ARTIFACTS	
by Anthony Durrant



A group of old ships floated in orbit around the system where the USS Reliant
had come to investigate the deaths of the people of the planet Eskalian.
Another planet in the same system, Vokalian, was also the home of a sentient
race and they were thinking of joining either the Federation or the Romulan
Empire; they hoped one of them would investigate the spaceships, which had
appeared in their system only a few weeks earlier, one after the other.

"I’m detecting life signs aboard two of the ships," Science Officer Derek
Mulhaney told me, "and they seem to be those of humans."

"They’re from Earth?" Captain Hoskins asked.

"They look like sleeper ships," First Officer Bruce Bennett said, "from back
when people were making starships out of old submarines and anything else they
could find."

"I know about them," Hoskins admitted, "from what I took at the Science
Academy."

Captain Stephen Hoskins was a resident of Earth, although he’d been mutated
into a cat creature by accident in a gene replicator, and had enlisted in
Starfleet hoping to become a career science officer; he still remembered the
scan taken before the Command Ability Test he’d taken as a gesture to one of
his teachers; after finishing the scan, the doctor had held up the tricorder
so that Hoskins could see what was on the display:

DISABLED

As soon as he read this word, Hoskins decided to stick to being a science
officer: the regulations of this time stated that no one with a learning
disability could be offered command of a starship. Fate, however, decided to
take a hand in Hoskins’s life and he was assigned to Captain Solak for the
last flight of a science vessel that was going on her last voyage. During the
trip the vessel was attacked by an automated Kalandan defense cube and
damaged, injuring the Captain.

A short while after Solak had been taken to sickbay, he began mutating into a
being of pure telepathic energy, and after completing his transformation he’d
handed command of the ship to the surprised Hoskins, and as a last gesture to
Starfleet flung him to the last colony of a race thought to have died out ages
earlier. When the science vessel returned home, Hoskins was stunned by a
message in which Admiral Cadwallader promoted him to battle command. Only
after bringing a highly classified computer memory bank home - and saving the
Earth from Thoms, an astronaut who had been transformed by aliens into a
biomechanical entity, in the process - did he learn the Admiral had actually
been a Founder and that the real Carl Cadwallader had been returned safely to
Earth by the Founders. Because Hoskins had saved the Earth, the real
Cadwallader named the young man the permanent captain of the new Reliant. To
his surprise, the rule against learning disabled captains, which had been in
the Starfleet Regulations from the get-go, was dropped by Admiral Remmick on
the grounds that "Often these people, despite their difficulties, have gifts
that could potentially enable them to live a normal life as a working member
of Starfleet. So the regulation hinders these people’s abilities to advance in
their chosen careers."

Although he had never said anything, Hoskins agreed with the Admiral’s
decision.

"Assemble an away team," he told Bennett, "and beam down to the larger of the
sleeper ships. Starfleet will want a full report on what we find aboard these
vessels."

If anything, the Captain’s curiosity had been peaked by the sight of the
sleeper ship.

"Would you like me to accompany you to the ship, Bruce?" he asked Bennett.

"Certainly, Captain!" Bennett said.

"Tanner," Hoskins told the young man at the helm, "you have the conn."

Both men walked into the turbolift and went down to the transporter room. As
they went onto the transporter platform, Bennett called Ensigns Vila and Bari
to the transporter room to be part of the away team. Both Ensigns entered the
room looking a bit nervous.

"We’re going down to the sleeper ship," Hoskins told the Ensigns, "so don’t
worry - I’m as nervous as you are. Come, step onto the platform with us."

Looking at each other, the ensigns stepped onto the transporter platform and
Hoskins told the officer at the console:

"Four to beam down, Lieutenant!"

"Aye, sir!" the man called.

A shower of sparkles surrounded the quartet and soon they found themselves
aboard the old sleeper ship. They’d landed in a rectangular cabin with four
cryogenic cylinders on each of the walls and one at the bow. At the back was a
vent leading to the engine room. Inside four of the cylinders, tall skeletons
in black military unforms stood facing outward, toward the team as if they
were staring at them. Hoskins walked over and studied one of the skeletons.

"I don’t think there can be much doubt what these people were doing out here,"
Bennett said finally, "or what their intentions were. They’re all tall and
were clearly muscular."

"Yes," Hoskins said, "they’ve all been artificially enhanced. These are super-
soldiers."

