Echoes of Hell

This is another story I wrote for the same contest as the previous one I submitted. I was hesitant about submitting this, fearing that someone would accuse me of plagiarism. It was written and completed about four years before an author wrote a novel about this very type of story, one that I have not had the chance to read myself.

I'm submitting it 'as is', before any cuts were made to shorten it to 7500 words (one of the rules in the contest). I swear, on my word of honor, any similarity between this story and the aforementioned novel is completely and entirely coincidental.

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Finally, he thought, I'd thought I'd never get all that bloody sand out.

Emerging from the guest quarter's head, Lieutenant Commander John Winston Kyle was rubbing out the last of the water from his hair. Tossing the towel on the bunk, he tightened his bath robe and sat down at the desk, where the journal was waiting for him

He hadn't had a chance to go through it yet, but figured that there would be time enough after he had cleaned up.

Kyle could hardly believe the events of the past few days actually happened, and was shocked beyond belief when he found out who was responsible for the nightmare he and most of the crew was forced to endure.

How the bloody Hell could we have made such a foolish mistake, he thought.

Serving as Chief of Communications, it was his duty to keep in contact with the science station they were closely working with. While patrolling star system after star system, Kyle sent constant updates to Spacelab Regula One, a science/research, orbiting space station where the top science team there was in the process of finishing preparations for their latest experiment. The U.S.S. Reliant was ordered to render assistance for their project called 'Genesis', an experimental procedure that, when delivered into a certain type of planet, would almost instantaneously terraform the surface. Instead of a lifeless moon or an inhospitable world, the experiment would turn it into a living Class M planet, capable of sustaining most humanoid life forms.

Reliant's part in the experiment was to find a suitable test site, meaning a planet with the right size, mass, gravity, and other necessary factors... with absolutely no life on its surface. The Genesis Device, an enhanced torpedo-like mechanism, rearranged matter at the subatomic level upon impact with the surface and would destroy any type of life that was there. If there was so much as a microbe on the surface, the planet would be considered 'unusable'.

And that was the main problem they had. Finding a planet within the habitable zone of a star system that didn't already have life on it was difficult, and that was putting it mildly. For weeks, the Reliant traveled to different system throughout their patrol sector trying to find a proper test region for Regula's experiment, with no success... until a few days ago.

Approaching the Ceti Alpha star system, the Reliant slid into orbit around, what they thought was, the sixth planet. It was a very unpleasant world, dominated by sands, winds of high velocity, and a limited atmosphere. The perfect conditions for the Genesis experiment... until they picked up a minor energy reading on the surface.

After consulting with Dr. Carol Marcus, the head of the science team, Captain Clark Terrell decided to beam down and investigate this find. He and his first officer, Commander Pavel Chekov, went down to check it out but because of the surface conditions, communications were extremely limited. Once contact was re-established, the science officer immediately ordered them beamed back to the ship. They all breathed a sigh of relief when Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov entered the bridge, but it was short lived. For right behind them were five others, dressed in rags and covered in grit... and brandishing phasers.

And when the one in the middle made his way to the front of the group, all the color in Kyle's face drained away. Standing in front of him was the last person he ever expected to see again.

Khan Noonien Singh.

A product of late twentieth century genetic engineering, Khan was found in a sleeper ship drifting through space by the Enterprise about fifteen years earlier. The ship, the S.S. Botany Bay, held some seventy refugees from the Eugenics Wars, a precursor to Earth's World War III, and was launched just after the enhanced 'supermen' were finally defeated. Once they realized that Earth would tolerate their tyrannical rule no longer, they used the ship to escape and sealed themselves in suspended animation.

Two and a half centuries later, the Enterprise under the command of Captain James Kirk found and revived Khan from his hyper-sleep. He managed to revive the others of his cadre and attempted to seize the Enterprise for their own purposes.

