Crack. The sound of energized nadions tearing through the air.

Chief Shafir heard the sound, and whatever astrophysical disquisition Dr. Brooks had been giving on theoretical displacement within the multiverse ceased to matter.

Thump. A body crumpling onto the cold stone floor.

“Move!” Chief Shafir barked, driving her slim frame headlong into the aged astrophysicist and forcing him behind a thick stone pillar. “Cover! Now!” 

Then she heard Commander Eidran in her ear.

“Harden up! Secure the charges!”

Good. The cavalry was coming. That bought her a moment to process the scene.

As she looked around, she saw the rest of the Starfleet delegation rushing for cover, although from what, and in what direction, it seemed no one was quite sure. The Klingons, on the other hand, did not. Instead, they drew their d’k tahgs and squared up as if to meet their assailant head on. But that wasn’t how this was going to play out. 

“Idiots!” Chief Shafir snapped. “Holster the knives and get the fuck down!”

The shooter was not going to come waltzing in. They had set a wide security perimeter around the monastery. That shot had to have come from beyond the perimeter, which meant the Klingons were doing nothing but presenting themselves for an easy follow-up if the shooter wanted another body.

A body.

That’s right.

She’d heard the thump.

Who’d been hit?

Chief Shafir peeked out, her eyes scanning the cold stone floor until she found the victim. 

A Klingon. Not just any Klingon, but the la’ at the head of the delegation, a soldier-scientist named Otoc. He lay motionless, his chest plate burned through by a single well-centered shot.

Then uniforms were everywhere, the operators from the Procyon flooding into the chamber. Some moved to the Klingons and forced the brash fools to cover. Others drew up beside the Starfleet officers, making sure they were secure. And the rest fanned out to cover open sight lines in the general direction of the shot.

“You good, you two?” came the voice of the burly Chief Abedayo, his rifle raised as he stepped past Chief Shafir and Dr. Brooks, using his bulky frame to block any remaining sight lines that the colonnade itself didn’t shield them from.

“We’re fine, Kevin,” Chief Shafir assured him. She and Dr. Brooks could handle themselves. “Go cover someone who needs it.”

“No can do,” he replied without so much as turning, his eyes fixed forward and his rifle buried in his shoulder. “Precious cargo, I’m told.”

“He means you, pretty lady,” chuckled Dr. Brooks, who had finally gotten his wits about him again.

“Sure I am,” Chief Shafir smirked, knowing that was very much not the case. She was the disposable one here, on orders from Fleet Admiral Reyes to ensure Dr. Brooks stayed safe. In matters of the multiverse, few were as essential as their old temporal wayfarer.

Meanwhile, a Lieutenant J.G. in yellow trotted into an overly exposed position in the center of the room and dropped to one knee. She paid the rest of the scene no heed. Delaney Brewster knew the risk, but she also knew this would take only a second. With practiced hands, she unfolded a compact device in one fluid motion and keyed it on. As a low hum reverberated through the stone, she gave the call. “Shield’s up. We’re clear!”

“Would’ve been useful a moment ago,” Dr. Brooks said under his breath, though he knew why they hadn’t. Such a device threw up an energy signature that would have attracted the very sort of attention they’d hoped to avoid. This had been meant as a discreet meeting, after all.

Petty Officer Davi Almeida moved swiftly on Lieutenant Brewster’s call. He knew time was of the essence, but by the time he reached the Klingon’s side, it was already too late. “He’s dead.”

A low growl rippled through the Klingon delegation as one of the men stepped forward, looking first at the motionless body of Otoc and then over at the Starfleet medic as he bared his teeth. “We should not have placed our protection in your hands.”

“We should not have come at all,” grumbled another as he stared at the Starfleet astrophysicist who’d been rambling incessantly about quantum this and resonance that. “While our great ones vanish in darkness, we chose to stand here trading theories like old women at a cookfire.”