Turning to the cylinder at the bow, Hoskins found himself staring at the most
beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Like the skeletons, she was clad in a
form-fitting black uniform and was enhanced. Long black hair fell down on her
shoulders and her body was shapely despite having been much enlarged from its
original state; her lips were ruby red. For a moment, he hesitated as he
stared at the girl, and then tapped his commbadge.

"Transporter room!" he snapped. "Four people and one cylinder to beam up."

Dr. Garbo swept a tricorder over the prone figure of the woman as she lay on a
pallet in the sickbay with a feeding mechanism over her chest. Derek was with
them.

"I’m not reading any brain function," she told Hoskins, "but her body is
something else.

This woman has been enhanced to perform at levels well beyond the human norm -
look, you’ll see what I mean on the read-outs. Her heart’s beating several
times more strongly than normal, her lungs have greater capacity than a normal
person, and she has the musculature of a champion body builder, although she’s
much taller than any other woman I’ve ever seen."

"Her body’s clearly been altered for military reasons," Hoskins said, "perhaps
to protect Earth from the invading Romulans - or, alternately, to invade
Vokalian."

"The latter possibility is the most likely, Captain," Derek said, "and while
you were away I was able to identify the other ship with life signs - it’s the
Pioneer Eleven."

"Then the source of the other life signs is Commander Charles Lamont
Cranston." Bruce said, then tapped his commbadge. "Transporter room, lock onto
Cranston and beam him over to sickbay. I believe the Commander is in need of
medical help."

"Aye, sir!" the Transporter Chief’s voice called.

A sparkling mass of light appeared on the table next to the woman that
solidified into the body of a man, a man with burns all over his body due to
the malfunction of his own cryogenic equipment. Dr. Garbo rushed to get a life
suport panel over the man’s chest and passed her medical tricorder over the
man’s prone body, frowning as she looked at her readings.

"This man is barely alive," she said, "but his mental read-outs are stable."

Hoskins knew he was thinking what she was thinking: they had one patient with
no brain function and a badly burned astronaut beyond her ability to treat
successfully. Why not transfer the mind of one into the body of the other? It
was a logical enough solution.

"Go for it!" snapped Hoskins. "I give you permission for the mind transfer."

"All right, Stephen," Dr. Garbo said, "I’ll save this unfortunate astronaut’s
life."

Opening the panel between the two pallets, Dr. Garbo fused the two circuits at
a point at which they came together, then turned the brain stimulator on full
power. Cranston’s body tremored as his encephalic pattern was downloaded
through the computer into the girl, then was still; the readouts from his
brain dropped to nil as the readouts from the girl’s brain spiked. Charles
Cranston was fighting his way back to life. For a few seconds the girl’s body
twitched, then was still; her brain waves stabilized and her life signs
returned to normal.

"We did it, Stephen!" Dr. Garbo cried. "Cranston will be just fine."

On Ten-Forward, the turbolift hissed open and a tall woman in black walked to
one of the tables and sat down. Crossing her legs, she tapped the console
built into the table.

"Please select your reading material," the computer said, "from the main
menu."

"Get me Metamorphoses," the woman said, "I haven’t read that in a long time."

"Author?"

"Ovid."

"Author?"

The woman sighed.

"Publicus Ovidius Naso!" she snapped.

"Enjoy your selection, Commander."

"Thank you!" the woman cried.

"Hey!" someone cried. "Look at that girl - she’s a babe!"

A young cadet sauntered over to the table where the woman was sitting.

"Hey, babe!" he called. "Are you free this evening?"

"I was planning to curl up in a chair and do some quiet reading," the woman
said, "and I don’t think I like your tone of voice, young man."

He walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder at the table display.

"Man!" he cried. "A babe like you shouldn’t be doing so much heavy reading."

"Conan Doyle said it best," the woman commented, "in the Adventure of the Red
Circle. ‘Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the old
university.’"

"Now, listen -" the cadet snapped.

"No, you listen, Cadet!" the woman said, whirling around suddenly and grabbing
him by the scruff of the neck, then slamming him into the wall. "I’m sick and
tired of being interrupted while I’m reading - especially while I’m reading
the classics. If you don’t shut up now, I’ll hit you so hard you’ll wind up in
sickbay in a body cast, or my name isn’t Charles Cranston. Do I make myself
clear?"

"Yes, Ma’am!" the cadet cried as he and his friend ran for the turbolift.

Commander Cranston sat back down and continued to read Metamorphoses. Flexing
her super-powered muscles, she sat back in the chair and relaxed, enjoying the
translation.

