Ansolon Season 02 / Episode 17
by Alan Tripp
2412
Unknown Forest
Interior Dyson Sphere Region — “The Straits”
The jungle screamed.
Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
The forest itself screamed.
The sound rolled through the impossible wilderness in layered waves of shrieks, howls, chittering calls, and distant thunderous bellows that seemed to vibrate through the roots beneath their boots. Leaves the size of shuttlecraft wings trembled overhead while enormous insects scattered from trunks thick as buildings. Somewhere far above, hidden beyond a ceiling of green so dense it might as well have been another world, something enormous moved through the canopy.
Branches cracked.
Birds exploded into flight.
And behind them came the hunting cries.
Shallana Ironwolf ran.
Mud splashed beneath her boots as she vaulted over a fallen root while behind her the surviving crew of the Crazy Horse crashed through the undergrowth in terrified desperation. Phaser fire flashed intermittently through the haze of humidity and drifting spores, but the beams barely slowed the creatures pursuing them.
The predators moved like living nightmares.
Tall.
Lean.
Scaled.
Their bodies reminded her of Earth’s ancient velociraptors only in the broadest possible sense. These creatures were larger, heavier, and horrifyingly intelligent. Their hides shimmered in dark emerald and black patterns that blended almost perfectly into the jungle around them. Their forelimbs ended in hooked claws capable of carving through bark and flesh with equal ease, while their elongated skulls held rows of curved teeth designed not merely to kill—but to tear.
And they were fast.
God, they were fast.
One burst from the foliage to their left with a shriek so violent it rattled Shallana’s ribs.
Crewman T’Vel screamed as the creature slammed into him from the side.
The Vulcan hit the ground hard, trying to bring his phaser rifle up, but the predator was already on him. Its jaws snapped shut around his shoulder and neck simultaneously.
Blood sprayed across the ferns.
Another raptor leapt over its companion, claws slicing downward toward Hronoc from engineering.
The Bolian stumbled backward and fired wildly.
The phaser beam scorched the creature’s chest but only enraged it.
“KEEP MOVING!” Shallana roared.
Valyres Morgraz spun mid-run, firing controlled bursts behind them. Her face had gone pale beneath the humidity and sweat.
“They’re coordinating!” she shouted.
Shallana already knew.
The creatures were not attacking randomly.
They were herding them.
Driving them.
Testing them.
The realization settled like ice into the pit of her stomach.
Predators learned.
Pack hunters adapted.
And these things were studying them.
Ahead, the jungle abruptly opened into a narrow ravine filled with shallow water and shattered stone.
“THIS WAY!” Davidson’s replacement at point shouted.
The survivors plunged downward.
Something slammed into the cliffside above them.
Rock exploded outward.
Another creature.
Waiting.
The raptor dropped directly into the ravine among them.
Crewman Velas never even had time to scream before the jaws closed around his torso.
The creature shook him violently.
Bones snapped audibly.
Valyres fired again and again into the predator’s skull until it finally collapsed sideways into the water.
But more cries echoed above them.
Closer now.
Surrounding them.
Shallana’s lungs burned as they pushed deeper into the ravine, slipping through water and moss while panic clawed at the edges of discipline. The humidity wrapped around them like a living thing. Every breath tasted of wet soil, alien pollen, and blood.
And beneath it all…
fear.
Valyres could feel it from everyone.
The jungle amplified emotion strangely. Fear did not remain contained inside individuals here. It spread outward into the environment like ripples across water.
The predators could probably smell it.
Ahead, the ravine bent sharply around a wall of black stone.
And then suddenly—
voices.
Phaser fire.
Human screaming.
Shallana nearly stumbled as they rounded the bend.
The survivors of the U.S.S. Sparhawk stared back at them in stunned disbelief.
There were fewer than there should have been.
Far fewer.
The makeshift encampment looked like something assembled by survivors after the end of civilization itself. Torn emergency shelters stretched between trees while scavenged power cells flickered weakly beside portable emitters. Blood stained the stones.
And in the center of it all sat a man propped against a support frame beside a medical station.
At first Shallana thought he was already dead.
Then he moved.
Captain Ralen tr’Veyan of the U.S.S. Sparhawk had once been considered one of Starfleet’s finest deep-range reconnaissance commanders. Born on Romulus less than a decade before the supernova, he had survived the collapse of his world as a refugee child aboard overcrowded evacuation vessels that never reached their intended destinations.
He had grown up stateless.
Homeless.
Angry.
The Federation had eventually become the nearest thing he had ever known to stability.
So he had joined Starfleet not because he believed in its ideals…
but because he wanted to believe someone still could.
Now he barely resembled the officer Starfleet had once decorated.
