Cathy moved fast, feeling her way down the hall. Behind her
she could hear distant crashing, then some phasor fire, and then silence.
"Damn it, Teresa ," she
thought. "You had better not die."
She decided to wait where she was in the darkness, phasor pointed back up
towards the door. Suddenly a powerful flashlight blazed on. She could not see
who was behind the bright light. She held her breath, waiting motionless.
"Don’t shoot, Cathy! It’s me, Teresa," came the call out of the dark. Cathy sighed audibly. "Glad to see you made it." She squinted against the glare as Teresa's shape formed behind the light. A cloud of dust surrounded her.
"Just following orders, ma’am," Teresa smiled. She waved off the floating dust, without much effect, and coughed a little. "Oh yeah, and I sealed the door behind us. Permanently. So, ah, going back is not an option."
Cathy grinned. "Good work. I don’t think going back is part of the plan. Let’s go find the others."
They started trotting down the long hallway, hearing nothing but their own breath and footfalls. Teresa imagined she could hear the last floating dust of her demolition work settling to join the dust thick on the floor beneath their feet. It seemed to them that there was a slight down-slope. Eventually they came to a stairway. John was waiting for them at its head, shotgun ready.
"Took ya long enough," he said.
"Yeah, well, you know how sometimes it’s just impossible to leave a good party," Cathy shot back.
"Uh huh. Let’s go, the rest are down here."
He led them down the stairs to a large circular room. Teresa noticed its floor looked weirdly clear of the dust above. There were six enormous passages leading out of the room, not including the stairway, and above each vast portal was a lamp, so the room itself was brightly lit. Greyhawk stood next to Sissy, who was sitting on the floor, leaning against the gently curving wall, eyes closed. She looked very tired. Also in the room were two other men, both armed with phasor rifles of strange design.
"Glad ye could make it," Greyhawk greeted them, obviously happy to see them. Sissy barely looked up.
"How is she?" Cathy asked.
"I’m fine," Sissy answered for herself, but she was obviously exhausted. "Introductions." She waved a weary hand at the taller of the two men. "This is al-Ghazali," the man bowed.
"Please, you may call me Gabby," he said. "Thank you very much."
" ... and this is Attar," and the shorter man bowed. "These are our contacts. They will take us to the colony."
"Teresa," she bowed to the two newcomers, wondering why it seemed like the right way to respond. Teresa let the thought go as she bent over her captain.
"Sissy, you are in no shape to go any further," Teresa scolded. Then looking at the guides, "We will have to let her rest."
"Oh, please, do not worry," Gabby said, "assistance is forthcoming very immediately."
"Huh?"
Sissy said, "They called a cab."
"So who were all those people trying to kill us, anyway?" Cathy asked.
They were in a small airship flying high over the surface of Canopus Delta 4. The ship had initially arrived through one of the great passageways that led to the circular room where they had rendezvoused. After departing, they had traveled for sometime underground; and after finally emerging from the tunnels, it simply went airborne. Now they were on the way to the hidden city of the Naqshbandi.
"They were Sirian agents," Attar answered.
"They all came here just to pay attention to little ol’ me? I’m so flattered," Sissy quipped. She was bouncing back fast. The seats were large and roomy and she was taking advantage by lying back and putting her feet up. Her shoes glowed steadily red and she liked the effect.
"Oh, no. They were here already," Attar explained. "Their agents infiltrate all worlds capable of sustaining sentient life. The Sirians are what you would call "spirits": Jinn or demons. They have no corporeal form on this plane of existence. As a result, their technology allows them to manifest themselves into any material form they desire. They take the shape of the native population and attempt to prevent those populations from developing their latent potential as creatures that can inhabit all the planes of existence.
"They do this by distracting them with false goals like the acquisition of money and power. Their primary goal, however, is to instigate strife and animosity among the native population, because in their plane of existence, they are actually sustained by very strong emotions generated on this, the lowest of planes. The so-called negative emotions are the most powerful and prized by them. The Sirian agents already in place were alerted to your presence here, and they were waiting for you to show yourselves."
Attar paused and sat back in his chair. "You see," he continued, "the mission of the Naqshband is to guide the sentient beings born on this plane to realize their own mastery of the ninety-nine planes of existence. The Sirians, in general, believe that they themselves are restricted to their plane. Though this is untrue, and though some have come to realize the truth, the fact is they are so addicted to their 'food', most will not accept the fact that they are not doomed.
"In any case," he continued, "beneath what the worldly inhabitants understand to be 'ordinary life', there is a war being fought of which they are completely unaware. They go to work every day, relax afterwards, and remain asleep to the reality of their situation, for the most part. Some have become awakened to their situation, with our help. These 'awake' individuals are very powerful allies in our cause, all the while appearing to the general population as ordinary members of their society. Yet these people are far, far from ordinary."
"So this whole situation applies to us, as well," Teresa put in, "right?""Oh yes, you bet your bippy, it does," Gabby spoke up.
"What’s a bippy?" Cathy asked him, but Gabby offered no explanation.
They began to descend. Eventually the clouds parted and into view came a circle of high mountain peaks, a valley in their center. As they neared the ground, the travelers could see evidence of civilization: buildings, farms and roads.
"It’s beautiful," Sissy remarked.
"Yes," Attar agreed, "we have similar settlements on all like worlds. In each case their name is the same: Shang Ra La, which in our native language means 'Subtle Transmitter of the Heart'.
"Our own culture has legends about a place called Shangri-La, a place where the wise live and no one ever grows old," Sissy said, gazing down at the peaceful scene below them.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded. The Starfleet crew all turned to look at their guides, whose faces had turned ashen and slack. Teresa caught herself thinking how odd it was that fear looked the same on most humanoid faces.
"What is that?" Cathy demanded.
Heartbeats passed before their hosts recovered themselves.
"It is a threat warning," Attar replied grimly. "I have only heard that sound in training. None have ever been able to track one of our vehicles before."
"None, huh," John repeated, almost to himself. He checked his weapon over: loaded and ready to fire. If there came a chance. "Well, seems like there's always a first time, don't it?"
The pilot, isolated in a cabin up front, now threw open the door separating him from the passenger compartment and began to speak urgently in an unknown language.
"He says we are being pursued by three unidentified ships," Attar translated. Teresa could no longer read fear in his face. She had no idea what it held now.
"Och, and ye never forget yer firrrst time, do ye lad?" Greyhawk threw to John in an undertone.
"Does this craft have weapons?" Sissy asked.
Gabby spoke up once more: "Oh, no, no. No weapons," he said lyrically. "We are surely screwed."
to be continued ...
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