Down in a Hole

According to Stasia, Rampart had been reported missing over a month earlier.  She didn't say how much of that month she spent searching for him.  If he knew her, she probably wasted no time getting started.  But it shouldn't have taken that long to find him – her and Midak.  Why did it?

Midak.  The Arcadia's resident Cardassian aligned in the center of Rampart's mental cross-hairs.  A Cardassian.  After being among Cardassian aborigines for months, seeing how the 'other half' lived, he relinquished that suspicion.  He couldn't believe it.  Cardassians weren't so one-dimensional as he had believed.  They couldn't be stereotyped – something Midak had been known to insist, as he was the living proof.  They were individuals, as varied and unique as any Terran, or Bartokian, or Klingon, or whoever.  It was just too bad that Rampart had to go through the past few months to finally, truly learn.

However long Stasia searched for him... maybe it was too long.  Maybe it was finally getting to her.  Had she never faced greater challenges than this?

"Well... at least you're rescued," she said with a bit of humor, as if to refute his concern.

Rampart looked around as if to say, I am?  Concerned, he said, "Don't throw in the towel.  You went to Academy.  Ever take Kobayashi Maru?"  It wasn't a required test for a security officer, but a lot of cadets took it – some thinking they could beat it, most just for the experience.  "I failed it.  Horribly.  Crashed, burned.  But then, we weren't supposed to win."

Rampart rubbed his chest, then his sides, wrapped his arms about himself and bounced up and down on his heels.  He didn't feel ridiculous, standing in next to nothing.  Bartokians were used to less.  He had acclimated to the jungle – and that was the problem: This insulated, apparently sealed chamber was cold, and dry.  The only part of him which felt warm was his head, thick with months of hair and beard growth.  Deprived of nanomod rejuvenation, his dark hair was largely colored gray.

Worse, he felt a little... icky, after the rendezvous earlier – only some hours ago, now.  Normally, transporters removed foreign substances from the body, but obviously that didn't happen this time – which made him wonder whose system delivered them to this... this hole in the wall of somewhere.  Still on Cardassia?  Who could say for sure?  Rampart knew the feel of starships – this didn't feel like a ship.  Although it could have been.  Or it could have been another planet, for all they knew.

Now 'free' of the village – maybe – Rampart tried sending a private hail:

The tingling behind his ear – which had persisted for so long he forgot it was there – was gone.  He didn't know what that meant; either they had removed his complant, or hadn't.  He repeated the hail, but still wasn't getting through.  If he was, he wasn't getting a reply.

Was this the K-Maru again?  No way out, no way to win?  Instead of crashing and burning (he couldn't quite recall how he'd managed to take it that far, instead of getting blown out of the stars by – coincidentally – Cardassians, in the simulation), was he and Stasia Nyerko just going to sit here until someone came along, if that ever happened, or suffocate as they burned up the available oxygen?  At least they wouldn't starve to death.  They'd die of suffocation long before that.  Thinking of how Stasia got to eat just before they ended up here, he hoped she didn't have to use a restroom anytime soon.

He crouched before Stasia.  "Can I see that nodule in your boot?"  She took it out, placing it in his open palm.  He looked it over, scrutinizing the tiny device, but couldn't see anything.  They needed an armpadd, or a tricorder.  The tribe had taken his, and for some reason Stasia wasn't wearing one when he saw her in the village.  "Why weren't you wearing an armpadd when I saw you?  Are you wearing comtacts?"  Stasia was suspected of being old-fashioned, unwilling to embrace many of the forms of technology offered in current standard Starfleet issue, but he didn't know why.

Rampart clenched the transport nodule and focused on his fist, willing his nanites to analyze it, hoping they would function.  Maybe they were working now.

He waited for the familiar flux of data at the front of conscious thought, telling him the nanites were relaying signals through his arm and into his brain, indicating if they saw anything at the cellular level... any hint of subspace interference.  That would have confirmed it.  But there was nothing.  That didn't mean there was no interference to be detected – just that the interference, the same interference possibly, which affected their complants and probably their nanomods, might have disrupted the transport signal.

"Let me guess.  Your complant's out too."  Stasia nodded.  "Shit."  It wasn't often that Rampart cursed, but he cursed then.  "Well, let's try it again."  He gave the device back and put a hand on her shoulder, just to be sure he was in contact-range.  He didn't want to get stuck here alone.  "Activate it."

There was a slight shimmer in the air around them, only for a second... then nothing.  They were still where they had arrived unexpectedly.

"Great."  Rampart pushed to his feet and looked around.

The only way in or out, he guessed, was the transporter itself.  Rampart moved to the other side of the console – away from Stasia, and while wiping away layers of caked dust, scratched at his nether regions, out of the Bartokian's sight.  "You said I was reported missing over a month ago."  Stasia nodded.  "I've been in that village for over four months."  Rampart told her how the stars never moved – the same stars, night after night.  Temporal distortion seemed the most obvious answer... but how could it surround the entire Cardassian system, at least to the orbit of the third planet (Cardassia III was Cardassia Prime), without being detected?  "I can't tell you why we're in this... hole... but obviously our beam got diverted."  He paused to brush his hands off.  "It's been known to happen with quantum transporters.  April told me once the Humanists did it from a range of several sectors, pulling his signal off course en route to Earth."

"So someone knows we're here?" Stasia asked.

Rampart shrugged.  "Maybe.  Maybe not.  Could be automated."  A note of surprise entered his voice as he checked the green spiral-shaped graphics.  "There's power to this console.  Not much, but from somewhere."

There had to be a way to use that.  If not operated from here, then it was operated by remote – a computer link-up.  Transporters used considerable energy.  Someone, somewhere, had to see it.  Or would, eventually.  Hopefully.  Whether they knew what they were looking at was another matter.

He fiddled with the controls as he continued.  "I'm guessing we were pulled here," he said.  "Like a magnet to a lodestone.  That Jem'Hadar – I don't know if you've seen him; his name is Kal'iklak – he said I can't leave... but they would never say why."  It felt unusual trying to operate a console again, but it came back – like flying a shuttle: Once learned, never forgotten.  It was a Cardassian layout, but they were trained for this, and he slowly figured out the panel.