THE SAND CRUNCHED beneath the sole of Budian's three-toed boot. Then he stopped so suddenly that his feet skidded just a bit beneath him, much to the amusement of his immediate crew of three. He spun around, hissing between his sharpened teeth. "Shut up! Shut up, the lot of you!"

If one did not have a Universal Translator one would have heard only a series of gutteral grunts, coughs, and snarls, with an occasional body slap for emphasis. The Kreel, for such was their race called, were notable for having one of the singularly least elegant languages in all the known galaxy.

Their exterior was just as appealing as their language. The Kreel had spindly legs that, in one of nature's more curious design aberrations (right up there with the bumblebee and the duckbilled platypus), supported a massively sinewed, almost triangular torso. Their arms were long, their knuckles hanging almost down to their knees. They took great pride in their bodies and were not shy about displaying them, usually sporting breeches and skimpy tunics cut to display a maximum amount of muscle. This was unfortunate for other races, since Kreel skin was unbelievably wrinkled, dry, and red, as if they all had permanent cases of sunburn. In addition, a thin layer of coarse, matted hair, spotted their bodies.

Their heads seemed to rise up straight from their shoulders. As a result, when they turned to look to the side or behind them, they had to practically twist all the way around. They tended toward large lantern jaws, and their eyes were huge, almost like handballs-- appropriate for a race whose home planet seemed shrouded in almost perpetual gloom. The planet they were on now-- under a blazing alien star-- was so appallingly opposite from their home that it was physically painful.

In response to Budian's command, the three other members of the Kreel landing party quickly bowed their heads (by bending slightly at the waist, almost in the way the traditional Japanese did). Budian smiled then, showing his teeth once more, before gesturing that his second-in-command should join him.

"What do you think, Aneel?" said Budian. "What do the instruments say?"

Aneel pulled out the detection device that was based loosely on the design of a Federation tricorder, a marvelous instrument that current Kreel technology didn't have a chance in hell of duplicating. He swung the device around hopefully, and then said nervously, "I'm not getting anything. I think it's broken."

"Well?"

"Well what?" said Aneel cautiously.

"Fix it! Fix it, you feldling idiot!"

Unnerved by his commander's display of temper, Aneel did the only thing he could: He smacked the detector with the side of his fisted, three-fingered hand.

The detector obediently lit up and started to hum contentedly. Aneel blinked in surprise and then looked to his commander for approval. Budian nodded curtly and then said "Which way?"

Aneel checked the readings on the detector and pointed. "Over there."

Slowly, they made their way in the direction that Aneel led them. Budian was one step behind and to the right. He was trying to watch everywhere at once-- watch Aneel, watch his own men behind him, because he didn't trust a single one of the pack, and, most of all, watch the sky.

The last wouldn't have done him the least bit of good, he knew, because if that accursed Other Race showed up (damned be their name and barren be their women) to make a fuss over this planet (which was indisputably in Kreel territory), then there was no possible way that Budian was going to be able to see them in orbit from the planet surface. The idea was preposterous. He knew that, and yet he couldn't help himself as he kept glancing heavenward.

It was midday, and the air was just hanging there, the sky a blistering, uniform red. In the distance, Budian could hear the steady chittering of insects. No potential threat, but it was annoying.

"Through there."

Budian looked up, mentally chiding himself for his lapse in attention. Such lapses could prove fatal in the future. "Through where, Aneel?" he demanded.

Aneel was pointing straight ahead, but before them was only a wall of solid rock-- part of a large mountain range that seemed to extend before them.

"Through there?"

"Yes, sir."

"How the flarg do we get through there?"

Aneel gestured helplessly. "I don't know, sir."

Budian let out the sigh of one who does not suffer fools gladly-- either that or the sigh of one who is afraid he's about to be made to look like a fool. He reached for his belt and pulled out his weapon. "Stand back," he said, gripping the disruptor tightly with both hands and bracing himself. The kick on these weapons was not to be taken lightly.