The Starfleet team let the misplaced outrage slide. They had more urgent matters to address. “I’ve got a bearing on the shot,” Ensign Park reported, pointing off into the distance. “That crag line just beyond the eastern gorge.”

“I concur,” came the voice of Dr. Hall as she stepped into the chamber. “Same line as the initial flicker off the shooter’s sight. Nothing up there since.”

Chief Abedayo, the team’s weapons and tactics specialist, followed the line and sighted in the peak through his own scope. It was a jagged rise more than six kilometers distant, framed narrowly on both sides by the monastery’s thick outer colonnade. To land such a shot, the shooter had threaded the needle. “That’s a hell of a lucky shot.”

“Or a very adept one,” Chief Shafir suggested as she ran the calculations in her head. At that distance, if the shooter had been 0.2 millimeters off the line in either direction, the burst would have gone wide and struck one of the pillars instead. And the burn marks in the Klingon’s chest plate made the rest plain: it’d hit perfectly center mass. She only knew one person still alive who could’ve made such a shot.

Commander Eidran stared off into the distance and tapped his combadge. “Procyon, I need a point-to-point for me, Hall, Abedayo and Park.” The others would have to reason with the Klingons in their absence. “Sending coordinates now.”

A moment later, Ensign Luna’s voice, from up on the Procyon, followed in response: “I have them. Ridgeline zero six mark two kilometers distant at zero seven three. On your call.”

Dr. Hall, Ensign Park, and Chief Abedayo brought their weapons back to the ready, and Commander Eidran gave the go. “Energize.”

Then the shelter of aged stone was gone, replaced by a knife-edge peak of rock and snow. A crisp, biting wind ripped unchecked across the ridge, cold enough to burn the face. On all sides, thousand meter falls dropped into the abyss, enough to make even the steadiest foot nervous. And unaided by a scope, the monastery was now little more than a speck in the distance.

Chief Abedayo stepped forward carefully, trying to put himself in the mindset of the shooter. The harsh elements made this anything but an ideal shooting position, and the composure required to take such a shot left little doubt they were dealing with a pro. 

After a moment, the chief spotted what he was looking for, a shallow depression in the snow and gravel slush. “There. Our shooter was prone.”

Ensign Park glanced around, taking in jagged ridgelines and the abrupt, rockfall-laden slopes. Nowhere to land a shuttle, and a descent suited only for a true mountaineer. He tapped his combadge. “Procyon, any sign of a transport off the ridge?”

“Negative,” came Ensign Luna’s voice at once. “We had eyes on the entire time and never detected any energy signatures consistent with a transport. Also, we’re the only bird in the sky. Nothing inbound or outbound.”

The implication was clear. The shooter was still down here, somewhere. 

Commander Eidran and Dr. Hall moved carefully towards the edge, peering out over the steep, broken terrain falling away beneath them.

“You think he’s exfilling on foot?” Commander Eidran asked. The Betazoid was a seasoned outdoorsman, but even he’d have thought twice before attempting such a trek. The range, deep in the furthest reaches of Ydris V’s northern hemisphere, stretched as far as the eye could see.

“If I wanted to disappear without a trace, it’s what I would have done,” Dr. Hall replied flatly as if it was a normal thing to say.

Commander Eidran knew better than to ask if she was speaking from personal experience or not. Instead, he just reached for his tricorder. If she was right, then maybe they could find the shooter’s trail.

“That’s not going to help you,” Dr. Hall put her hand out to stop him. “Magnesite. More than enough to blind your tricorder.” It was almost as if the shooter had picked this spot intentionally.

“Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a good old-fashioned manhunt then, doesn’t it?” chuckled Chief Abedayo as he stepped up beside them.

Commander Eidran tapped his combadge. “Luna, scramble Priyanka on the Type 12. Low overflights over this range searching for any sign of life.” And then his mind shifted to the diminutive spaceport attached to Ydris V’s only significant colony. “And lock down the spaceport. No one gets in, and no one gets out.”