Several hours later, the Commander arrived in the ready room for her
debriefing and was pleased to see Captain Hoskins and Commander Mulhaney
waiting for her.

"Have a seat, Dr. Kendrick!" the captain called.

Stunned, the Commander stood there for a few minutes - her mouth in the shape
of an O with her hand over it - and then slowlysat down in one of the chairs
in front of the desk.

"How did you know I wasn’t the real Charles Cranston?" she asked.

"I did some background checking on you out of habit," Hoskins said, "and found
nothing on you before you signed up with the Space section of Intenational
Oils, so I investigated. At the time he was supposed to have signed up with
the Space section, Cranston would have been over ninety-five years old - his
birthday is still in the records from International Oils. Your real name is
Dr. Christian Kendrick and you were phased out shortly before you joined the
Section."

"A friend of mine was phased out shortly after the real Charles Cranston
died," Kendrick admitted, "and I knew I might be next, so I used his name to
join the Space section."

"You gave yourself away," Hoskins added, "when you used Ovid’s full name and
showed you were a Sherlockian when you used the Doyle quotation - a dumb
mistake."

"You can see it in her face!" a tall grey-haired man shouted. "It really is
the Commander back from the dead. She’s not just some 250-year-old super
soldier!"

"This is Admiral Benbow," Hoskins said, "of the Archaeological Division. He
will now debrief you as per regulations."

"How do you feel in your new body, Commander?" Benbow asked. "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?" Kendrick asked. "Am I okay? I feel fantastic!"

For half an hour, she was questioned by the Admiral and answered as best she
could. She revealed information about the Pioneer Eleven mission and about
herself.

"How did your ship come to be here?" the Admiral asked.

"I wish I knew," Kendrick admitted, "but I don’t. She must have floated into
the system after passing through an asteroid field and being severely
damaged."

"Did you realize that the population of Eskalian has been decimated by one of
the ships now in orbit around the sun - one of which is your ship, the Pioneer
Eleven?"

"No," Kendrick said, "and I don’t have weapons on my ship, so it couldn’t have
been the Pioneer Eleven. And it couldn’t have been the super-soldiers’ ship,
which was apparently badly damaged before it ever drifted into this system, so
it must be the third ship - the last one, with no life-readings. Captain,
could you identify that ship and tell me what exactly she is?"

Hoskins’s commbadge beeped, and he tapped it.

"Bennett here!" a voice said. "We’ve identified the third ship - it’s one of
ours, the USS Altair. At least, that’s the name on the bow of the ship, but it
looks different."

"I’m on my way!" Hoskins cried. "Mulhaney, Dr. Kendrick, you’re coming with
me."

"Wait for me!" Admiral Benbow cried, chasing after the other three.

On the bridge, Christian Kendrick and Captain Stephen Hoskins caught their
first sight of the third vessel on the viewscreen, the Altair. It was
square-shaped and old, rather like the early Starfleet shuttles, but was much
larger and was in fact a starship herself.

"Hail it!" Captain Hoskins ordered. "That’s an order!"

"Aye, sir!" Lieutenant Galbraith said. "Hailing Altair."

She put through the hail and was surprised to get a response.

"Altair is hailing us, sir!" she called.

"Put it through to the speakers!" Hoskins ordered.

At this point, a voice came over the ship’s speakers - a cold mechanical
voice.

"Altair here, Reliant. My mission is non-hostile. Request data from your
archives."

It doesn’t look like the ship I saw in the history books, Hoskins thought, and
in fact, the ship looks more like a modern Starfleet vessel. What’s happened
to the old girl?

"Request granted!" Hoskins said. "Galbraith, transmit the data."

"Aye, sir!" Galbraith said. "Beginning data transmission to Altair."

She began to transmit data to the other starship, and when she’d finished, the
voice said:

"Data accepted, Reliant. Re-aligning to launch point."

"What launch point, Captain?" Kendrick asked as Hoskins slapped his forehead.

"Earth!" the Captain groaned.

"Altair!" Kendrick cried. "What is your mission?"

"To seek out intelligent life forms and show them comedy routines and jokes."

"Why did you destroy the Eskalians?" Mulhaney asked.

"They did not respond to the jokes in my data library."

Hoskins thought a moment.

"Perhaps you'd like more jokes to add to your data library!" he shouted.

"Non Sequitur!" Altair replied. "Your statement is not logical."