Ten feet away from the mountainside he fired, blasting a steady wave of pure sound at the mountain. Rock and dirt exploded, covering the Kreel with a fine layer of filth. This did not bother them particularly; Kreel were not renowned for bathing.

"You're doing it, sir!" shouted Aneel. Budian nodded, keeping it up until so much dust was swirling up that even they, with their enlarged eyes, couldn't see much. His finger lifted away from the trigger and the blast ceased.

"Wonderful, sir!" said Aneel.

"Shut up."

"Yes, sir."

Budian stood and watched, silently urging the dirt out of the way so that they could see just what, if anything, they had uncovered.

Within moments, the debris had settled, and Budian's breath caught in surprise.

There was an opening. Clear as anything, there was an opening. There had been some sort of door there before; gleaming metal edges were still visible where the disruptor had torn it away. But now they had access to whatever it was that lay inside.

The Kreel glanced at one another and then, out of deference, stepped aside and indicated that Budian should go first.

There were times, it occurred to Budian, when being the leader wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.

The sleek battlecruiser Kothulu settled into orbit around the planet which was, at present, simply designated as DQN 1196. The blazing red sun, a paltry several million miles off, cast a gentle glow off the gleaming hull of the ship.

"Commander?"

The commander did not look up immediately. One never looked up immediately when a subordinate requested attention. It gave the impression that you were anxious to hear what he had to say. A good commander, particularly a good Klingon commander, always made it appear that whatever the subordinate was about to say the Commander was already aware of it. The unspoken message was "Why did it take you so long to report the obvious?"

"Commander?" came the prompt again.

Count to three, turn, look, then speak. "Yes, Tron."

"Picking up life-form readings from planet surface."

The commander nodded. "Kreel, I'd wager."

A pause. Then Tron nodded. Keeping just the slightest touch of admiration out of his voice he said, "I believe so, sir." Subordinates knew that you never let ranking officers be aware when you were impressed by some feat of theirs.

Once again the commander nodded, his massive, ridged head bobbing just a bit. "So our intelligence was correct, then. The Kreel scum are rooting around in this system."

"What is there around to interest them, Commander?" Tron asked, then promptly chided himself mentally. Never ask a question. It implies you don't know.

Too late, though. The commander had heard.

"What is there, Tron?" he said in a voice just loud enough to be heard by the entire bridge crew. "Nothing. Nothing of any interest except to a backward race such as the Kreel."

Slowly, the commander stood up. Tron's fingers played across the intercom. His mind jumped ahead, anticipating his commander's thoughts. "The transporter room is prepared to beam them up at your command, sir," he said.

The commander sniffed in disdain. "Allow that Kreel slime to set foot aboard our magnificent vessel? Even in chains, they would not be worthy of that. Take a landing team, Tron, and find out what they're up to. See what they've found."

"Yes, Commander. Although," he added in his deep, gravelly voice, "you did say that there was nothing of interest down there."

"True," replied the commander easily.

"Then how could they possibly ... ?"

The commander turned and took several short steps over, bringing himself eye-to-eye with Tron. "Even worms," he said, "can turn up interesting tidbits in a moldering corpse."

The Kreel blinked in astonishment, unable to summon any of their usual bluster and arrogance.

When they had stepped through the newly blasted hole in the mountainside, they had discovered a stairway that led straight down into darkness. They shined a light down into it, but the beam seemed to make only the barest dent in the overwhelming blackness. Budian naturally (and reluctantly, although he covered it well) went first, the others following behind him in single file.

They walked slowly down metal steps that seemed to trail off into infinity. Aneel glanced down at one point and silently noted the fact that the steps were not the least bit dusty, and he then made mention of that fact to his commander. "It's as if," Aneel added, "they were somehow just repelling dirt."

Budian snapped back, "Then it's fortunate that they don't just throw you right off."

From then on, Aneel decided he would keep his observations to himself.

