Chapter
1

As Tev woke from his nap, he smiled and felt completely refreshed. The past few weeks had been trying, and to be able to sit, lean back, and relax for hours on end put him quickly to sleep. He snorted, clearing his nose, and stretched his facial muscles to loosen them. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This had been a very good nap.

He turned to the Kharzh'ullan seated next to him. "How long until we reach the base station?" he asked.

The Kharzh'ullan checked his wrist chrono and frowned. "I never was good at math. Should be soon. Half an hour, perhaps."

"Good," said Tev as he leaned back into his seat and closed his eyes. He had traveled from Kharzh'ulla to the Ring and back many times in his life, and he had always enjoyed the passenger cars. They were oriented differently than subway trams he had used in and around San Francisco when he had been at Starfleet Academy—the subway trams had seating on a single, long level, but the Kharzh'ullan passenger shuttles had seating on five levels, with chairs arranged in a circle around the central ladder that ran from level to level, and the conductor's station at the base of the passenger car. Like the trams, the Kharzh'ullan shuttles traveled through tunnels, but where the San Francisco trams traveled beneath the city, the Kharzh'ullan shuttles moved through the space elevators between the planet's surface and the Ring.

The passenger beside him shook Tev's shoulder. Tev sat up, turned his head, and half-opened his eyes. "If you wouldn't mind my asking…?" Tev's neighbor said.

Tev shrugged.

"You're an off-worlder," said the neighbor. "Have you been to Kharzh'ulla before?"

Tev smiled. "Many times." He leaned back in his seat, his eyes focused on some distant point beyond the central ladder. "I used to live on Kharzh'ulla. In Prelv, actually."

A skeptical look crossed the Kharzh'ullan's face. "Been away long?"

"Years."

"Why did you leave?"

Tev sighed. "Starfleet." It wasn't the complete answer, but it would suffice for a stranger.

His companion nodded. "What brought you back?"

"Business," said Tev after a lengthy pause, his voice low. He closed his eyes. His companion seemed to take the hint, and said nothing more.

Tev had spent too long in space. He could feel the shuttle's movement through the elevator just as he could feel a starship's, down the superconducting magnets that ran thirty thousand kilometers from surface to terminus at the Ring.

Tev's eyes shot open. Something felt wrong. Very wrong.

"Aeh-hvahtin," said Tev.

"What are you talking about?" said his companion.

"We should be decelerating, but we're not." He did a quick mental calculation—the passenger shuttle should have been decelerating rapidly from its speed of five thousand kilometers per hour. If the passenger car didn't begin braking soon it wouldn't have the time or space to slow to a stop when the car reached the elevator's base.

Tev unfastened his shoulder harness and began to rise from his seat. A hand on his shoulder stopped him. "What do you think you're doing?" his companion asked.

"There's some sort of problem, probably with the passenger car's brakes. I'm a Starfleet engineer. The conductors need my assistance."

The other passenger unclasped his hand from Tev's shoulder. Tev nodded in wordless thanks and lunged for the ladder.

The climb down the ladder felt endless. Time seemed to slow for him. What should have taken at most a minute, from the fourth passenger level to the conductor's booth, seemed to take hours. Tev heard the voices of the other passengers, their fright and anger as they too realized that the passenger car was in grave danger, that their lives might soon end. He paid them little attention; he was an engineer with a job to perform, and he would save them.

The conductor's cabin was dark, with computer monitors ringing the compartment. Some consoles flashed red, others were dark. A Kharzh'ullan stood over one of the consoles, his hands frantically working the controls.

"What's happening?" Tev raised his voice over the din of the cabin's alarms.

The Kharzh'ullan turned, startled. "Who are you?"

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