Kyle was one of the first to be subdued by the dictator. While in the transporter room, Lt. Marla MacGivers, the ship's historian, entered and threatened him with a phaser. Once he backed away from the transporter console, Khan came at him from behind and rendered him unconscious with some type of pressure point grip to his neck. He was rudely awakened by one of Khan's followers and taken to the hangar deck, along with most of the rest of the crew, and told that if they didn't cooperate, the hangar doors would be overridden and opened, blowing everyone inside out into space.

While Kyle and a couple of engineers were working on an escape, namely getting inside one of the Jeffries tubes and working their way to another deck, they were startled by shouts coming from the hangar. A steady mist of white vapor started billowing out of the ventilation ducts; anesthetizing gas, part of the ship's intruder alert/deterrent system. The last thing Kyle saw was dozens of crewmembers collapsing on top of one another as the gas started to affect him and efficiently put him and the crew to sleep.

The next thing he remembered was a nurse from Sickbay trying to revive him, hovering over him and a dozen others nearby lying on the hangar's deck. He was told that Khan had been captured, his followers rounded up and placed in the brig, and their plan to take control of the Enterprise thwarted.

What surprised him and most of the crew was what Kirk had done afterwards. The captain had ordered all charges dropped and sentenced Khan and his group to exile on Ceti Alpha V, a habitable world though somewhat primitive by most standards with its untamed wilderness. Seeing it as a chance to tame a world and build his own empire, Khan accepted the challenge. Lt. MacGivers, given a choice of a court-martial for assisting Khan in his unsuccessful takeover of the ship or accompanying him to the planet and joining him in exile, chose to go with him. And that was that; the incident was considered 'classified', the entire matter closed and ultimately forgotten.

How could any of us have forgotten where we left him?

Kyle chided himself for his inattention. Granted, it was over fifteen years ago, but events like that aren't easily forgotten... or at least they shouldn't be.

And how the bloody Hell did they manage to get to Ceti Alpha VI?

Khan and his band took control of the Reliant the same way Kirk took back control of the Enterprise: using the intruder deterrent system and gassing the entire crew, with the exception of the bridge personnel. Though the layouts of the controls aboard starships were altered in appearance, their functions were basically the same as they had been for more than two decades. Remembering Khan's superior mind, not to mention memory, Kyle figured he had remembered all he had read about a starship's stations and functions, memorizing the technical manuals he had scanned through while recovering in the Enterprise's Sickbay after being revived from hyper-sleep.

Rounding up everyone and assembling them on one of Reliant's two main hangar decks, Khan ordered the crew to abandon the ship. When some refused, he forced five of them onto a cargo transporter along with a homing beacon and transported them down to the surface. Already knowing what conditions were like on Ceti Alpha VI, Kyle knew the five crewmen would be dead within a matter of minutes.

Khan gave them a choice: abandon the ship using the shuttlecrafts and various other crafts on board, or follow the preceding five via the transporter. Outgunned by Khan's followers, including Captain Terrell, Commander Chekov, and about two dozen security officers, all armed with phasers set to 'kill', the crew had no choice but to leave using the shuttles, given the nature of their destination.

In twos and threes, the shuttlecrafts left the ship and followed the signal from the homing beacon. Once the hangar deck was clear, Kyle and others near viewports saw the Reliant bank away from the planet and disappear into subspace.

Now, given absolutely no choice, the tiny ships made their way down to the surface. Kyle, being the company's ranking officer, scouted the area around where the beacon had been transported to determine the best course of action in landing procedures. He found the beacon setting next to what appeared to be a cargo container and hope leaped into his heart, thinking that the five crewmen that were sent down with the beacon found their way into it. For there was no possible way anyone could survive out in the open without proper protection. The ferocious winds blowing sand in all directions would make sure of it.

They had trouble landing, but Kyle's shuttle crew managed it with a few jarring bumps; the hurricane strength winds buffeting the shuttle's hull with shrieks and groans. Donning environmental suits, Kyle and his crew were set to explore their new, hopefully temporary, home. After he ordered the rest of the shuttles to start their approach and warning them in advance about the landing conditions, he and his shuttle team exited the craft.

