The captain’s shuttlecraft settled his shuttlecraft just above the chilling water of Galagus III, near the edge of the large iceberg. He could tell that the outside was extremely cold, and he would need to wear a lot of warm gear. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to climbing up the iceberg. But he knew that Alan was already moving up, and he needed to hurry.
Seth looked up at the iceberg. How the hell was he going to climb this thing? He placed his hand on the ice. The specialty gloves and boots he was wearing had a metallic alloy on the palms that could quickly get extremely hot on command, melting the ice on the surface. But almost as quickly, the glove would shut off, and thereby letting the water surrounding the glove re-freeze. This served as a sort of adhesive between the glove and ice, and allowed the user to climb an icy surface. It worked similarly to the way one’s tongue would stick to a cold metal pole on a cold winter day, but in reverse. A specific metallic alloy was employed in this little device because of its particularly high adhesive strength with ice. Climbing icebergs, however, was not the originally intended use of these gloves. The gloves and boots were first invented so that anyone on an expedition who found themselves trapped in a hole and surrounded by nothing but walls of ice could quickly climb out of the hole. It was extremely dangerous to use them climbing long distance, because ‘gripping’ was not always reliable.
The captain came across something unusual. Perhaps several feet beneath the surface of the ice, he could see a dark mass. He wiped the snow off of the ice. It didn’t provide much of a clearer picture, but he could see the color more distinctly. It was a dark red mass that was frozen just beneath the surface. The color was immediately recognizable as blood, but it wasn’t until Seth could make out the limbs and torso that he began to panic. It seemed like it was a large animal. But it was impossible to make out the shape of the animal, or what it looked like. What was a large animal doing here? The fact that he saw blood meant that the animal must have been attacked by a predator. He considered the possibility of it being humanoid. It was hard to tell, but there was no way to discount it. It certainly fit the size.
Oh no, he said to himself. That couldn’t be Santiago, could it? He was under the impression that Santiago was on the other side of the iceberg. He quickly took out his tricorder and made a few scans. It was humanoid alright, but it wasn’t Santiago. It looked like this body had been here frozen in ice for several months.
Seth decided to keep climbing. The fact that he saw a bloodied humanoid body in the ice was only impetus to climb even faster. There were only a hundred and fifty or so meters left to climb, but he could already feel his arms getting tired. There were few spots on the iceberg to rest.
About twenty meters or so later, he noticed a white mass beneath him. Maybe it was disc-shaped. It was maybe a half a meter below the surface of the ice, but he could still make it out. Another humanoid, he thought? No blood or anything though. It was very plain white. It was difficult to make out the size or shape. The captain tried to shine a light on it to try and see it better.
Then it moved.
Something came to the center of the object, something round. It quickly grew, and shrank, like a lens on a camera. Oh my God, it was a giant eyeball. There was an organism beneath the surface of the ice. I thought the sensors said there was no life on this planet, he said to himself. The giant eye began to blink, and the captain could tell that the organism could see him. He could almost hear a deep roar as it began to swim off beneath the ice. Wait, swim off beneath the ice? What kind of iceberg was this?
Time to run. Or climb, whatever. Fast. The captain began to pick up speed, but quite frankly, he didn’t know if it would even help. He began to feel a lot of heat suddenly, coming from the ice. He could almost see the ice beneath him melt before his eyes, and the ice began to buckle under his weight. Move, his instincts told him.
Just as he turned to the side, a large white mass emerged from the ice. It was a large tentacle, equipped even with suction cups. It looked liked it was seeking out its prey, and when it did, it slapped down on the ice with powerful force. The captain rolled out of the way just in time, but realized also that he had no clue how he was going to fight this thing. He hung there with only one hand attached to the ice. He had nowhere to run, except down towards his death.
***
“What the hell is that?” yelled Ester.
“Scanning…” said the science officer, who sat opposite to the helm. “It’s some type of cephalopod, large…” The lieutenant brought up files and put it on-screen. It was a giant squid.
“How is there a squid in the middle of an iceberg? And chasing the captain for that matter?” Jenovia asked.
Apparently, the creature could ‘swim’ in the ice by heating and vibrating to break the ice in front of it, such that the water in its local environment would be liquid. As it moved, the position it was previously in would ‘re-freeze’. “According to our files, this species of cephalopoda is able to live in the iceberg, and move around in it. How a creature evolved to live in an iceberg beats the hell out of me. I can only think of one reason for doing so: no predators.”
