Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 11:32:15 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Heather Smyth" picard5@bigpond.com Title: Vengance From The Past Author: Heather Smyth Series: TNG Part: 1/? rating: R Code: P/C Disclaimer: Paramount owns all Startrek and I derive no financial gain from this story...just a little fun. Summary: Picard and Crusher are both badly injured, Together they face their Vengeance From The Past. The landmine had lain undisturbed for seventy-eight years. Under what was once a road, the gentle pasture belied the pockmarks of craters that once blemished its surface. Originally one of nine, the others had failed over the years, leaving just the one, only twenty-three percent active but still deadly. It waited for an unwary victim. Jean-Luc Picard awoke to a delicious sensation. He was being held, the lustrous red hair of his bedmate cascading over his shoulder. He sighed and closed his eyes as her hand opened and began to caress his chest. His voice, roughened from sleep, rumbled through the silence of his bedroom. "Beverly.what are you doing?" "Oh I think you can figure it out." Her hand drifted lower; dallying at his navel, then lower still, to the base of his hardening penis. "We have to be on duty in half an hour." She rose up and whispered breathily in his ear, "Well, we'll have to cut a few corners, but I think we can manage it." She shrieked when he suddenly turned them both over, pinning her to the mattress. He kissed her deeply, then retreated and looked at her heatedly. His baritone thrilled her as it lowered with his arousal. "I'll have you and I'll please myself how long it takes. I am, after all, the Captain." Beverly's giggles melted away as he kissed her again; the next sound she made was a moan. They reported for duty an hour late. Nobody said anything. They were on their way to a mysterious planet. Denoted as H88, the planet had recently been the site of several cosmic storms. They had passed over the planet, causing worldwide upheavals in the weather. To the Federation's knowledge, H88 was uninhabited, with only lower life forms present. Previous scans had shown signs of habitation, but there were no sentient life forms to be found anywhere, just some remains of buildings. Where the inhabitants were and what happened to them was the mystery the Enterprise and her crew had been sent to solve. "What do your scans tell us Mr.Data?" Lieutenant Commander Data swivelled in his chair and faced his Captain. "Not much Sir. There are remains of a community's.larger buildings, some infrastructure, but no inhabitants. The indigenous wildlife has overtaken the towns, I detected a colony of primates living in what was once, I believe, to be a swimming complex, but I must say, with all the interference, the sensors are limited. " The Captain frowned and sat forward in his seat. "And there's nothing to indicate what happened to the population? No clues?" "None at present Sir." Commander Will Riker, second in command, rose from his chair and approached the android officer. "Well keep looking Data. All of those people must've gone somewhere." He then turned to Ops. "Mr.Taylor, how are the atmospheric conditions now? Are we any closer to sending down an away team?" Looking up from his console, Adam Taylor frowned at his superior. "No Sir. With the ionisation, we can't transport or use shuttles until it settles. Best guess would be.ten hours. That will give us a window of four hours before the next storm begins." Will looked at his Captain and grinned. "Well Sir, it looks like we'll be sitting on our hands a little longer." "Hmm, so it would seem. Keep scanning though; we might pick up something, you never know. Oh and Will.I'll be going down with the next team." Will straightened and pursed his lips. "Sir, with all due respect." Jean-Luc held up his hand and stopped his First Officer mid sentence. "I'm aware of your arguments Number One, but on this occasion, the mystery outweighs your concerns. I'll transport down with Doctor Crusher and conduct my own investigation." "And you won't be swayed?" "No." "Very well Sir, but it's against my better judgement." Jean-Luc nodded and smiled. "So noted." Over the next ten hours, continuous scans were run, but no further information was gained. Jean-Luc met with Beverly for a light dinner and a rest before the mission commenced. They were lying together in his quarters, neither interested in sleep. "So, what do you think happened to them?" Jean-Luc turned onto his side and sighed. "I've no idea. Perhaps an epidemic took them, or war maybe? We'll know more when we go down." Beverly took his hand and turned it over, idly drawing patterns on his palm. "How did Will take the news that you're going planet side?" "He wasn't very happy and voiced the usual concerns.you know the drill." "Indeed I do. You must be the bane of all First Officers.so much tally ho." "Tally ho? Where on earth did you get that?" Beverly giggled and snuggled in for