Eventually, they reached the bottom of the stairs and there, several meters ahead of them, was a large, gleaming metal door. Detailed symbols were etched on it, symbols that the Kreel, who stared at them in confusion, could not even begin to understand. But when they got to within a few feet of the door it silently opened.

The Kreel blinked in the light that overwhelmed them. They pulled out their disruptors, ready in case something attacked them while they were momentarily disoriented. But nothing attacked, and the disorientation soon passed.

They stepped into the light and were stunned by what they saw.

They were standing at the head of a corridor that branched off in two different directions: Both paths were massive tunnels, gleaming metal and arching in high curves above them.

The tunnels were at least twenty feet high, and upon closer inspection were constructed of curved tiles, each about two feet square, joined so smoothly that the seams were barely visible. Budian ran his fingers across them, and even though he could see the divisions, he could not feel them. He shook his head (and, as a result, his torso) in amazement. "What could have made this?" he whispered. In the silence, his voice seemed to echo.

Aneel made vague gestures and wasn't able to come up with a reply. No matter. Budian hadn't really expected one.

He gestured to the other two members of the group. "You two," he said "go that way." He indicated the corridor branching off to the left. "Aneel ... you're with me."

This news was less than thrilling to Aneel. Not only would he have preferred to be with someone other than the leader, he frankly would have opted to remain back in the ship in the first place. The ship which was, even now, sitting serenely on the planet surface waiting for them to return.

How much easier, thought Aneel, it would be if the Kreel had transporter capability. But those techniques were used by wealthier and more advanced races. Not the Kreel. Not the Kreel who were known as warlike, backward scavengers. What they could do with the kind of weaponry used by the ... the ...

He spat. Budian looked at him in mild surprise. "Is that to be considered a criticism?" Budian asked in a very dangerous tone.

"No sir," said Aneel, in such an offhand manner that Budian realized he was telling the truth. "I was only thinking of the Klingons."

"May their ships dissolve in piles of rust and their sun go nova," said Budian quickly.

They both spat, then pressed on, leaving little bubbling traces of expectoration on the floor behind them. They took some degree of comfort in cursing the Klingons at any opportunity, simply because they knew that the Klingons were so far advanced beyond them that cursing and spitting were the only things they could really do.

As they walked away, a small section of the floor came to life. The metal rippled ever so slightly, and the spit disappeared without a trace.

"They're definitely not here," said Spyre.

Tron nodded, sticking his head in through the open hatch of the Kreel scout ship. It was a patched-together affair inside, and Tron noted parts from at least four different technologies. He entered carefully, making sure not to accidentally step in something distasteful. He stared at the command panel in wonder, then reached behind it and came away with a handful of wiring-- and tape.

Tape! By the Emperor, tape! It was nothing short of miraculous that this vessel hadn't blown up. He allowed it to slip from his fingers and turned to his crew.

"Find them," Tron said.

"Do we kill them once we find them?"

Tron's brow wrinkled slightly. Left to their own devices, back before the days of the Great Enlightenment, that is exactly what they would have done. "Their fate is in the commander's hands," he said. "Between you and me, killing them would certainly be my preference. What we will probably do"-- and he emphasized the probably with faint distaste--"is toss them in their ship, take them in tow, and drop them off, powerless, somewhere in space. Their fate from that point on is in their own hands. However, you don't have to be gentle when you do find them."

Budian and Aneel could not believe their good fortune.

They walked by room after room now, doors hissing open as they passed. It was as if this underground lair was filled with secrets that it could not wait to yield up to them. And each room was filled with ...

"Weapons," said Aneel, stopping at one to palm a handgun reverentially. Unlike the huge, clumsy weapons that the Kreel exploratory group was carrying, these were smaller, sleeker. Unmistakably deadly, however.

Budian snatched the weapon from his second-in-command's hands. "You might hurt yourself with this," he snapped. Or me, he added silently. "Come on. Let's see what's at the end of the corridor."

"But ... " Aneel gestured helplessly. "Shouldn't we go through some of these rooms? Explore them? Catalog the weapons?"

