.

Moore's Sphinx however was not fairing as well, and he had to fight to keep it from spinning into the ground, but managed to make a landing 'you can walk away from' at the vary least, if not a graceful one.

After about a minute passed he popped the hatch and stood up removing his helmet.

"I have GOT to try that again!" he said with a laugh.

All around, strange croaks and whistles answered him from the thick foliage around the furrow his landing had plowed through the vegetation. Everywhere around him lay broken branches, fallen foliage, torn up moss and crushed flowers of all sizes and colors. A few dozen meters from him, the workbee was lying half submerged in a tranquil pool of water, the hatch still closed.

And further away, above the treeline, rose a thin dark plume of smoke; the same one he had spotted from the air at the end of another but much larger furrow than his own.

Moore jumped up on his ship to get a better view of the other crash site, but this revealed nothing new.

Then after glancing back at the work pod to see if it's occupant had yet emerged, nothing so far.

He then went back into his Sphinx and retrieved its medical kit and locater beacon and ran over to the work pod, or just short of it actually, to peer into the water surrounding it suspiciously.

"Hay! you in there! are you injured or anything like that? I'd rather not get my boots soaking wet if your already dead in there!" He waited a few seconds for a response.

I hope I don't have to carry her out of there he frowned She looked kinda heavy

Several seconds went by without a response or movement inside the pod, Moore sighed and trudged into the water.

The water was JUST high enough to get into his boots, Naturally he grumbled.

As expected the pod was powerless so he had to manually key the door,  they were designed to do this of course, but the angle of the pod was off just enough that he slipped and fell into the water on his backside. "OH GREAT!" he said pulling himself back upright.

"I swear.. if she's not dead in there.. I'll kill her." and finally managed to open the hatch.

The woman was not dead. But her form was crumpled head first into the dashboard of the pod so that, when it opened, she fell forward and right into the man, sending them both down into the water.

Yes she was kind of heavy... and unconscious, her face flat against the transparent faceplate of her EVA suit. With them fell in the water the broken pieces of a transporter inhibiter. The apparatus had obviously being roughly tossed inside the small cabin during their brutal descent and smashed behind her helmet, where scratches told the story plainly.

AS he struglled to free himself from under the spacesuited woman, Moore saw something from his reclined vantage point that froze him in place.

Where his own pod was lying, something was glowing in the gloom of the coming sunset. He had barely noticed it from the corner of his eye at first, like some flying embers glowing faintly and intermittently in the shadows over a dying fire. But as he looked directly over there, he saw nothing for a moment, as if it had been but a passing reflection of the sun over the metallic hull.

And then he saw it again. Now, it looked more like some kind of reddish electric discharge, crackling on and off irregularly in the gloom as it moved in an erratic yet definite direction of the pod. He could barely see it until it came in contact with the Sphynx workpod. Then, for a moment, it ran all over it, inside and out and some of the systems lighted on then off as it crackled all over them.The strange electric display lasted almost a minute before it rose again from the downed vehicle and disappeared in the air.

When Moore saw it again, it had moved. It was now closer... much closer. When it crackled again briefly, he had no more doubt; it was moving towards the workbee... right in their direction.

What was it? he wasn't sure, scouter.. probe.. but it sure wasn't one of theirs.

Attempting to stay as low as possible Moore dragged the unconscious woman along with him through the water to the far side of the shop, and then, out of direct view of the thing, got as much distance from the pod as possible hiding himself and Sufara with in a clump of what looked like swamp grass before the device reached workbee.

He considered scanning it with his tricorder but felt sure it would detect that., and instead pulled out his phaser.. only to then recall that neither works anyway.

The probe, if that's what it was, repeated the same process around the pod as Moore watched.

He noted two things: It could power the Sphinxes' systems, so it must use a compatible power source

And as far as he could determine, it had no interest in the crew of either vesicle, just the ships themselves.

Moore was tempted to try and communicate with it, but he wasn't well known for his first contact skills. Besides, the Horizon would send a rescue party for them soon enough, regardless of the draining field, they would come for them and someone on that team would be better trained in first contact procedures, surely.

He had barely reassured himself thus that he saw the crackling reddish glow run over the workbee for a moment and then disappear. When it reappeared, it was hovering over the water exactly where they had laid for a moment.

Then, it disappeared again. But with darkness slowly creeping up over the lagoon with the dying day, it became more and more visible for longer periods. And what he saw was that it seemed to flash in circles before disappearing once more.

A few seconds later and, suddenly, it reappeared. Like a miniature lightning storm about to erupt, the crackling red energy form was hovering directly over them.

Moore looked up at the device and murmured "Well.. crud.." He thought about trying to scare it off with his phaser, but decided against it.