“Why didn’t our scanners detect it before?” Jenovia demanded.
“It must have been in its resting state, so that it could evade our sensors. I think it might just sit there in the iceberg frozen, with an extremely low metabolism in the ice while it’s dormant. It must have detected the captain’s presence when he started climbing, and began its hunt.”
“Does the captain have a phaser? Can he defend himself?”
“He didn’t bring one.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Oh I’m sorry, did we think that the captain was going to have to fight a giant squid while climbing an iceberg?” the science officer snarled. His sarcasm was unwarranted.
Jenovia just ignored him. “Contact the captain. The contest is over, get him out of there.”
“We can’t transport him, remember?”
Jenovia let out an expression of disgust. “Damn… Alright, what do we know about this creature? What do we have in our files?”
“Well, for one, for the creature to be able to move around in ice like that, even with all of its mechanisms available to it, it probably moves very slowly.”
“How slowly?”
“I’d guess, maybe, less than half a meter a second.”
“That’s pretty much as fast as the captain can climb.”
“And that’s only an estimate. I’ve never seen this size of squid so close to the surface before. Let alone live in ice.”
“Alright, the captain needs our help. We can’t transport him and he’s too far from his shuttlecraft. How do we help him? I need options.”
“For something to live in subzero environments, it has to have some way of resisting cold. But to be able to move around like that, it probably uses a sophisticated mechanism of generating intense heat, but I doubt it could do that for very long. Just to get around through ice probably already requires a huge amount of energy; its metabolism must be extremely efficient.”
“Alright, alright…get to the point, Lieutenant.”
“Most organisms that survive at subzero temperatures use some sort of antifreeze protein. If that’s the case for this creature, we may be able to find a way to inhibit or deactivate the protein. In essence, we would cause the organism to freeze to death.”
“Is this something we can do in the next few minutes?”
“I don’t know, it depends on what we already know about the creature. Many different organisms use different ways to resist cold. We’d have to ask the doctor.”
“Jenovia to the doctor,” she said.
“Dr. Min here.”
“Doctor, have you been monitoring everything that’s been happening?”
“I’m not playing this stupid game, remember?” Dr. Min snapped.
“The captain’s in trouble. I mean real trouble. He needs your help.”
Dr. Min let out a loud sigh, one that Jenovia was able to hear over the comm system. He was still very reluctant to play along. “Fine. What’s the problem?”
“You’d better brush up on what’s going on.”
“I’ll call back in two minutes. Dr. Min out.”
“He’s continuing to evade the alien, sir, but he’s having difficulties,” observed the ensign.
“How are his vital signs?”
“Jumpy, but within a tolerable range.” The ensign put his vital signs on the right screen of the main viewer. It looked like his heart rate was very elevated. He was getting extremely tired. “I worry that he won’t be able to hang on while parrying the creature’s attacks. There’s lactic acid building up in his muscles.”
“Dr. Min to the bridge.”
“This is Jenovia. What do you have to report, Doctor?”
“This creature has been documented before by early Federation scientists, so that’s the first piece of good news. We have the structure of the antifreeze protein on file, but it could take several days to find a way to effectively inhibit the activity, if that’s what you’re going after.”
“You don’t have several days, Doctor, you have several minutes. Can you do it, yes or no?”
“It’ll be sloppy, but…”
“Do it, Doctor. We’ll try to find a way to buy you some more time. Jenovia out.”
“He’s struggling, sir…” They could in fact watch his progress from long-range sensors, and could see him struggling with trying to attack the creature all the while hanging on to the edge to avoid falling all the way back to the freezing water. But what was only minutes felt like hours. They couldn’t wait much longer for the doctor.
***
The captain had an idea. He was wearing the gloves that heat up to enormous temperatures designed to instantly melt ice. It had to be effective against biological tissue. As he hung there only by his left hand, he saw a moment of opportunity to place his right on the giant tentacle. It sizzled and smoked, and he could tell that the creature was in pain. He kept the temperature on full. The last thing he wanted was the glove to re-freeze and have his right arm stuck on the tentacle.
But that didn’t happen. The tentacle moved even more wildly, and Seth lost his grip. It was angry. Again Seth hung there for dear life by only his left arm, and he tried desperately to grip the ice with his right hand. But the creature was furious and it doubled its efforts to attack him. It made one last swing, and the sharp end managed to make contact with him and slice open his quadriceps muscle.
***
“His vitals are fluctuating! He’s bleeding!” yelled the ensign.