"They're not going anywhere. They've been here, who-knows-how-long, and will continue to be here. Let's discover everything this find has to offer before we start charting what we've found. That's simple enough to understand, isn't it, Aneel?"

"Yes, sir," said Aneel with marked lack of enthusiasm.

They worked their way farther along, Aneel now making a conscious effort to look neither left nor right. Eventually, the corridor made a slight turn, then another, and then Budian stepped back in alarm as another form suddenly appeared in front of him. Without hesitating he swung up the small weapon he'd been carrying and pulled the trigger.

A split-second too late, he realized that it was one of his own people.

The unfortunate Kreel threw up his hands and shouted.

"Wait!" he began-- and then vanished. There was no beam from the weapon, merely a soft, diffuse glow, and suddenly the Kreel simply wasn't there. It was as if Budian had been holding a remote-control device while watching something on a monitor, and had then just shut it off.

"Don't startle me!" shouted Budian at the empty air, for it had all happened so quickly that he didn't fully have the time to register that the crewman was gone. "I hate it when--" And then it began to sink in.

He stared at the space which the crew member had once occupied, then glanced at the remaining two members of the group. They each took a slight step back, as if nervous they might be next.

He held the gun a bit more tightly. "Come on," he said, gesturing with it. They followed obediently.

So the two branching corridors had come back on each other, and now the three members of the stalwart Kreel race walked on another twenty meters, past more rooms with fascinating technology, past curious inscriptions on the walls that made no sense to them.

And eventually, they hit a dead end.

The door facing them was more massive than any they'd ever seen. The two sides of it came together in a vertical zigzag pattern that looked like teeth, ready to crunch down on any who endeavored to enter. To the right was a small panel made up of an array of smaller multicolored rectangles. Ten going up, four across, forty in all.

The door showed no interest whatsoever in opening.

Budian stepped up to it and waited with as much patience as he was capable of, but the door did not move. It had been closed for countless years and would, apparently, remain closed for countless more.

"Stand back," he ordered tersely. He brought up his brand-new weapon and fired it point-blank at the door.

The door did not seem to take kindly to this: Budian's hand weapon vanished.

Along with the hand that was holding it.

Just like that. Budian's right arm now ended in a neatly cauterized stump at the wrist.

Budian stared, dumbfounded. It had happened so swiftly that he hadn't had time to react. There were horrified intakes of breath from his men, and that was the first confirmation that he wasn't imagining it. With that realization came his first physical reaction. He staggered, leaning against the wall and holding up the stump in shock.

He tried to flex the fingers that were no longer there. He could swear that he was doing it. He knew that he was doing it. Even as he reached out with his remaining hand and actually touched the mound of hardened flesh, his mind kept screaming, "It's still there! It has to still be there!

"Sir ... " Aneel breathed.

The cosmic stupidity of the question hung there, and not even Budian would touch it.

"We ... " the other crew member, who was called Deni, spoke up. "We have to get you back to the ship."

"No." The reply was faint.

"But ... "

"NO!" said Budian with more force, and now pain was finally starting to register and he forced it back. Later, in privacy he would howl and scream in agony. Not now. Not here. "No, first we get through this feldling door."

It was clear what was going through their minds.

They thought they were going to have to try firing on it. They glanced at each other, silently agreeing that if that order was given, they'd fire on Budian before they'd take that suicidal course.

Fortunately for them (and, one would have thought, Budian, except ultimately it didn't make much difference) that was not the option that Budian was considering. Instead, Budian gathered his strength, stepped away from the wall, and walked toward the panel. He was now cradling his maimed wrist in the crook of his left arm, and the initial pain was beginning to subside ever so slightly. He was certain, though, that for months he would be imagining the flexing of the hand that was no longer there.

He touched the panel and the forty colored rectangles lit up. A low hum filled the area, and the colors reflected on his taut face.

"A combination lock of some sort," he muttered. "You probably have to touch them in a specific order."

"So ... how do we get in?" asked Aneel.

"We just keep pushing different panels until we hit the right mix."