"How were you able to destroy the entire civilization of a planet?" Hoskins
asked.

"I took much from the other one," the starship replied, "and am restored to
full power."

"There's nothing in that ship, is there, Captain?" Bennett asked. "Nothing
alive, that is."

"No, there isn't, Mr. Bennett!" Hoskins said with a smile. "Altair is the last
great probe and the first true starship, easily capable of warp speed,
launched from Earth in 2200."

"Captain, look!" Galbraith cried.

Hoskins looked. Something was coming out of the posterior of the Altair, a
silver object that expanded even as he watched it being ejected. Finally, it
popped free of the starship and expanded into a model of Altair that was about
twice its size. Only then did Hoskins notice a shifting movement in the area
in front of the unmanned starship's bow.

"A Romulan Warbird!" Hoskins cried. "Don't arm the weapons or we'll be
attacked too."

Twin beams fired from the stern of the cloaked Warbird and hit the Altair's
decoy, giving the starship the the time she needed to return fire. A ball of
crimson energy flared from the belly of the starship, smashing into the
Warbird, which exploded into a ball of fire.

"My God!" Hoskins cried. "What have I done?"

"You did the right thing," Kendrick assured him, "and by holding back, you
saved us all."

"Starship command is about not doing things as well as doing things," the
Admiral said, hurrying from the lift, "and every captain must use restraint.
Well done, Captain Hoskins."

Hoskins tapped his commbadge.

"Papa to Poppaea!" he called. "Come in, Poppaea."

"Yes, papa?" a woman's voice asked.

"Come with the Admiral, Dr. Kendrick and I. We're beaming down to the planet."

When the four of them beamed down to Vokalian, they found they'd materialized
in a virtual paradise, a forested planet with many trees and many life forms.
In front of them, the Holy Sepulcher of the Vokalians loomed over their heads
like a huge mountain. In fact, the Sepulcher was mostly taken up by the huge
seated statue of an armoured warrior with a hammer.

"Welcome!" a tall man cried, walking up to the Away team. "Welcome to the
Sepulcher of Thor Odinson, he who thunders across the world and brings rain to
all the forests. I am called Zarman and I bid you welcome to our humble
planet."

"I am Captain Stephen Hoskins of the Federation starship Reliant!" Hoskins
said gently.

"My name is Poppaea," the vision standing beside Hoskins told Zarman, "and I'm
Captain Hoskins' daughter. I was with my stepmother, Princess Erie, when Papa
called me to join him on this diplomatic mission. Perhaps someday we'll get
together and talk about old times."

"My name is Dr. Christian Kendrick," the tall woman beside the Captain said,
"and I was rescued by these people. There can be no real doubt as to their
kindness and charity."

"I'm Admiral Benbow of the Starfleet Archaeological division," the Admiral
told Zarman with a slight smile, "and I hope these talks prove to be a
success."

"We already have a banquet prepared for you!" Zarman said. "Come join us for
dinner."

"Certainly!" Hoskins said. "Come with me, people!"

Everyone followed Zarman and his people into the main sepulcher area beside
the statue, where as the native Vokalian entered the banquet hall, he bowed to
a painting of Thor.

"Did you notice the statue?" Hoskins whispered to Poppaea as they all sat
down.

"Of Thor?" she said. "Yes, Papa. And the hammer - could it be a coincidence?"

"Hardly!" Hoskins said. "Some astronaut came here and contaminated the
Vokalians' original culture. Thor Odinson is the ancient Nordic god of thunder
and rain. Now, let's eat."

During the banquet, Dr; Kendrick drank a glass of water and said:

"Captain Hoskins has been unusually kind to me, but I have no idea why."

"When I was an ensign on the Audacity," Hoskins said, "we stumbled on another
squad of super soldiers and Captain Baxter assigned me to debrief all five of
them. Some of them were violent and willing to fight; a few others wanted to
stop fighting and begin new lives. Three of that squad are undergoing
rehabilitation at a Starfleet facility and one of those three attacked me as I
was trying to question him and was subdued. They were dangerous people, sent
off into deep space to invade a planet that was already colonized when their
ship arrived."

"I didn't know," Kendrick said. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry, Kendrick!" Hoskins exclaimed. "These were sickly
people, who volunteered for an experiment and were enhanced to the nth degree.
Only the two women on the squad wanted to stop fighting and begin their lives
over again."

"What about me?" Kendrick asked.

