<USS Cervantes> Re: "Pursuit Pt II"

"Maybe his rock impersonations are better than ours.? FANTASTIC line, 
Kennedy!!! 
Boy, you two make a GREAT team...another excellent log. LOL about you guys 
slaloming down the hill--and the Starfleet slogans. 
--Dawn
 Ashne'e Al Kiara wrote:
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
?Pursuit Pt I?

 

            They were a hundred paces into the desert. Their footfalls were 
scooping tiny pitfalls of sand, each successively deeper. Their progress was 
slow.

            Behind them, a dune rose almost high enough to cover the looming 
ruins. In front of them, they were too far from camp to discern the spiky 
Ss?thla architecture.

            ?Oh, no,? Ashne?e sighed aloud.

            ?What??

            ?Lar?s scan showed four Ss?thla with Ssarish, four at the temple 
and one at the camp. Orschh must have been at the library with Ssarish??

            ?Do you think he?s dead??

            ?I think it?s more likely than he?s a murderer.?

            Kennedy pulled out her tricorder and started a scan. ?This is going 
to take a minute. Something about this atmosphere is resistant to scanning. I 
can see the four at the temple, and I can see four more heading toward the 
temple? and, yeah, I guess that blip probably means one at the camp? but I?m 
not reading anything else??

            ?You can?t read the corpses?? Ashne?e asked gravely.

            ?No? wait. Oh, hell.?

            ?What is it??

            ?How good are your rock impersonations? We?re being followed.?

            ?How fast is he gaining on us?? Ashne?e queried in sotto voice.

            ?Fast enough??

            It was impossible to run with the sand a mire of inconsistency, at 
one moment seeming solid where buffeted by the ground beneath, and then giving 
way beneath their weight so they had to work their way out. The air was still 
and quiet. Ephemeral morning breezes were napping in the afternoon heat so 
nothing relieved the tension festering in the air. Into that emptiness, the 
mind inferred snatches of sound like mirages. Was that a footfall? A rustle? 
The snap of straining scales?

            ?This is impossible,? Kennedy announced. Tossing up her hands, she 
halted in front of a rise of sand. Slender, with her arms upraised like 
branches, she looked like a desert tree. ?We should stop, use our phasers. 
It?ll give us the element of surprise. Frag him.?

            ?You may be right, Lieutenant.?

            Ashne?e stood beside Kennedy, surveying the pocked surface of the 
planet. She shouldn?t have been thirsty, but the sight of all that dry sand 
made her palette ache for the relief of water.

            ?Why can?t we see him?? Ashne?e asked. ?Where could he hide? A nine 
foot tall reptile slinking through the sands? where is he??

            ?Maybe his rock impersonations are better than ours.? Kennedy 
shrugged, but her eyes were darting across the sand, searching.

            Ashne?e spun slowly, surveying, until the rise loomed in front of 
her, a mountain of sand. ?The camp is on the other side of that rise,? she 
said, pointing. ?I recognize it. The divot in the middle like a dimple. How 
long would it take us to climb it? A few minutes? But if we can get to the top??

            A grin spread across Kennedy?s face from ear to ear. ?We can slalom 
down! On our cloaks! I remember once when I was with the USS Croft, and we were 
in Egypt --?

            ?Later,? suggested Ashne?e, feeling the pressure beat against her 
back like the heat.

            Kennedy mounted the rising sand first, her greater height better 
suited to taking the slope in immense, yawning strides. Ashne?e, taking her 
hand, climbed backward, her hand never far from her phaser. It was awkward, but 
it meant Orschh couldn?t sneak up on them, whatever his vantage point. 

            It was a long, slow climb. Once or twice, Ashne?e stumbled. There 
was no sign of Orschh.

            It would have been hard not to feel silly as they spread out their 
cloaks on the top of the sand ridge, flopped onto their bellies and prepared to 
dive down the sides ? it would have been hard if it hadn?t been for the 
prodigious girlish grin splitting Kennedy?s face.

            A brief thought flashed through Ashne?e?s head on the way down: 
what kind of publicity photo would this make? Join Starfleet ? slalom down 
exotic hills. She couldn?t help but laugh a little. When she got back to the 
ship, she?d have to suggest to someone that they make cloak-slaloming a vital 
part of an academy holo-training program.

            They skittered to the bottom. Ashne?e picked her way free of the 
cloak, and tried to shake loose the sand that had embedded itself in the pores 
of her skin.

            ?Is there any sign of him?? Ashne?e asked.

            Kennedy shook her head.

            ?We?d better find Ss?lih then. Keep your tricorder out.?

            ?The Ss?thla lifesign is on the other end of camp, near the trading 
post.?

            Ashne?e nodded and started off through the dense mass of identical 
black structures. She started forward, paused, questioning her sense of 
direction, and placed her foot along another of the myriad possible paths, 
trying to distinguish some unique feature of any building that would help her 
move forward.

            The beams of colored light the Ss?thla had fashioned to help the 
Starfleet officers find their way through the camp had been switched off. ?I 
hope your sense of direction is better than mine,? Ashne?e said to Kennedy.

            Kennedy pointed upward. ?I think that slanted roof is the main 
building. So we should go that way.? She started down a narrow alleyway that 
forced the two women to walk single-file. ?At least if we get lost, we can 
follow the tricorder.? A large, pointed object like a gate barred their path. 
?Sort of.? She turned to the left, and carefully picked her way around the 
obstacle, Ashne?e following her doggedly.

            By all rights, their footsteps should have echoed between the 
spaces, mockingly resounding as they dove upward toward the black roofs. The 
silence was more eerie.

            Black on black on pale beige. The eye strained to manufacture color 
out of the stark landscape. And then there was green.

            ?There!? Kennedy hollered. Ashne?e was already a few steps in its 
direction.

            They?d both seen the blurred green form streaking past the slight 
gap between the dark buildings, hardly more than a flash of color and movement.

            ?It?s on its way to the trading post!? Kennedy frantically hit 
buttons on her tricorder as if trying to force it to yield different 
information. 

            ?To kill Ss?lih?? The words passed through them with a chill.

            Ashne?e sighed, her luminescent eyes shading. ?We?ll never make it 
before he does??

 


Dawn Schloesser Freelance 
Writer/Editorwww.geocities.com/WriterDawnSWriterDawnS@xxxxxxxxx 


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