Lady Lazarus (TPC episode)

"Lady Lazarus" is an important episode of Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles and brings important information to Star Trek: The Cantabrian Expeditions.

Summary
It’s Jim’s birthday and most of the senior officers are celebrating. Operations manager Kari Liljehorn is about to leave the bridge (she’s finished up her shift late) when the ensign at ops calls her over. She gasps, then contacts John Sill.

It’s a distress call from the Artemis, a ship they thought destroyed long ago.

The party’s mood is ruined with the news. John orders the USS Prospect (NCC-60056) on an intercept course.

John asks Counselor Scott Fack and First officer Anne Cobry to his quarters, and they do some soul searching. So much of what happened on that fateful mission shaped them; John admits he had nightmares for weeks that nearly saw him turn down any command position. Anne wonders if it’s a trap, set-up by the non-corporal beings who sabotaged the Artemis in the first place.

They arrive. The Artemis is listing, appearing to come to rest here years ago. Anne and Kari speculate that the survivors didn’t see the Artemis explode – it must’ve been the angle the escape pods were on – but the explosion of the hollowed-out section (in the front of the ship) in conjunction with a jump to warp; thus why much debris was never found. John asks if the Artemis is safe to board; Chief Engineer Mike Sill and Kari agree that with a power transfer, the Artemis will gain life support, emergency forcefields, et cetera. John orders to transfer power, then have an away team, consisting of Anne, security chief George Serigos, Scott and three security personnel beam over initially. (Before this, he asks Scott if he senses any lifeforms, including those non-corporal forms, aboard; he senses none.) John orders Scott to keep “his feelers” going; at the first sign of trouble, he can order a beam-out.

Jim is very uncomfortable with the whole situation. He expresses his concern to John, who notes it. Jim seems very adamant about keeping their eyes open and a lock on the team at all times.

Aboard the Artemis, the team decides to split up into three teams: Anne and 1 security guard; George and another security guard; and Scott and the third security guard, Ensign Garrett. George and his team head to the bridge to find data; Anne and her team to engineering to see how the core is (and why it reported it was going to breach but it didn’t); and Scott and Garrett to the front of the saucer to see how bad the damage is.

George reports massive damage to the bridge but mysteriously, the bodies are all gone. They insert power units onto the surviving terminals, and the Prospect begins processing the data, including logs. From preliminary reports, the Artemis was struck by a massive barrage of energy weapons, and internal sensors indicated two unidentified energy sources within the ship just prior to the attack. John order them to get internal sensors on-line.

Anne and her escort reach Main Engineering. The core has shut down but can be easily restored. No sign of a breach there: could those two energy sources – Scott had thought they were alive – been responsible?

But why did they want a ship, and a badly damaged one at that? Anne ads they haven’t encountered any bodies either… maybe these beings somehow feed on the dead? Or got rid of the bodies for some other purpose? John doesn’t want to consider those theories just yet. He orders Anne to get the core up and running.

Scott and Garrett go room to room in the living areas of the ship and find no bodies. Garrett says something that Scott finds amusing. She says she’s always had the knack for mathematics. He throws a random large figure at her and something to multiply it by (all the time entering it into his tricorder) and she gets her answer about the same time. They open the door to Stellar Cartography and are amazed.

The bridge to the station (platform) is all that remains. Beyond that, all the section has been sucked out into space, and the open area leads out into space (three decks high). The sight, Scott tells everyone else over an open communication channel, is spectacular.

They turn to go back, but the door has closed. Anne says the core is back on-line. George chimes in that sensors have too. Scott and his escort see something moving: “What’s that?”

George’s sensors pick up live and movement. “Scott, get out…!” There are screams, then the channel goes dead.

John tries to get the teams beamed back, but there’s interference. He orders the teams to converge on Scott’s last position and report.

John arrives at Jim’s quarters. No response, so he overrides the lock. He finds Jim gathering weapons unfamiliar to him and John demands answers. Jim can’t give them to him just yet, but he can tell John they’re dealing with an ancient race known as the M'Tar. They were thought to be extinct, but these two seem to have escaped. Jim talks about a Great War and Treaties – but it’s all too complicated to explain now. “These,” Jim explains as he shows John the weapons, “will stop them… once and for all.” Jim asks John to let him go to stop them before George, Anne and the other two are hurt or killed; John agrees reluctantly. Jim tells John it’s been an honor serving with him, and before John can ask what he means, Jim disappears in a white flash.

George and his escort arrive but slide to a halt as their corridor is two stories up, with the collapsed next section leading down to the next floor. They are astonished at the sight…

Anne and her escort arrive. She gasps as she sees…

An altered Scott levitating with what appears to be a vine trailing from his back. Garrett is a part of the vine. Scott's eyes are black with stars sparkling in them, his hands glowing. “You will surrender,” he says in a voice not his own, “or we will destroy you.”