"You're handling your new body fairly well," Hoskins told her, "so I think you
have quite a future ahead of you, especially if you want to join Starfleet."

She looked at him, and then at Poppaea for the first time. To her surprise,
the girl had already begun eating with a passion. Poppaea was tall and had the
etherial beauty of the delusion of a drunkard; Kendrick had seen such a face
in the mirror - her own - and in the illustrations for fairy tales which she
had read as a child. Kendrick, however, had a stronger jawline. Her raven hair
flowed over her slim body like a black river; and her skin was a dark yellow.

After dinner, Zarman smiled and said:

"And now, my guests, it is time for the Sacrament of Thor."

He snapped his fingers, and two priests brought a dazzling golden bust of the
god Thor to the table, and placed it in front of the Captain; this gave
Kendrick a clear look at the face. For a moment her face turned white with
shock, then she scowled in rage.

"Why, that . . . that . . ." she spluttered. "I’ll kill him! I’ll tear him
limb from limb!"

"Who?" Admiral Benbow asked.

"Him!" Kendrick cried, pointing at the bust. "He’s broken our orders and gone
over the edge. If he thinks he can twist an entire civilization to his own
ends, he’s sadly mistaken, and he is going to pay dearly for what he’s done.
WAIT TILL I GET MY HANDS ON HIM!"

"Yes," the admiral said, "but who is he?"

"My backup man!" Kendrick snarled. "His name is Lieutenant Andreas Dynarski."

"Dynarski blasted off in the Pioneer Twelve a few days after I went up and we
stayed in communication until I went into suspended animation for the last
time," Kendrick told Admiral Benbow and Captain Hoskins after they’d finished
their dessert and calmed her back down, "and then I never heard from him
again. He was a military officer who was seconded to International Oils after
a disastrous incident at the Naval Academy, and there was some suspicion that
he was a spy, sent to damage International Oils’ space program. He must have
somehow come here before I did and set himself up as the Vokalians’ god."

"Of course!" Hoskins cried. "He must have gone through a wormhole or
discontinuum."

"And wound up in this system!" Benbow exclaimed. "Hoskins, that’s brilliant!"

"Thank you, sir!" Hoskins said. "I aim to please. He evidently crashed
somewhere on the planet and as soon as he climbed out of the wreckage, set
himself up as Thor Odinson. Now, the question is, is Lieutenant Dynarski still
alive?"

"Zarman said he isn’t," the admiral said. "He tells me that Thor fell in
battle against the Crested Ones on the day of Ragnarok, and that he was then
interred in the Temple of Thor after his death, in the Dromond that had
brought him to Vokalian."

"He broke protocol!" Kendrick snapped. "We were to investigate new life forms
only."

"In that case," the Admiral said, "you are to return to the starship and to
your quarters. It would not be wise for you to investigate on your own, as you
are not qualified to perform such an investigation, not being a member of
Starfleet, much less a security officer."

"Why, you little -" Kendrick cried, jumping to her feet.

"Benbow to Reliant," the Admiral said, "we have one Super Soldier to beam up."

Seconds later sparkles of golden light surrounded the angry Kendrick, whisking
her away from the surface and back to the transporter room of the Reliant.

"Not qualified!" Kendrick cried as she walked toward the Holodeck. "Not
qualified! I, who had to save Dynarski’s bacon a hundred times or more and
pull his fat out of the fire! Why, we catalogued planets in this sector of the
galaxy even before they were discovered by the ships of the Federation! I even
catalogued the asteroids in the Minbar belt."

She walked up to the Holodeck door.

"Computer," she said, "get me the control room of the Pioneer Eleven."

"Program engaged!" the computer said. "You may enter."

"Very well," Kendrick said as the door slid open in front of her, "I’ll go
in."

She went into the holodeck and found herself standing in an exact replica of
the control room of her famous vessel, the Pioneer Eleven. It was a small,
neat room with a control panel at the front of the ship and the control chair
in the middle. This chair was the one from which she had worked and the one
she slept in when she was in suspended animation. Sitting down in the chair,
she looked at the viewport in front of her and smiled broadly. At that precise
moment, the door opened again, but Kendrick didn’t notice; she was too busy
remembering.

"Others have come before me," she said, "and others have tried, but failed. I
wish those others could see the future in which I have found myself; they
would be immensely pleased - for these starships are a fitting tribute to
those people who have gone before. They’d look at these great craft and
remember that they were responsible for making them happen."

At that moment

Anthony Durrant 16 Artifacts