Colossus of the southern sands

Posted on Mon Mar 23rd, 2026 @ 12:39pm by Lieutenant Commander Intharia T'Zor & Lieutenant Rune Thul & Lieutenant JG Nimah & SubLieutenant Attania Viren & Ensign Irik Sul & Warrant Officer Bart Cage
Edited on on Mon Mar 23rd, 2026 @ 1:04pm

2,110 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: UnderMind [4]
Location: USS Jamieson - Several hundred KM south of Shitau
Timeline: Morning - MD04

“Three or four more grids in the current direction and we’ll be directly over the south pole.” Ensign Sul observed to the runabout’s crew. “Hey, uh, Commander T’Zor, the computer’s spotted something resembling footprints in grid I-55. Looks like they go off at bearing 270 mark four.”

"Humanoid?" T'Zor asked, turning in her seat to look at Sul.

"Affirmative. 85% chance it's one of our missing Order members." Sul said confidently. Despite the positive news, he felt somewhat off his game. There was something he was sensing, at the edges of his awareness that he couldn't quite place. An alien sensation, and only barely there, but maddeningly real, if no more noticeable than the strange floaters within ones eyes. He wondered if Lieutenant Thul sensed it too, but was too busy manning his station to discuss. After all, it was only barely there.

Rune glanced over at T’Zor. He believed their next course of action seemed obvious and now that he wasn’t focused on tactical sensor analysis, an alien something softly brushed his awareness. Nothing came of it that he could confidently identify or interpret, he suddenly realized. That put him on edge but with no real evidence of what it is he felt he didn’t have enough to warrant mentioning it.

He leaned back in his chair while the computer compiled his analysis results.

"Commander, I'm detecting something unusual over the horizon. It's some kind of mobile static discharge, causing an intermittent electrical storm. It's moving faster than the local winds, and against them." Sul explained. "Near as I can tell it's under the dune surface, so we're not getting any better readings unless we can get directly above it. Looks like it's going in the same direction as we are, following the tracks almost exactly if current projections hold up."

"Let me try rearranging some of the sensor palettes, it might be possible to increase the resolution." Viren said as she began the work she described.

"Get us as close as you deem safe, Mr Cage." Thari told the human at the runabout's helm.

"Aye, ma'am. Getting closer." Cage replied, and almost as he said it the craft accelerated swiftly ahead, coming in a matter of seconds up to the rumbling cloud of sand tearing across the desert.

"I think it's a lifeform. But I'm not detecting any water inside it." Sul presented his scans. It was a long, cylindrical creature. "It's some kind of... worm." He said, for want of a better description. His first thought was actually of the planet-killing doomsday machine Kirk's Enterprise had brought down, when he saw it outside the sand it swam through. Another static discharge arced from the worm, like a bolt of lightning from the ground towards the sky.

When Rune focused on the worm, he sent out telepathic feelers. The way he sent them out will touch the others but they’d register a slight mental caress, nothing intrusive. As his awareness descended down to the worm, Rune wondered if this worm was the Alien presence he’d not been able to interpret.

The longer he reached for the creature, the further away it felt. That was strange, perhaps it was so Alien that Betazoid telepathy couldn’t even make a read, or perhaps it had four lobes like Ferengi did. He wasn’t getting any closer to it so snapped back to himself.

Rune took a few deep breaths to steady himself and regain composure at his failure.

Sul's console pinged, and he announced what it read with urgency. "Detecting a Vulcan 60km due south. But it looks like he's out of the worm's path. He's atop a nearby rockface. Is he... studying it?"

"I'm getting a reading on some sort of device dead ahead of the... worm." Sublieutenant Viren said from Ops, feeling the term didn't adequately describe the massive creature. "It's a kind of low-end seismic device. It's making rhythmic thumps every second or so." She explained. She suspected the worm was heading for it for whatever reason, but she left it to the Starfleet scientists to make those claims.

"Get us closer to the Vulcan, I want a visual to ensure he's out of danger. Mr Thul, can you try to make contact with him telepathically?" T'Zor asked of Cage and Thul.

"Aye, moving us ahead." Cage responded, taking the shuttle ahead fast, keeping it just under mach 1.

“Aye, on the seismic device matter, Commander, it could be that the worm is attracted to the thumps to hunt.” Rune was in the middle of breathing exercises in order to broadcast to the Vulcan. He placed his hands on top of the console to steady himself.

Vulcan, Starfleet has cancelled your colony’s permit on this world and it is to be removed, return immediately or prepare for transport by us, this use of telepathic message has been sanctioned by Starfleet as you lack or switched off your communications devices. Rune told the Vulcan observer.

Be gone. Came the Vulcan's curt mental response. I am conducting observations that must not be interrupted.

Why, will what you are observing never occur again? Rune inquired firmly.

It is not your concern. Came the Vulcan's response, before the distinct silence of him closing his mind, erecting barriers to further contact.

Rude, Rune mused, well they put themselves in whatever happens. He added before turning to T’Zor. “Commander, I was told to go away. The Vulcan is uncooperative. Not something I’d thought I’d say. Your orders?”

"Charming lot, aren't they?" Thari said, uncrossing her legs. "Get us within thirty meters of him and open the hatch. I'll talk to him the old fashioned way."