One leg ended above the knee in a mass of brutalized flesh wrapped in blood-soaked field dressings.
His left arm was gone from the elbow downward.
And his eyes—
Dear God.
His eyes.
The skin around them looked chemically burned, swollen and ruined beneath layers of emergency treatment gel. Dark venom burns stretched across half his face.
Beside him knelt a trembling young ensign trying desperately to adjust the captain’s bandages.
Ralen lifted his head slightly at the sound of newcomers approaching.
“You shouldn’t have come down here,” he rasped.
His voice sounded like gravel dragged across steel.
Shallana stepped forward slowly.
“What happened?”
A silence fell over the camp.
Then one of the Sparhawk survivors answered.
“They hunt in packs,” the woman whispered. “They drove us into a marsh basin three days ago.”
Another officer swallowed hard before continuing.
“The captain held them off while we got the wounded clear.”
Ralen gave a weak snort that might once have been laughter.
“One of them spat in my face.”
Valyres felt the emotional weight in the camp immediately.
Shock.
Exhaustion.
Terror buried beneath numbness.
But there was something else too.
Confusion.
“They were going to finish him,” another survivor said quietly. “Then something attacked the pack.”
Shallana frowned.
“What do you mean something?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Finally the young ensign beside Ralen spoke.
“I didn’t see them clearly.”
Them.
Not it.
“There were shapes in the trees,” she whispered. “Tall figures. Spears maybe. The predators scattered almost immediately.”
Valyres felt a chill move through her.
Not from fear.
From awareness.
They were being watched.
Again.
The jungle had gone quiet.
Far too quiet.
Every head slowly turned outward toward the surrounding forest.
The sounds of insects had stopped.
No birds.
No movement.
Only silence.
Then came the scream.
The raptors exploded from the jungle on all sides simultaneously.
One leapt directly into the center of the camp.
Another slammed through an emergency shelter.
People scattered in panic.
Phaser fire lit the darkness beneath the trees.
A predator crashed into one of the wounded survivors before anyone could stop it.
Blood sprayed across the stones.
Shallana fired twice into another creature charging toward the medical station.
It kept coming.
The thing moved with terrifying momentum.
Valyres felt the emotional impact before the physical attack even landed.
Predatory hunger.
Pack aggression.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
Then—
something whistled through the air.
The spear struck the raptor through the throat with such force it lifted the creature partially off the ground.
The camp froze.
Another spear came from the darkness.
Then another.
The predators recoiled instantly.
Not from injury.
From fear.
Figures emerged silently along the ridgelines surrounding the ravine.
Tall.
Reptilian.
Armored in layered materials that looked grown rather than manufactured.
Their eyes reflected gold within the jungle darkness.
Some carried long spears tipped with glowing crystalline edges. Others held strange curved weapons formed from dark metallic bone-like materials. Behind several of them stood massive reptilian mounts snorting mist into the humid air.
The newcomers moved with absolute stillness.
Like hunters entirely at home here.
One stepped forward onto the ridge above the camp.
Larger than the others.
Older perhaps.
Scars crossed the scaled ridges along his throat and face while woven cords, carved bone, and metallic ornaments hung from his armor in patterns that suggested ritual meaning.
The surviving raptors backed away slowly.
Not retreating from Starfleet.
Retreating from them.
The stranger lowered his spear slightly.
And for one suspended moment…
nobody moved.
Shallana slowly lowered her phaser.
The reptilian warrior watched her carefully.
Not hostile.
Not peaceful either.
Assessing.
Judging.
Valyres felt something from him then.
Not telepathy.
Something older.
Instinctive.
The emotional impression struck her like distant thunder.
Guardianship.
Warning.
Territorial fury held tightly beneath discipline.
And grief.
Ancient grief.
Then one of the younger Starfleet officers panicked and raised his rifle too quickly.
Several of the reptilian warriors instantly shifted stance.
Weapons rose.
The jungle itself seemed to tense.
Shallana stepped forward immediately.
“Stand down!” she barked.
The officer froze.
For several agonizing seconds nobody breathed.
Then the reptilian leader slowly lowered his weapon again.
He turned his gaze toward the injured Captain tr’Veyan.
Then toward the forest behind them.
Listening.
Finally, he spoke.
The language sounded tonal and layered, filled with deep resonant clicks and harmonic undertones unlike anything in Federation databases.
Nobody understood a word.
But the meaning still somehow came through clearly enough.
Danger remained.
The leader gestured sharply toward the deeper jungle.
Toward safety perhaps.
Or captivity.
At this point…
they had no way to know which.
Then without another word, the reptilian warriors faded backward into the forest shadows as silently as they had appeared.
Watching.
Waiting.
Leaving the survivors alive.
For now.