The first thing they noticed about their surroundings was they really couldn't see it very well. Winds whipping sand and sediment everywhere made it impossible to see more than five feet in front of them. But just ahead of the shuttle's nose, they could see the distinctive strobe flash of the homing beacon. Fighting the wind, Kyle edged his way to it in an attempt to adjust the signal so the other shuttles would be able to home in on it better. But upon reaching the device, he tripped over something causing him to tumble into a sand dune. Recovering, he saw what had caught his boot... another boot.

Kyle and two others franticly dug into the sand and uncovered one of the previous crewmen beamed down with the beacon. Without protection, the crewmen succumbed to the blowing sand and gases in the atmosphere, suffocating him. Digging around the beacon, they had found two others from the five in the same condition; the other two were nowhere to be seen, instantly buried under the drifting sands upon arrival.

Kyle ordered everyone inside the container and, feeling their way around the sides, they discovered a makeshift airlock. Kyle chose to remain just inside the anteroom shanty outside the door in order to guide the others coming down in the arriving shuttles.

At first, there was little problem in landing the crafts, albeit Kyle was sure some of them would be nauseous after being tipped and swayed by the winds. One after the other, the shuttles set down near the ramshackle cargo box, which turned out to be several when the sands cleared just enough for Kyle to see them stacked against each other end to end, more or less.

But the wind had other ideas, for when the last of the shuttles started descending the gusts kicked up and blew a couple of them off course. One was blown sideways and, attempting to right itself but overcompensating, flipped into a barrel roll and sailed over the container, missing it by mere feet and making Kyle instinctively duck. Another was caught in a down draft and plummeted to the ground, smashing into another shuttle already parked there. The one on the ground was empty, but the crew inside the other perished in the resulting explosion that followed the impact.

Two others joined Kyle outside, seeing if there was anything they could do to help, but he stopped them knowing the one shuttle had disappeared into the blowing sands and the other was a flaming funeral pyre. Other crewmen appeared in the viewports of their crafts and some in the cobbled together ports of the container walls at the sound of more craft attempting to land... and were sickened at the sight.

The few remaining craft were inspection pods, used to inspect the hulls of starships before, during, and after any damage occurred or any repairs were made. They weren't meant to land on a planet, but Khan had given them no choice; the escape pods would have a slim chance of surviving entry into the planet's atmosphere. Any other Class M world, probably, but not this one.

Two or three pods actually made it to the surface with minimal trouble, but the others were caught in the sudden gusts of wind just like the doomed shuttles were. One tried to land, despite the harsh winds, but was blown sideways and slammed into a dune. Another actually bounced a few times before finally landing, roughly upside down. The remaining four, out of desperation, popped open their emergency drag parachutes in an attempt to slow their descent, but it only served to hasten their demise. The winds instantly grabbed hold of the chutes and tossed the pods around like tether balls; two of them being slammed into each other when their chute lines got tangled and exploding like a nova, the other two picked up and carried away, disappearing into the sand driven haze.

Once the last of the crafts had landed, the survivors made their way to the containers, with Kyle and his companions guiding them and ushering them in. And when everyone was inside, Kyle took one last look at the barren, treacherous landscape of Ceti Alpha VI and, with a sense of foreboding, sealed the airlock door shut. He then got a proper look at their surroundings, after making sure no one was in need of serious medical attention.

The hollowed out cargo unit was stripped down to the bare walls, cannibalized of anything that was considered useful. Makeshift cots were hung on one wall, pots and pans and other utensils hanging from another. An old viewport was sloppily inserted into a hole cut right next to the airlock door apparently, judging from the old burn marks around it, with a phaser. Personal belongings were scattered everywhere, including a homemade chess game sitting on a small container, and in the air hung the smell of unwashed clothes and sweat.

Kyle was going to check the adjoining room/container, but stopped himself; he had other things to do first. The other room could wait.