"Taking us down, ma'am." Cage confirmed, and the runabout seemed almost to drop, catching itself not too far off the ground. He released the locks on the starboard hatch, lowering it as instructed. He didn't think it was a good idea, but he wasn't a Lieutenant Commander so he kept quiet.

Thari held onto the handle and leaned out the door once the runabout floated within shouting distance of the Vulcan they sought, atop a rocky outcropping emerging like an island from the dunes. "Sir, we need you to come with us! Now!" Thari shouted at the Vulcan. She used her biotic abilities to create a subtle tunnel, only strong enough to hold back the winds, allowing her voice to carry uninterrupted.

"You are interfering with my observations. It has taken me weeks to create safe conditions to observe this creature. I will not abandon my studies." The Vulcan shouted while still maintaining his detached logical neutrality.

"Enough of this." Thari leaned back inside and spoke to the runabout's crew. "Beam him aboard. Thul, stun him if he gets rowdy." She instructed simply, entering the command to close the outer door, sealing the runabout up once again. More than a little bit of sand had got inside while the door was open.

“I wonder what would be more infuriating to the Vulcan, us beaming him up or firing warning shots off near whatever he is observing so he can’t observe anymore?” Rune posed the question to T’Zor and nodded as he grabbed his phaser and aimed at the transporter alcove in the middle of the cockpit.

"Lieutenant Nimah, please recalibrate the transporter and initiate transport." Sul asked his fellow scientist, trying to do it himself but realising he didn't have the free hands while trying to keep track of the nearby worm, which was disappearing under the sand, having consumed the thumping device.

"Understood. Recalibrating now." Nimah locked on to the Vulcan and slid her fingers up the transporter controls, beaming him up. What does Vulcan indignation look like? She had no idea - but she had the faintest sense that she was about to find out.

The Vulcan didn't look annoyed when he appeared in the transporter alcove, but he didn't have time to say anything before loud crashing sounds filled the air, followed by Ensign Sul's cry of alarm. "Ma'am it's the worm, it's going crazy! It's coming towards us!" He cried out as the holographic display showed the creature seeming to have some sort of seizure, even as it charged up through the sand towards the runabout.

“Perhaps we should get higher?” Rune suggested as he prepared the targeting sensors for weapons fire should it become necessary.

"With haste, Mr Cage!" T'Zor called out as the boom of the worm exploding out of the sand and leaping towards them erupted.

Cage had been in the process of pulling the craft up more sharply than standards encouraged well before the suggestion or order came to do so. The shuttle lurched upwards with more g-forces than anyone was accustomed to, causing the Vulcan in the transporter bay to lose his footing, and everyone else to visibly slump in their seats.

Viren held on instinctively, glad that none of the controls within her reach could be used to do anything deleterious.

The worm missed making contact with them by mere feet, and the rush of air from its massive bulk passing buffeted them further, but Cage's superior skills and extensive practice in high-G piloting allowed him to even them out and take them up several kilometers.

Intharia held tightly onto her the arms of her seat and wished she'd activated the safety restraints earlier. She felt g-forces for what seemed like the first time since she'd arrived in this universe, an unpleasantly familiar sensation that quickly passed. "Very nice flying Mr Cage." She complimented the pilot, despite the discomfort, it was better than the alternative.

Viren put her head as close to the window as she could as the worm dove back into the sand and disappeared, watching it with awe. She'd never seen anything like it.

"Two weeks of observations ruined. I will now be made to look a liar or incompetent by my colleagues and the scientific community. I expect that your Starfleet will provide recompense for this violation of my rights." The Vulcan said as he got back to his feet.

"I didn't catch your name, sir, but I have to say I've had about all the Vulcan arrogance I can take for one day." Intharia stated intently, hoping to signal her displeasure in a way even a Vulcan couldn't miss. "You people will be lucky if you haven't all been shipped back to the Alpha Quadrant by the end of tomorrow based on your philosophy of unaccountability and reckless self-endangerment on an uncharted world. Now if you're very, very polite, and very quiet, I'll let you use the terminal in the back to record your observations, and we may consider including them in report on our business here. What do you say?" It was calm, collected and professional, but even someone who'd embraced kolinahr for more than a century could see she was pissed off, and not to be trifled with.

The Vulcan looked around for a moment like he might argue, but quickly saw sense. "As you say. I have belongings in a cave nearby that will allow me to better catalog what I have observed." The Vulcan said.

"Put the coordinates into the terminal and flag them for my view, we'll stop by if we get time." T'Zor said, resuming her seat.

"As you say." The Vulcan said, pulling the hood of his robe over his head, and moving to the back of the runabout.

Viren smiled quietly to herself, she'd never shared her people's irrational dislike of Vulcans generally, but there was something very satisfying about seeing these Order Vulcans told off.

After the Vulcan gave them attitude and quite thoroughly put in their place, Rune let his heart rate drop before he called over to the pilot. “Mister Cage, let me buy you dinner at my husband’s restaurant for your great flying today!” Rune exclaimed as he held the console a little harder than he really had to.

"Just doing my job, sir. But I'll take it." Cage said, first modestly, then opportunistically.

“Mister Vulcan, I wonder what the Federation law, which your world is a member and so your people subject to its rules, might do when they learn of your activities here regardless of your own government’s interests here.” Rune gestured at the robed Vulcan. “Unless you and your group are illegally here,” he added staring at the Vulcan.

The Vulcan looked at Thul silently and without discernible expression for a moment before getting back to the work he had begun on the terminal.

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