"I'll be honest with you.." he said to the device "I never really thought hiding would work." and held up his hands in surrender.

It was obvious they couldn't run or hide from it, and fighting it seemed stupid, he didn't even have a rock to throw at  it.

"Lt. Robert Moore, Federation star ship USS Horizon." then gestured with his head at Sufara. "I don't know who that is, but she might need help." and waited to see is it was responsive to anything he said, or would it just zap them.

In the darkening gloom, the crackling energy thing was becoming more and more visible and so, when it suddenly rushed down on them, the Starfleet pilot instinctively reacted to dodge from it's brutsque plummeting, tripped on some gravel underneath and fell backward into the warer, the still inert body of Sufra on top of him. For a moment, the thing envelopped the entire suited form of the colony governess with reddish tendrils of electric discharges that, when they touched the water around them, recoiled like snakes touching fire.

Half submerged, Moore barely saw the curious reaction before he half-rose to spit and cough water out of his throat and mouth. He almost followed the movement of the thing as it rose again over them, hovered for a moment then moved sideways as if to go around Sufra's body to try and reach him.

Once again, the pilot frantically tried to stay out of reach of the thing, splashing water all around him as he struggled with the inert woman's body, knee deep in sluggish waters. It took him a moment to notice that the reddish electrical discharges, more and more visible as the sun was setting, recoiled before every burst of water towards it.

And then, he heard a roar, high above his head. Glancing up, he saw a long and massive metallic shape fly overhead and go down with bright burning thrusters somewhere behind the rim of the trees and foliage, not much far from the rising column of smoke where he guessed the alien craft had crashed. He recognized the landing vessel instantly.

It was the Polaris.

As he watched, he also saw like the beginning of a sudden thunderstorm ripple the air just above the tree line and right behind the escort ship. Crackling balls of blue and red lightning flashed in the gloom far away, moving in the wake of the Aquarius class destroyer.

"Wha... what happened? Where... am I? Who..."

In Moore's arms, Governor Sufra was coming around, obviously confused, gazing with wide blinking eyes at the energy thing moving up and away from their drenched bodies.

"Off hand, I'm willing to give your 'Advisors' a little credit for that timely rain warning, but we should probably get undercover in case they over do it." Moore knew the Bajorans followed some group of entities, and was fairly sure he got the name right.

"Name's Lieutenant Moore from the Horizon; right now that's all you need to know lady. Now come on." And pulled her upright out of the water awkwardly, not having the strongest of builds.

"We need to get back to my ship, so to speak, and wait for help to arrive. With any luck that will be before a storm hits this area." He ignored any protest for answers and pushed her along, after all she was a thief, no reason to be all friendly about it.

"Eden... this... is... Eden," she mumbled, half-trying to raise herself up so that it wasn,t too difficult for the Starfleet officer to bring her back to the Sphynx workpod. "Thank the Prophets......"

As they reached Moore's craft, she was already praying with a contended, almost triumphant smile on her face. Eyes closed, she didn't notice the blue and red blobs of energies lighting the tree tops nearby as night was falling.

But her companion sure did. And they were right between them and moving to where the Polaris had landed, not far from the other column of smoke rising into the darkening sky.

***

Long minutes passed by as a soggy Moore and a seemingly dazed Sufra sat quietly in the Sphynx, trying not to get to much attention from the lightning orbs. He was wet and uncomfortable, but worse still he was bored. His mind raced for something helpful to do while they waited.

He thought about talking to the Bajorian woman but somehow the rantings of a religious nut, and a thief, wasn't likely to improve his humor.

He looked out the windscreen for the 20th time for signs of rescue, but still the orbs hovered silently above.

If only his comm badge still had any power left in it from restarting the workpods controls..

"Hay.." He said out loud looking at Sufras suit. "Are you by any chance wearing a comm badge under there?"

When she didn't answer right away, he started feeling her chest around where it should be, well aware this might be taken as being a bit  to familiar.

She didn't react to his probing. As he half expected, she didn't wore one, being only a passenger on the Horizon despite her high official status. But then, he made a facepalm. Her EVA suit had an integrated short range comm emitter as well as an emergency beacon; not to mention also a complete autonomous life support system which was completely intact. Any spare parts he might need to jurry-rig something with the workpod could be extracted from the suit itself.

And then there was the other workpod. Something might certainly be salvageable from it as well since it had not suffered all that much from their emergency landing. Through the canopy, he could even see inside the shorted-out pattern nullifier she had used earlier to prevent any attempt to beam her out of the pod and back onto the ship.

A pattern nullifier, an EVA suit and two workpods with all the tools needed for maintenance and repair; there should certainly be something... interesting to do for a resourceful guy like him.