The DrearGyre Read online

The DrearGyre

  Star Trek Universe

  by

  Leslie R. Lee

  Copyright 2013 Leslie R. Lee

  Foreword from the author

  I could not call myself a writer nor a Star Trek fan if I didn’t try my hand at some fan fiction. So here is my humble homage to the Universe that is Star Trek and all their creators and contributors, writers and actors, and of course to Gene Roddenberry. I’m grateful for all the joy you’ve given me. I hope I’ve not stepped on too many toes nor wandered into the morass of legalities surrounding whatever. Please accept it for what it is. A bit of fun.

  Leslie

  Trust a Romulan only as long as you can hold a knife to his throat -- Klingon Proverb.

  The Human hunkered down in the shadows. A cyclic multibarreled shotgun rested in her hands just in case things got worse. Not yet, though. Not yet. For now, she’d hide in the dark alley, watching the hideous little scene in front of her play out.

  One Nausicaan male pinned the Romulan female’s arms behind her. The other Nausicaan smashed her in the stomach. The Romulan, already limp from the beating curled up in a ball. She gagged as she tried to drag air into her lungs. Her green blood streamed down her face.

  The huge aliens, almost twice her size, towered over the female. Muscles bulged as they beat her. Their faces raged with lust. The Human wondered what the Romulan might have done to provoke them. Then again, with unstable, drugged up Nausicaans, she might have done nothing more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Best let the ugliness run its course for now, she decided. Most life forms had the sense to avoid this secluded spot of desolation forged by wrecked buildings and piles of rubbish. No witnesses here except for the slime glowing radioactively on walls corroded with graffiti and stained with blood. No one was coming to help the Romulan female.

  The Nausicaans still had their breathers on. The Romulan didn’t. She just gasped. The backstreet barely trapped enough atmosphere to sustain life. A Human couldn’t survive for more than a few minutes.

  The Nausicaan slammed her onto her back then kneeled on her shoulders. The other kicked the female again. Then he ripped her shirt open. The tearing of the material blended with the frantic grunting of the assailants. Their hands clawed at her breasts tearing gashes into her. The Romulan roused herself enough to kick the Nausicaan hulking over her. He just sniggered. Then, he grabbed the leg and tore the fabric of the trousers. He then bit her. Hard. His tusked mouth slashed her flesh. She shrieked and thrashed.

  The Human’s finger twitched. The safety was on though. She checked the magazine again then settled back down.

  He stripped the pants from the Romulan. Then with business like precision, thrust himself into her. They pounded her if she fought back. Just not enough to knock her out. Meaty slaps echoed off the walls. He spat as he climaxed. Then he switched with his partner. The second finished even quicker. They stood up breathing hard. One put his foot on her head grinding her face into the thick muck slathering the ground. The other pulled an energy type weapon. The Human sighted down the six barrels of the shotgun releasing the safety. His partner though slapped at the energy weapon. It still blasted out a bright beam into the wall behind the Romulan.

  “Fool!” the other one barked, knocking the weapon down. “What’ve you done?”

  The other shrugged him off then holstered his gun. “Just wanted to give her another keepsake. It’s on low. Wouldn’t cause a problem.”

  “You’re lucky it didn’t explode, idiot. Now it’s going to attract that damned fog.” His head swiveled around, as he tried to decide which way to run. “We’ve got to get out of here! Leave her! Let’s go! Now!”

  The other one kicked her one more time. “And that’s for biting me. Alright, let’s get out of here. The fog’ll kill her.”

  The Human lowered her weapon and waited until sure they were gone. Then she separated herself from the shadows and sprinted to the Romulan. The alien wheezed out ragged breaths. One of her pointed ears swelled like a balloon. Multiple fractures. Internal injuries. Lacerations emptied her body of blood. She’d lost most of her clothing including her boots. The Human yanked out a spare breather and snapped it around the Romulan’s face.

  She whispered to the female, “Can you walk, you fucking idiot?”