"But that could take ... "

Budian turned on him, fury barely contained. "This cursed door cost me a hand! Whatever's behind it, I want to know! Whoever built this installation, they just left weapons, lying around, more advanced than anything we have. Maybe more than the Klingons have. But they thought enough of whatever's behind this door to keep it locked up. I want it! I deserve it!"

He turned and, with his remaining hand, started pushing panels furiously. Each one had an individual note to it, a faint ping sound came as it was hit. And each one glowed under his touch, ever so briefly. But no combination was prompting the door to open, and display its secrets.

Suddenly there was a sharp, high-pitched whine.

Budian turned to his men, who were standing about five feet away, and said "What does that sound like to you?"

It started almost ludicrously. Budian was staring at his men, waiting for Aneel to speak, and then Aneel's face twisted in horror, as did Deni's. That was the first thing he saw.

Then Budian thought that his two remaining crew members were getting taller. This was quickly replaced by the partially correct realization that he, himself, was, in fact, getting shorter.

He looked down and the full truth, the full horror of it, began to dawn on him.

He was dissolving.

His feet were already gone, reduced to some unrecognizable, formless mass. Even as his mind managed to register this, his shins were gone, then his knees. There was a distinct hissing sound, but nothing else. No smell of burning flesh. No blood. No mess or muss.

And when the full nauseating terror managed to completely penetrate, that was when he began screaming.

Budian began to shriek in words incomprehensible even to a Kreel. He was incoherent with fear and terror as he looked down and saw his body, his magnificent body, being destroyed molecule-by-molecule.

And yet, for all his horror, he never once asked for help, never appealed for aid, divine or no. For the Kreel do not beg. Die horribly, yes, but not beg.

And now his chest was gone and he was still hideously aware; he could still see and feel what was happening.

Oh god, thought Budian, let it end let it end let it end. But it didn't. Somehow, perversely, he was aware until his very last moment when his head hit the floor and that too began to melt away; his brain continued to function and register the images that his eyes brought to him.

And the last image that he registered was his men, grinning.

Moments later the floor rippled and the remains of the Kreel commander were swallowed up.

Tron stood at the entrance to the cave, the entrance that had been blasted away, and stared at it in amazement. "How could this have been here?" he demanded. "How could our earlier surveying parties have been over this planet and not found it?"

It was rhetorical, of course. None of the other Klingons had been in those earlier exploratory parties, and so no personal reckoning was being held. One of the Klingons thought, Maybe it wasn't ready to be found. It was a private speculation, one made more from what passed for Klingon whimsy than from anything else, and as such, it was a speculation that went unvoiced.

It so happened that he was right. But he wouldn't have been believed, anyway.

"All right," said Tron, gesturing to his small group. "Let's see what's inside."

And then a gutteral voice said, "Instead, let us show you ... Klingon pig."

It came from just inside the opening, and the accent was unmistakable. Tron's face twisted in disgust as he said, "Is that Kreel I smell in--"

The ground to Tron's immediate left exploded, taking with it the Klingon standing there.

Tron reacted instantly. "Fall back!" he shouted, and the remaining Klingons promptly did so, firing back into the hole. They blasted a steady barrage, all bets off, determined to reduce the Kreel to free-floating molecules.

The Kreel fired back. The Klingons didn't know, couldn't know, that the Kreel were crouched on steps, placing them safely below the blasts that were passing harmlessly over their heads.

A pencil-thin beam of light shot out of the hole, lanced over the head of one of the Klingons crouching behind a rock.

And then the beam of light reversed itself and, as if it had eyes, swung back and blasted the Klingon from existence.

Tron had seen enough. He tapped his wrist communicator and shouted into it, "Commander!"

Imperturbable came the reply: "Yes, Tron?"

"Beam us up, sir! Now!"

"Report, Tron."

"If you don't beam us up-- sir-- I won't live to give you my report!"

An instant later, Tron felt the comforting glow of the transporter beam around him. He and the remainder of the ill-fated Klingon away team materialized on the transporter deck of their ship.

