Chapter Text
Star date 1643.6
Kirk (trying for a professional, objective tone, but some of the excitement showing through): Captain’s Log. We are in orbit around Outpost Zero, long considered to be part history, part space legend. The most mysterious of the Romulan outposts during the war, presumed destroyed…But apparently intact.
(Exterior view. The Enterprise is in orbit around a barren planetoid. The surface of the planetoid is reddish, rocky, bare – except for a structure of monochrome steel, now covered with the dust of decades, which the sensors of the ship are focused on.)
McCoy (standing beside the Captain’s chair, eyes fixed on the glass and steel monstrosity down on the planet): I thought Romulans blasted all their outposts to atoms when they had to retreat?
Kirk: Exceptions to every rule, Bones.
Spock (not looking up from the Science Console viewer): No life signs. Life support systems still online, but minimal. Interior atmosphere at standard humanoid tolerance level. No harmful radiation. Weapon systems online, but lack of power has rendered them harmless. The energy reserves of the outpost are almost completely depleted. Signs of normal wear and tear due to exposure and negligence.
Kirk: No sign of their having come under fire?
Spock: Not on the exterior at least, Captain.
Kirk: So we’ve got ourselves a ghost outpost.
McCoy : As if Romulans weren’t creepy enough already. If you’re planning to go pocking and prying down there, you can count me out.
…………………………………………
(Transporter room. The landing party – Kirk, Spock, McCoy, a science department lieutenant, security officers Garrovick and Durga – taking their positions on the transporter pad. McCoy looks grumpier than ever, the other humans excited – nothing like a historical mystery to liven up a quiet stretch of surveys.)
Kirk: Life Support belts on.
(The landing party activates the belts and the golden halo of the life support force field flickers into existence. Yeah, the outpost has life support online, but it apparently also has every single one of its inhabitants dead. No one’s going to take unnecessary chances here.)
Kirk: Put us down at the central circle, Kyle. Energize.
(Kyle activates the transporter.)
………………………………….
(Interior Outpost Zero. The interior of the outpost is circular in design, with vast rooms arranged in a circle around the central core. The landing party materializes in this central circle, with half a dozen hallways leading away from it. The interior had once been pristine marble and steel, from what they can make out through the layers.)
McCoy : Uh, how long has this thing been abandoned, by the way?
Spock: Since early 2160s, I presume. This region of space was conceded to the Federation – then the Coalition of Planets – after the Battle of Cheron.
(In sharp contrast to the pristine exterior, the interior of the outpost is practically falling…melting…apart. There are what looks like rust stains on the walls, cracks running up to the ceiling, oozy splashes of some viscous black liquid pooled around at random intervals.)
Kirk (taking a long, puzzled glance around, taking in the corroded, decaying appearance of the legendary outpost): A century couldn’t have done this much damage. Not even with the building materials they were using at the time. Outposts like this are built to last.
Spock (kneeling next to one of the pools of liquid, running the tricorder over it): Fascinating.
Kirk: What?
Spock (still intent on the scan): This substance does not conform to any of the known chemical configurations.
McCoy: They were using this place for weapons research, weren’t they?
Kirk (joining Spock): That’s one of the ideas. No one was really sure – weapons research, prison, VIP vacation spot… Almost everything we know about Romulans from that time is plain speculation.
Science lieutenant (alarmed): Sir! Life signs!
(Everyone turns towards him. Kirk, Durga and Garrovick draw their phasers instinctively.)
Kirk: Report, lieutenant!
Lieutenant: Romulan life signs, sir. It came out of nowhere! That direction.. (points to indicate)
Spock (now checking his own tricorder, swiftly readjusted to scan for lifesigns): A single Romulan, captain. Feeble, fading. As Lieutenant Summers said, it seems to have…just appeared. Certainly, it was not present during the orbital scans or our more detailed scans on initial landing.
McCoy: Whoever it’s is dying, Jim. We’ve to hurry. (Moves in the direction indicated.)
