Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures                                                
Episode 2: Astral Traveller 
Scene 8: Shining, Flying, Purple Wolfhounds

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Shining, Flying, Purple Wolfhounds

Shining, flying, purple wolfhounds chased Lieutenant Ki Kresid from one end of Dolnok Nor to the other. The roylan’s ancestors had always been prey and her instincts served her well to keep her out of reach of the predators. Even though these predators could fly. Their howls sounded like rich, strange organ chords.

Roylans were quite rare in the federation, despite being scattered all over the Alpha Quadrant. They had never developed technology much more complicated than the bow, but found themselves hunted vigorously by the Orion Syndicate for the slave trade and the tiny humanoids had quickly gained expertise with orion technology. Orion slavers deliberately bred roylans in captivity and their off-world population had quickly outgrown their numbers on their home planet, which had fallen under Federation protection and was no longer available to the slave hunters. The vast majority of roylans lived in slavery to orions and to any number of their paying customers. The tiny humanoids carefully hid the breadth of their unique physical and mental skills - using them in secrecy to escape their captors and trickle back into the federation. 

Lieutenant Kresid was relying on those skills now. She leapt effortlessly from the floor of the unfinished promenade to the second floor - clean over the protective railing - then seemed to disappear as her shining, flying, purple, canine hunters flew up to the second level. As the wolfhounds  stalked about the second floor of the promenade, the U.S.S. Escort’s engineering director crawled, hanging underneath the second floor, then neatly and lightly dropped to the first floor in front of the detention area, slipped inside and closed the doors. 

But the station was without power and there was no lock to hold the doors together. The wolfhounds had discovered her. They howled and brayed like distorted organs, and rammed into the door, trying to open it. Ki Kresid backed up, then scrambled behind the security desk and started looking for a weapon. Nothing. Not even a solid rod for a workable truncheon. If the station had power, she could have cobbled together a weapon out of conduit and a few other items, but there was no power. The station was lit only by her glowing body and the bodies of the wolfhounds. Shining, flying, purple wolfhounds.

After banging into the door enough times, they managed to open it a little and that was enough for them to wedge their way in. Kresid scrambled over the top of the security desk, leapt neatly onto the back of the first wolfhound, grasped its fur and neatly pirouetted her body around into a riding position. 

And everything changed. 

She was no longer the hunted. She was part of the pack. With their organ chord howls, the wolfhounds immediately turned and thundered through the station and seamlessly right through one of the walls. 

There was a tracking beacon and the lead wolfhound, with Kresid astride, rode the tracking beacon. Stars streamed by at an incredible speed. Easily warp 9.6, then faster, and faster, and impossibly faster. Lt. Kresid memorized the streaks, quickly gathering her bearing. The tracking beacon was a straight line. Straight from Dolnok Nor into her temporary quarters in Terok Nor - Deep Space 9.

And in her bed, at the other end of the tracking beacon, was her inert body. A startled Skip Howard and Tentis Uto were both looking at her. And the shining, flying, purple wolfhound. The beacon drew Kresid off the back of the enormous beast and she snapped back into her body and sat straight up. Howard and Uto had followed her progress, then all three of them turned back to look at the wolfhound.

They could see through the shining, purple beast, a table, chair, and wall behind it. The beast first snarled, then opened its translucent mouth wide and emitted a deep, mournful howl. A howl that sounded more like an organ chord. But the mournfulness came through - a deep, powerful sadness emanating from the animal, riding the sound wave of its mournful, organ chord howling. 

Something recalled the animal and pulled it back through the wall at enormous speed, doing no damage to the wall and leaving nothing in its wake other than the stunned looks of confusion on Captain Skip Howard, Dr. Tentis Uto, and Lt. Ki Kresid.

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