“Doctor…hurry…” The Counselor paced from one side of the bridge to the other, much like the captain did earlier.
The sound of the bridge doors opening was welcomed. It had better be the doctor, Jenovia thought. “Here it is,” Dr. Min said. “It’s a spectrum of compounds that theoretically inhibit the anti-freeze protein by computer simulation, with a dose that has been adjusted for its size, which I only estimated. I’ve also connected many of the compounds with a kind of protease. Should chew up the protein while it binds.” He handed the syringe to Thorn. “But I haven’t tested it yet. Fortunately, in this case we’re not worried about side effects. I’m hopeful that at least one of them will be effective at causing the water in its tissues to freeze,” Dr. Min said.
“Will it work?” Jenovia demanded of him.
“Hard to say. That’s what you get for giving me two minutes notice.”
“Alright, now we need to somehow go down there and get it to him. We also need to bring to him some medical supplies; he’s bleeding. Any suggestions on how we do that? Any thoughts Lieutenant Comm…?”
She turned to look behind her. Thorn was gone.
***
This wasn’t part of the contest. As Seth continued to dodge the squid’s attacks, he couldn’t help but wonder if Santiago was running into a similar alien. He was beginning to worry that his left shoulder that he injured earlier in the holodeck would come loose as he hung for dear life. In his daze, the captain realized he missed something in the distance. He didn’t see that a shuttlecraft was approaching. Was it his own? The door’s opened from the side and someone flew himself onto the edge of the iceberg and planted his feet firmly into the ice. He had the same gloves that Seth had on. It was Lieutenant Commander Thorn.
Before the captain could even ask, Thorn immediately stood up with his feet firmly planted. He pulled something from his belt and threw it into the water where the tentacle had reached out from. It was a chemical that immediately froze the water into ice, even with the tentacle sticking out. With the tentacle now stuck, he grabbed it with his arms and took out a large injection device, similar to the one that Dr. Min had used on his shoulder. Thorn was going to inject something. He saw the squid react in pain. It was squirming, and actually vibrating, as it was trying hard to generate enough heat. But it didn’t last long. In a matter of minutes the squid’s movement slowed to a halt, and Seth realized that the alien squid had actually frozen to death.
The captain braced his leg, realizing he was in significant pain. They managed to move to a ledge that allowed him to rest horizontally, rather than simply hang nearly completely vertically. The laceration in his quadriceps muscle was deep, and he was bleeding profusely. He briefly thought about calling off the contest, but brushed it aside. There was no way. Thorn pulled out a medical spray that released a foam that filled and sealed the wound. He also felt the wound tighten on its own. Probably another ‘nanite’ solution or something that repaired muscle tissue; they were used for pretty much every medical application you could think of these days. The injection must have contained some anesthetics as well because Seth immediately felt the pain dissolve away. His leg was mobile again.
“This will control the bleeding and swelling in the wound until the Doctor can heal it,” said Thorn as he wrapped the wound with a bandage.
“Well done, Lieutenant. Thanks.”
“You can thank me by winning.” Thorn said.
“Deal.”
Seth found newfound energy to win the race. His leg was still extremely weak, but the medication that Thorn gave him helped with the pain. After another twenty minutes of grueling climbing, which felt more like a hundred, the end came into sight. He pulled himself to the top, and turned on his back to catch his breath. But this was no time to rest, it was time to plant the flag. But when he looked up, he realized that he already saw a flag.
It said, “Excelsior.”
Damn you, Alan. Captain Santiago had won the race. Seth lay on the ice, exhausted, and defeated. He wondered now how his failure in their first mission (well, contest) would affect the crew’s overall morale. He certainly didn’t feel like he deserved to be captain of the ship at this point.
“Captain Seth, you are getting a priority one message from Starfleet command,” the ship called.
The captain sighed. “Very well, Lieutenant, I will be there shortly.”
The captain called his Chief of Security to pick him up in his shuttlecraft. After finally reaching the Dragonfly, without even visiting sickbay, he went straight to his Ready Room. He sat in his chair, still shivering, and with snow peppered all over his face. He answered the call. “Admiral Kim,” Seth said.
“Captain, I hope I’m not disturbing anything important,” noting that his hair and uniform were in disarray, and a little wet.
“Umm, not at all, sir. We were just, um, getting to know the ship better.”
“Well, I hope you two are well acquainted now. Call Captain Santiago, I need to talk to both of you,” he said. “It’s time for your first mission.”