Kirk: It could be a trap, Bones. Where one hid, there could be more.
(Communicator beeps)
Kirk: The captain here.
Uhura (Offscreen): Enterprise to Landing Party. Captain, the scans picked up a life sign – one that, according to ensign Chekov, appeared from thin air.
Kirk: We spotted it. Only single? Is that certain?
(Some indistinct sounds from the communicator as Uhura asks Chekov something.)
Uhura: Yes, Captain. Very close to you – it looks like he’s in the next room. No sign of force fields or shielded areas he could’ve come from.
(The landing parties tricorders have shown the same result. Durga and Garrovick have their phasers aimed at the door separating them from the Romulan. Kirk steps to the door.)
Spock (raises an eyebrow, looks puzzled): Captain, whoever it is..They’re sobbing. I can hear them.
(Every one stares. A Romulan, sobbing?)
McCoy (takes another look at the medical tricorder): Jim, let me go in.
(Kirk motions to Durga and Garrovick. They fire phasers at the door, keeping the power at low level, carefully so that the beams won’t go through the door to hit the already wounded Romulan. The door melts open to reveal a hallway. A figure is huddled against a wall, curled into fetal shape, and yes, shaking with choked sobs.)
Garrovick (shaken): What the hell?
(McCoy goes to the Romulan without a moment’s hesitation. He’s in full-on doctor mode. The hallway is in much the same shape as the room they have left. Corroding, falling apart. It looks downright eerie.)
Kirk: Bones?
(The Romulan looks up, seeming to become aware of them for the first time. Kirk winces at the glimpse he got of the man’s face – what remains of it. It’s mostly a green bruised mess, the only living part of it being one dark eye that looked up at him, wide and terrified.)
Romulan : (something in his own language. Talking very quickly, gabbling.)
(Kirk activates the Universal Translator)
Romulan: I surrender! I surrender! Take me away, please, please, I beg of you! Away, just away, kill me, just, just away, please, please, no more, no, no..
(Shocked looks all around. There’s something almost obscene in seeing one of the proud Romulans so completely broken, reduced to begging for mercy from mortal enemies.)
Kirk (gentle, soothing tone): No one’s going to kill you, and no one’s going to hurt you either. Not any more.
Romulan(eyes wild, near insane, with fear): Take me away, away, away, please…(Sees Spock) Brother! Save me, please, it hunts. It waits and hunts. In the dark, in the shadows. It creeps up on you, dark, pulsing dark, mazes, I ran, I ran, we all did, but…gone, gone away, all of them, please, don’t let it get me, please, please, brother or foe, I yield, I..
(McCoy injects the Romulan with a sedative.)
McCoy: Jim, I’ve got to get him to the sickbay. Right now. (looks back down at his patient, shocked by what he has just seen) He’s been savaged, mauled, tortured within an inch of his life.
Kirk (speaking into the communicator): Medic team to the transporter room. Kyle, Dr McCoy plus one wounded Romulan to beam up.
Kyle (somewhat startled): Aye, sir!
(Transporter beam. McCoy and the Romulan vanish. The landing party members look at each other, baffled by what they have seen.)
Kirk: Keep an eye on your tricorder, lieutenant . We don’t need any more surprises.
Durga: Captain, that Romulan…He was wearing their Bird-of-Prey insignia. A commander’s insignia.
Kirk: Are you sure?
Durga: Yes sir. If he was wearing a uniform it was too tattered to be sure, but the insignia was there.
(Kirk exchanges a grim glance with Spock. It would have been bad enough if the hysterical Romulan was just a freaked out civilian scientist, but for a Romulan warrior – a commander - to be reduced to the quivering mess they saw… Kirk really doesn’t want to imagine what it would take to do that.)
Kirk: Alert, everyone.
(As if they need to be told.)
Spock (pausing at one of the pools of black liquid, intent on the tricorder): This is most unusual, Captain.