a quick kiss. "In one of your old novels.Biggles, I think." "Good Lord, Biggles. I haven't read those since I was a child. Do I actually have one?" Beverly slowly undid the drawstring of his shorts and slipped her hand inside. "Uh huh, in the bottom of the locker in your wardrobe." He leaned over her, his face only millimetres from hers. "You shouldn't be poking around in my things." "Why not?" She breathed. "You might find more than you can handle." "Show me." The next hour was spent in delicious distraction, culminating in boneless satisfaction for both of them. They were still sleeping when the call came through. "Bridge to Captain Picard." He answered with his eyes still shut. "Picard here." "Sir we're about an hour away from being able to send down a team." "Thank you Bridge, Picard out." He stretched and grinned when Beverly grumbled in protest. He pushed aside the curtain of hair, found her face and kissed her softly. "Come on you, time to get up. We have to shower and eat." She grumbled again as he disentangled himself from her and exited the bed. "Come on Beverly, I need you to wash my back." He had to strain to hear her mumbled reply. "How did you manage before?" He thought momentarily before chuckling and saying wryly, "I don't know. I must've walked around with an unwashed back." The half-hearted attempt at throwing a pillow landed at his feet. He retaliated by whipping off the covers and stopped immediately, the vision of her nude body stilling him. "Gods you're beautiful." She turned over slowly and looked his also naked body up and down. In a husky voice she purred, "You're not bad yourself." He felt himself begin to harden and shook his head. "Look what you do to me. Lascivious woman." Beverly chuckled and brought one hand to her breast provocatively. "Drop-dead gorgeous man." He held out his arm and she rose from the bed gracefully. They walked into the bathroom and entered the shower together. It was a longer than usual shower that left them breathless, happy and content. They had time only for a quick meal before meeting with the rest of the away team in transporter room four. They rematerialised in the centre of a small town. The buildings showed the signs of warfare, the roofs missing and the walls holed or missing. Rubble was strewn on the ground and long dead fires left blackened timbers all around. The six crewmembers looked around in awe. The town had been laid out on a simple plan. A central large circle of grass was surrounded by what appeared to be the business district, with the remains of shops visible. Behind this area were the homes and beyond that, the infrastructure of government buildings and public utilities. The roads radiated out from the centre and intersected with others servicing the outer circles. Animals and birds were in residence. Although momentarily silenced by their arrival, they soon began a chorus of sound both melodic and pleasing to the ear. The primates Data had mentioned were in the trees of the central circle, harvesting the fruit. Whooping calls echoed around the desolate buildings as the creatures announced the incursion to their mates nearby. The team split into pairs and set off with their tricorders scanning. Beverly and Jean-Luc made their way to the outskirts of the town. Beverly frowned over her instrument and slowed Jean-Luc to check with his. "So what do you think?" The Captain took another look around and shook his head. "War I would wager. But whether it was internal or external is what we're here to discover. I'm reading faint traces of propellant. What do you read?" Beverly inputted some figures and slowly turned in a circle. "The same.I think it's rocket propellant." "Rocket? Not very sophisticated then. I'll check with the others.see what they're getting." Picard moved to one side to make his enquiries. Beverly still mulled over her tricorder readings. She tapped in new instructions to the instrument and frowned further at the results. "Beverly.it seems we can't contact each other. I can't raise the ship either. Try your combadge." "Crusher to Data.Data do you read me?" When no answer was forthcoming, she tried to call the Enterprise. "Crusher to Enterprise.Enterprise please respond." Nothing. She turned to her lover and said, "We should get back to the others, there's a storm brewing. Jean-Luc looked up to the lowering sky and nodded. "Before we go, I want to check that building over there, I think it was a power station. They were standing in a paddock about one and a half kilometres from the centre of town. The building was approximately one hundred and fifty metres away over slightly undulating ground. Beverly checked her tricorder again and sighed exasperatedly. "Jean-Luc, are you getting sporadic energy readings?" "Yes, that's why I want to check the station. We may be able to restore power." "Maybe.I don't know. These readings are screwy." Forty-five metres away, the sensors on the landmine detected the scanning tricorder. Activating the pressure