He ordered the crew to take a head count and then afterwards start searching for things they were going to need if they were going to be there for awhile, namely food and water. The heads of each shuttle crew reported to Kyle and added up the numbers: one hundred and ninety-two... out of a Miranda Class cruiser compliment of three hundred and fifty-three. Kyle did some quick subtracting in his head. Captain Terrell, Commander Chekov, twenty-four or so security personnel, and he had overheard one of Khan's brutes saying something about taking control of the engineering staff and using them to maintain the ship's engines and power, about sixty-five in all. Plus the five Khan had beamed down earlier.

Now, accounting for (Kyle guessed) the ten or so crewmen in each shuttle that was lost, and the four or five others in each pod that went down, that left about two dozen people unaccounted for. Whether they were part of the security or engineering crew being manipulated by Khan, there were more in the crashed shuttles and pods than he thought, or Khan and his group had simply killed them outright to get them out of the way, there was no way to be sure.

Giving up on speculating, Kyle rallied the remaining crew of the Reliant and organized them into groups. One would search for water, another for food, and another for assessing any working equipment they could use, especially communications equipment. The remaining groups would organize living and sleeping arrangements for the crew, and make any injured crewman comfortable by setting up a makeshift Sickbay.

Kyle heard the shouting of discovery ten minutes later. Racing through the connected containers, he came upon several crewmen gathered together at the far end. They parted to let the commander through and to show him their discovery: the end wall was actually one huge door. Removing pieces of equipment that hung there revealed the bisection of the wall, neatly concealed behind a flap of metal made to look like a support strut, the securing rails, used to prevent cargo from sliding around inside the container, were door handles.

Opening one door, then the other to prevent them from hanging up on each other, the disguised hatch opened up onto a gently sloping walkway that led down. The walls and ceiling looked like hull material, but it wasn't fitted together like the hull of a ship; more like hull plates hastily welded together to connect the container to... whatever was below. The sheets near the door weren't quite lined up right to form a smooth finish and obviously not too thick; they could hear the wind screaming passed, pounding sand and grit into them, and making a few of the plates rattle.

Ordering everyone to wait there, Kyle took three crewmen with him and descended into the metal pit. All of them brandishing pipes and what-not; anything they could use as a weapon, for they had no idea what was awaiting them once they reached the bottom.

Not fifteen feet from the wall/door, they found themselves standing on deck plates; they were inside a ship of some sort. There was light, but it appeared to be spread out casting eerie shadows all around them, and the view was the same behind them when they ventured around back of the ramp.

The long deck was lined with some type of drawers with glass inserted cabinet doors in both directions and on both walls. The empty space dominating the middle of the deck had what looked like support strut connection tips sticking out of the flooring, indicating that something was there but had been removed. Old control panels, about three hundred years out of date, were set at each end of the deck next to a stairwell, none of which showed any sign of power.

Kyle called down two more groups of three and told them to explore the... vessel, dwelling, whatever it was. The teams headed away from the ramp and split up once they reached the end, while Kyle's team headed in the opposite direction. The stairwell they came up to led up as well as down, and he told his three crewmen to head down and rendezvous with the other teams. They cautioned him about going on alone, but Kyle told them not to worry because he was somewhat certain that there was no one here, for he had a suspicion about what this place actually was.

Watching his team descend to the next level, Kyle proceeded upwards, carefully placing his feet gently on the steps to avoid making any noise that would give him away, just in case his hunch was wrong. Kyle passed two more decks, narrow and confined, on his way up. They revealed what looked like a galley and some sort of briefing room surrounding the stairwell. But when he finally reached the top level, his suspicions were confirmed.

He found himself in an old control room, a bridge with three or four stations lining the walls and a navigation console set in the middle of the deck, all dark and without power.

And the last piece of evidence he needed to confirm his hunch was on the wall behind him: a bronze plaque, dusty and tarnished, with the inscription stamped boldly in large raised letters.