Tron barely had time to step off the platform when the call came down from the bridge that Tron had better haul himself up there now and explain just what the devil had happened, and how a simple search-and-destroy mission could possibly go so completely off-kilter.

"The scream, sir."

Tron paused and turned, looking back at the other survivors of the landing party. One of them, a first-year techno, said, "The Klingon death scream, for our slain comrades on the planet surface."

Tron had never been much of a traditionalist, but that was never something that was healthy to admit. Nevertheless, he said, "I think, novice, that my first duty is to get to the bridge or there may be a lot more Klingon screaming going on."

Down on the planet surface, Deni and Aneel had quickly retreated into the confines of the cavern when they had heard the transporter whine. Once, they would have felt a stab of jealousy over the Klingon technology that gave them such gifts. Now, however, they felt nothing except the heady intoxication similar to a child given the key to a candy store.

Aneel was poking around in one room when footsteps snapped him around, weapon at the ready. Aneel, however, was a little more cautious than the late Budian, and so he did not blow Deni to atoms. This was fortunate, for Deni was holding a weapon so huge that he had both arms wrapped around it and still his hands didn't quite meet. It glistened silver, and it was almost completely smooth. The part that seemed to be the muzzle was large enough for a Kreel child to crawl into.

Aneel's huge eyes became even wider.

"What the flarg is that!"

Deni's squat head moved out from behind it. "I don't know! But it's ... it's big!"

"Then it must be good."

And then the big gun began to beep.

The two Kreel looked at each other. "What did you do?" demanded Aneel.

"Nothing! Nothing, I swear! It just started by itself."

"Let's get it outside! If it's going to explode, it's not going to do it in here!"

Deni started frantically to drag the huge weapon, and Aneel shouldered one end of it. Between the two of them, they broke all speed records as they bore the weapon up and out of the tunnels. Once they were a safe distance from the entrance, they set the weapon down with the barrel pointing straight up. Then the thing started to tilt over, right onto Aneel. "Help me!" he barked at Deni.

That's when the weapon spoke to them.

In a pleasant female voice that, incredibly, spoke Kreel, the weapon said, "Targeting."

They froze, staring at each other. Then Deni's face twisted in disgust, and he said, "It's a woman's weapon."

"Don't be a feldling idiot," snapped Aneel. Then, as they both pulled their full weight into it and righted the gun, Aneel said cautiously, "Gun ... what are you targeting?"

"Orbiting vessel. Visual aid requested?"

"Sure."

The air before them shimmered slightly and there, hanging in front of them, a patch of stars twinkling around it, was a Klingon battlecruiser. In contrast to the ship's design, and intent, it seemed almost peaceful.

"Awaiting instructions," said the gun.

Aneel and Deni looked at each other once again.

For a brief moment, Aneel found himself wishing that the commander were still around to take charge of the situation. He was good at that. But the commander was, at the moment, a small puddle of goo, and since his status didn't seem likely to change in the near future, it was Aneel who was left to make the decisions.

"Shoot at it," he said.

"As you request."

Silently and efficiently, small tripod legs stretched out from the bottom of the gun, giving it balance and stability. Aneel and Deni stared at it. As the weight of the weapon was taken from them, they suddenly realized what was about to happen. It also occurred to them that, when it did, their personal health and safety would be best served by being elsewhere.

They ran.

"You allowed yourselves," said the Klingon commander slowly, "to be routed by a few pathetic Kreel?"

Every word hung in the air filled with disdain and disbelief, on the bridge. Tron shifted uncomfortably, but stared resolutely straight ahead.

"And you have the nerve," continued the commander, rising from his chair and circling his subordinate, "to return to this ship with a report of that nature? Are you prepared, Tron, to live the rest of your life in Disgrace?"

Tron did not answer. There could be no answer. To be in Disgrace was tantamount to a death sentence, for no Klingon could live in such a state. Bereft of friends, of property and privilege, of everything. Even ... of name.

"Commander!"