The guard with George goes to fire his phaser, but Scott raises his hand, stopping the beam before it strikes him. He makes a swatting gesture and knocks the phaser out of the guard’s hand. He then closes his hand into a fist, and the guard crumbles to the ground, blood dripping from his ears, eyes and mouth as he screams in pain…

Anne raises her hands and comes forward. “Put your weapons down,” she orders the others. “We’ll co-operate. Just let us know what we need to do.”

Jim is in Main Engineering of the Artemis, fitting alien equipment to various stations when he hears something. He orders, “Self destruction sequence Doomsday,” then enters his personal code, silent countdown. They have 5 minutes. He runs.

John listens over the communications channel to Scott. “Celebrate, for today is the start of a new era for the Federation and this galaxy. We are here to facilitate your transition to rule under the M’Tar, to start the Eighth Great M’Tar Empire.

“We will proceed, without delay or distraction, to Sector 001, to facilitate this change. Those who challenge us will be crushed. Ships that attack us will be destroyed. Races that oppose us will be wiped out and rendered extinct.

“My two M’Tar escorts, my Link and I will transfer aboard the Prospect once the transformation is complete. Liaison out.”

Kari asks for orders. John says they have only a few minutes to figure out how to get their people out of there. “Ideas?”

“It’s tricky, but can we link into the Artemis’s sensors and lock onto them?”

“The lock’s not the problem,” Kari explains to Jenn’s idea. “Something is blocking our signal. We need to disable that.”

“Scan for it. Anything that appears out of the ordinary. Then disable it however you can,” John orders.

Anne, George and the third person sit on some debris. Scott appears to be processing something when he winces. Two eerie balls of light swoop on the dead body and start “processing” it. Anne approaches Scott, who can only look at her and mutter, “Help me…”

Kari’s found something. It’s a long shot, but she might be able to overload some systems on the Artemis and that might affect whatever is blocking their attempts. John says to give it a go. Kari charges the equipment…

Anne tells Scott to fight them. He responds he is but they are so powerful. “So dark, so evil, so foreign…” The M’Tar realise how weak he’s become, so rush back. Scott changes and swats Anne aside. George and the other rush to her aide.

Jim’s running as fast as he can but keeps running into obstacles…

Kari’s ready. John orders her to fire.

The Artemis shakes. Scott turns on the trio, his hands glowing. “What have you…”

Kari says systems cascade failure aboard the Artemis in progress.

Jim storms the area, and Scott turns his attention to Jim. “Na’arbi!” He hisses and unleashes his fury on him, but Jim counters until it’s all a bright blur of light and “fireworks”.

Anne (severely injured), George and the other shield themselves from the light. Jim screams to them that the core will breach any second now, so they need to get the Prospect away as soon as possible. During this, the Prospect beams them out…

“I’ve only got three,” Kari tells John.

Dr. Justin Braun helps Anne onto a bio-bed. “Captain,” she says over the communications system, “the Artemis is set to blow. Get us out of here!”

Jenn looks at John as he nods. They see the forward section breach of the Artemis glowing and flashing with the firefight between Scott and Jim.

Jim’s now fighting the two M’Tar and Scott. Scott’s weak without the M’Tar support. Jim pegs his vine to sever him from the M’Tar. He does the same for the Link, then tags them; they disappear in a flash.

An intruder alert sounds on the Prospect, but Justin relays it’s Scott and Garrett in Sickbay. With that, the Artemis explodes in a huge ball of light. The debris, glowing hot, gets sucked into some sort of vortex. One bit forces itself against the tide, and the vortex starts to collapse. The “bit”, a ball of energy, hits the Prospect with no damage. The energy, George reports, is in Jim’s quarters.

John and George head down to Jim’s quarters. There, they find a holoprojection of Jim. It illuminates the dark room.

“I don’t have much time, so I’ll make this brief. I’ve collapsed the doorway between our dimension and the M’Tar Domain. But they’re alive. More than we ever considered. And they’ll be back to try again.”

“They said, ‘Na’arbi’ when they saw you…” George waits for a response.

“I’m not really human; I just take that form. Na’arbi is my race’s name; we fought for near eternity against the M’Tar. We are nearly extinct, hiding by taking other forms. We thought we defeated them; we were wrong.”

“When will you return?” John is worried.

“I am trapped in the Domain. But I will be back… and so will they. Be ready.”

Jim’s transmission ends.

Background notes

 * This is the episode that introduces the M'Tar.
 * James Lee is revealed to be a Na'arbi agent.
 * The functions of the modifications performed on Scott Fack's body are revealed, and it is assumed it was the M'tar who made these alterations.
 * The original version of this story, as have all the other Prospect adventures, have been lost. The author is attempting to re-write them as fast as he can.