Kirk: Poisonous?
Spock: Lethal. But more importantly, it seems to be extremely corrosive, more so than its other chemical properties would indicate. It is organic in nature.
Kirk: Organic-
Lt Summers: Life signs!
(Every one on ready mode, weapons drawn – the security officers hadn’t holstered theirs after the last alarm. Eyes darting in every direction, taking in any path of approach.)
Kirk: Romulan?
Summers (puzzled and not a little alarmed): No sir. I can’t make out what this is, I’ve never seen anything like this before.
Spock (moving to take a look at the lieutenant’s tricorder readings): Nor have I. A most unusual pattern, but it seems to have a basic humanoid structure. Moving in random patterns- (Slight frown) It has vanished.
Kirk: Vanished? (Pauses. Gets one idea that he really doesn’t like) What’re the odds that the Romulans haven’t left the place completely alone, after all? A cloaked ship observing the outpost in orbit…
Spock : Extremely improbable, Captain. Our sensors, even if they were unable to detect the presence of the cloaked vessel, would have detected unusual patterns in the vacuum. Besides, had the entity been beamed off planet, the Enterprise would have noticed the transporter activity and alerted us.
Kirk: Just thinking aloud, Spock. The location of the entity when it vanished?
Spock: Approximately five hundred sixty seven meters from us, bearing one eight. (Adjusts his tricorder) The entity’s disappearance coincides with certain curious subspace vibrations. (Shows the readings to Kirk .)
Kirk (frowning): Seems somehow familiar.
Spock: These are similar to the patterns recorded when a ship engages warp drive. Of course, these are on a considerably smaller scale, but the pattern remains the same with lower intensity.
Kirk: Something that can travel through subspace?
(Now he does look rather alarmed, past the unflappable Captain persona. Summers looks like he’s on the verge of freaking out. Durga and Garrovick doesn’t know exactly what that implies, but both have enough common sense to know that anything that makes the experts look like this is bad news.)
Spock: Possibly, Captain. However, I do not have sufficient data to form a reliable conjecture yet.
……………………………….
(Aboard Enterprise, Sickbay. Operating room. McCoy and M’Benga are trying every trick in the book and quite a few out of it. going by the plunging biobed monitors, it really isn’t working.)
McCoy (looking somewhat horrified despite his aiming for the professional coolness): How in the name of all that is holy did this man survive so long? He’s rotting from inside out!
M’Benga: Something extremely corrosive… There’s no microbial action. Even where there should be.
(The life sign monitors beep – trouble)
McCoy: Cordrazine, 3 ccs!
………………………….
(Outpost. The landing party is in what seems to be the central computer mainframe for the complex. Spock and Summers are tackling the computer’s security systems. Kirk looking over Spock’s shoulder, adding a comment or a suggestion now and then. Durga and Garrovick stand alert, phasers in hand. Durga also has Summers’ tricorder, keeping an eye out for any life signs. Or unusual subspace patterns, though she’s not sure she’ll recognize those.)
Spock (slight frown. Data and commands flash by on the screen, too quick for Kirk’s human eyes.): Interesting.
Kirk: Are you getting through?
Spock: Yes. The encryption techniques utilized here are nearly a century out of date.
(The data on the screen slows enough for Kirk. From his expression, it doesn’t make much more sense now, either.)
Kirk: These are-
Spock: Experiment logs and the recorded findings. They were attempting to independently develop warp drive technology. (Frowns) But these equations do not make sense unless… (trails off, thinking.) Organic components? Wetware? (He’s talking more to himself than to Kirk – just as well, as the latter is sort of out of his depth)
Durga: Life signs. (pauses for a second look) Close by, sir!
………………………………………
(Point of View shifts. Some one…some thing…is watching the landing party. The lighting changes to reflect the entity’s manner of sight. The eyes wander over each of the group, lingering on Spock. Whatever it is, it manages to communicate an aura of anger, hunger. It is hunting, indeed. )