  “Language!” the Romulan coughed.

  “We’re not in the shiny Federation or pristine Romulan Empire any more, you know. This is Hellsbitch.”

  She kept as quiet as she could. Attracting attention here was a bad idea. The Nausicaans weren’t the worse thing to encounter in this disgusting little town boasting itself as the capital of The DrearGyre. About a hundred other colonies spread throughout the nebula bickered over that claim to fame. Blood attracted bad things. And the Romulan leaked out what looked like buckets of blood.

  Sirens started to wail. Fog horns. Someone had spotted the deadly energy clouds heading towards Hellsbitch. Doors and windows slammed shut. Anyone with a shred of intelligence sought shelter indoors.

  The Romulan mumbled that she could walk. The Human removed her cloak to cover the Romulan’s shivering body then heaved her upright. She immediately doubled over, vomiting again. The Human had arrived late to the party. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened before she got there. Using a corner of the cloak, she wiped the Romulan’s mouth.

  Something skittered out of a corner. The Romulan yanked out the Human’s hand gun and fired. The thing squealed as the bullet tore it almost in half. Others of its own kind attacked it. The gunshot reverberated off the walls. No one came to investigate.

  “Nice shooting,” the Human remarked, leaving the sounds of tearing and crunching behind. She had shot using the hand with the broken fingers. The Romulan needed help re-holstering the weapon.

  A faint wisp of mist started to move at one end of the alley. It snaked towards the mark the energy weapon had burned on the wall.

  Time to go.

  Quickly, the Human dragged and carried the female to the tractor. If the fog caught them out in the open... As carefully as she could, she placed her into the passenger seat of the big six wheeled vehicle.

  “You’re not going to up and die on me are you, Romulan?” She strapped her in trying, unsuccessfully, to not hurt her further.

  “I am considering it, Human.” The Romulan moaned, shivering in the cold.

  She started the tractor up shoving it into gear. Then cranked up the heat.

  “Home,” she croaked, twisting in pain. “No hospital.”

  “You call that shit hole a hospital?”

  “Language, Human, language,” she complained faintly.

  “It’s still a whole lot better than what we’ve got at home.”

  “Home.” Her teeth chattered so hard, the words could hardly come out. “Just get me home.”

  She nodded. The tractor was already heading there anyway. There’d be too many questions at the hospital. She coaxed the big six wheeler along as fast as the road would let them. The glow of Hellsbitch faded in the rearview mirror. The bright lights of the tractor tried to cut the darkness. Twilight permanently shrouded this planetoid. Above them, the nebula and debris that was The DrearGyre glowed green, orange, and indigo. The auroras crawled over the sky providing just a little light. No suns in this section of space. Not even stars could be seen through the plasma storms. Volcanos spewed lava rivers and ash clouds in the distance, as quakes shook the ground. Large banks of fog roiled over the rocky landscape. Except they weren’t fog. Strange energy masses that everyone avoided if they were smart and lucky enough. Running into one would at the very least kill the tractor. If it was a bad one, then it could kill them as well. And unlike the tractor, there’d be no coming back. The problem was that all the fog banks loo
ked identical. Bad one. Not so bad one. Deadly one. All the same.

  The Romulan cried out in her daze when they hit bad ruts. The road was nothing but bad ruts. The Human still made sure they weren’t followed before heading home. A tricorder would have been useful to make sure no one decided to invite themselves along. That tech hardly worked in The DrearGyre. She made do just scanning with her binoculars. It would have to be good enough. The Romulan was coughing away her life.

  The Human drove the tractor into the garage carved out of the cliff and sealed the door behind them. Life support would provide good atmosphere as well as some protection from the fog. She unsealed the tractor quickly and jumped out. She pushed the rolling cart she’d prepared to the passenger side.

  “I can walk,” the Romulan mumbled.

  “Try not to be any more stupid than you’ve already been, please.”

  The Human placed her onto the