switch, a slender green stalk made its way through the eight centimetres of dirt that separated it from the surface. Designed to simulate the grasses around it, the stalk broke free and continued up a further two centimetres. There it stopped and deployed two leaf like structures either side of the stalk. Having primed itself, all it had to do was wait. Walking shoulder to shoulder and watching their tricorders, they made their way over the ground towards the power station. A sudden clap of thunder made them cringe and quicken their pace. Large drops of warm rain stated to fall and the couple started to jog. In perfect synchronisation their feet beat a gentle rhythm upon the ground. Jean-Luc looked up and was about to pass comment on the weather when his foot landed on the pressure switch. Neither human heard the 'click' of activation. The explosion was sudden and devastating. The earth surged up pushing the officers off their feet. Through the air flew wicked fragments of metal slicing and embedding in everything around the area. The two bodies tumbled through the air and landed with a sickening thud ten metres from the blast site. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed as the rain pelted down on the broken remains on the ground. In a circle of some twenty metres, trees and shrubs were decimated, the damage most pronounced in the northerly quadrant of the circle. Beverly and Jean-Luc lay to the south, unconscious and bleeding. Two kilometres away, Lieutenant John Parkes lifted his head and frowned. Sheltering in the burnt out remains of a dress shop, he called to his companion. "Hey James, did you hear that?" "What, the thunder?" "No.something else." James shifted his position and moved closer to his friend. "All I can hear is the damn rain and thunder." "Well I don't know.I thought.can we contact anybody yet?" Lifting his wet hand, James activated his communicator. After a few moments he addressed his companion. "Nope, nothing. Not on the surface and not from the ship. We're cut off completely." Parkes looked out into the downpour. "Yeah, well when this eases, I'm going to find the Captain." His friend just snorted. The rain continued to pour down, turning the ground to mud. Beverly woke first. She was on her right side. "What..?" She tried to move but found an odd numbness pervading her body. She realised only one eye was open and attempted to turn her head. She achieved a modicum of success until she felt a spasm of agony lance down her back. She cried out and tensed, the pain overwhelming her. As she passed into unconsciousness, she thought. "Jean-Luc!" The Captain was lying three metres to her left. Sprawled on his back, his hand moved slightly, twitching as the nerve ends started to fire. He groaned and coughed wetly, turning his head to the side and dribbling out some bright blood. His eyes opened then and the rain splashed into them. Turning his head to the left, he opened them again and searched for his lover, discovering her form, barely visible through the pelting rain. He tried to call to her, but couldn't get the necessary breath. Each time he tried resulted in a tearing, agonising cough, which brought up more blood. Using his left hand, he felt his chest and abdomen finding shards of metal embedded here and there. A large piece protruded from his left shoulder and when he felt lower, another fragment projected from his groin. He swallowed and concentrated on his legs. He could feel nothing from his right leg, his left was throbbing and his ears were ringing loudly. He had to get to Beverly. On the Bridge of the Enterprise, Will was just issuing orders to improve communications when Deanna rushed out of the turbolift. Still dressed in her night attire, she gripped Will's arm and said, "Something's wrong! Beverly and the Captain.I'm sensing pain and.Beverly's unconscious.Will we have to get them!" Will swung to his Ops officer. "Danthrop any communications yet?" "No Sir, we can't punch anything through." "And you're going to tell me we can't fly a shuttle through that soup either, aren't you?" "Aye Sir." He sat heavily in the chair, punching the arm with a large fist. "Dammit! Bridge to LaForge!" "LaForge here Sir." "Geordie is there some way we can get a signal through to Data? An encoded neutrino stream maybe?" There was a moment's silence while Geordie mulled it over. "Perhaps.I'll work on it. Engineering out." Deanna took her seat and looked beseechingly at Will. "Is there nothing else we can do?" He shook his head sadly. -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. From ???@??? Sun Jan 18 23:55:38 2004 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n4.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.88]) by eagle (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aIrtN1FJ3NZFji0 for ; Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:57:39 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-12942-1074488225-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.