“Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and the most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”

Apsley Cherry-Garrard, (1922)

The polar night had ruled the frozen tundra for ten thousand years.

Whilst life had persisted elsewhere on the planet, until slowly poisoned by pollution and then annihilated by war, in this frozen kingdom of perpetual darkness, no life (not even a microbe) had ever persevered amongst the knife-ridges of snow that were carved by the relentless, murderous chill of wind.

To the warmongers of the Northern Compact, this perpetually ice – bound wasteland represented the perfect location to emplace their command-and-control structure, with which to prosecute their relentless war against the opposing Southern Alliance Faction.

In a landscape completely devoid of life, the approach of any living aggressor would be immediately apparent to their sensor-picket.

Long before those ancient Generals eventually starved, suffocated and finally froze to death as the resources of their subterranean bunker inevitably ran out (eventual victims of the scarcity of supplies that their insane apocalypse had initiated), the nuclear fallout from the weapons launched from their silos had blotted out the sun for generations and effectively extended the polar night for eternity.

With an average temperature of -21◦C, the relentless winds that blasted this land of white – death ranged down toward absolute zero at their most vindictive.

Yet somehow the squat rhomboid structure that capped the entrance to the main complex, buried  hundreds of feet below in the fastness of the ice, seemed to be impervious to the endless sworls of frozen snow that scoured the dead landscape without relent and piled everywhere else in drifts that shifted like the sands of a frigid desert.

This incongruity puzzled Sublieutenant Vilar, as the Romulan Free State section leader lay belly- down at the crest of one of those majestic drifts and used his helmet magnifier to reconnoitre the landscape immediately before the bunker entrance that had claimed the lives of so many of his shipmates.

All around the entrance to the monolithic black structure were strewn the frozen bodies of his fallen comrades who had been ordered to attempt entry to the alien structure.

Well, if Vilar was being completely honest, they were more a collection of body – parts.

The Romulan commander shuddered despite the cosseting warmth of his combat suit as he recalled the screams of the dying over the comm and the images of animal panic and confusion that the helmet – cams had shown those aboard the Rihanhansu, as men and women the Sublieutenant knew well lost all reason as they were torn apart by whatever had been set to guard the entrance to the bunker so long ago.

Sighting down his disruptor – rifle, Vilar could sense no energy signatures residual or actual to give him and his team some clue as to the exact nature of the defensive system that had accounted for the previous teams with such ruthless efficiency. The fact that the corpses were so comprehensively dismembers offered to only clue to their grisly fate.

Something had torn them apart.

Something was keeping the snow from the structure.

Vilar sighed. Obviously there was some form of power available to the structure, despite millennia of activity and there was demonstrably no life-sign readings emerging from either his suit scanner or the sensors available to him from his home ship circling high above in orbit.

Some form of automated defense system was almost certainly responsible for the carnage that littered the ground before him, staining the snow all around with vivid arcs of greenish – blood that had frozen into the pack ice and become one with their grave.

What that system was Vilar did not know and as much as he feared to find that out, that was the very task which his team had been dispatched to discover and neutralize, if they were ever to stand any reasonable chance of gaining entry to the bunker.

It spoke volumes that the Sublieutenant was willing to risk even this near – certain death, than consider denying his orders and having to face the judgement of Major Silak. Like most people aboard the Rihanhansu, Vilar had a healthy sense of self – preservation when it came to dealing with the Romulan’s infamous secret police, but the Tal Shiar agent aboard the D’deridex terrified him to his very core.

Even the tales whispered aboard about the types of things that went on in her interrogation chamber were enough to make one lose sleep.

The Sublieutenant scanned the field before him, desperate to identify any sign of the enemy he faced, but of whatever mechanism had paid the finally tally for those that had attempted entry before him – there was no sign.

A sonic drilling apparatus from the Rihanhansu lay shattered before the doors to the Bunker, the complex machine looked like it had been sandblasted and obviously had made little impression on the unyielding black surface of the bunker – cap.

Similarly, Vilar could clearly see the equipment cases that had held the shaped-plasma demolition charges and see equally as clear that the power explosives had not made so much as a scratch on the strangely resistant surface of the ultra-dense material.

As much as he disliked to do so, he ordered the first element to advance.

Slowly, carefully, four indistinct black – clad shapes rose from the snow on his right – flank and advanced cautiously through the driving snow with their weapons trained before them. Elite warriors all, primed and alert for danger.

The team advanced towards the structure in open formation, each carefully dispersed so as to increase the chances of survival should one of them fall to enemy action. The persistence of the snowstorm made it difficult to maintain a visual fix, so Vilar switched his helmet HUD to thermal imaging and the 4 soldiers were suddenly made distinct with a blossom of heat rendered in bright colors before his eyes.

<< “Range to target – 20 meters & closing. Zero contact.” >> Came the steady voice of the Uhlan leading the element. The Sublieutenant had served with Bochel for many years and was unsurprised to hear the confidence in her voice.

His every sense alive and electrified, Vilar forced himself to remain calm and to be ready to lay down an enfilade of covering fire , along with the rest of the squad, if Bochel and her team came under attack.

<< “Copy that. Proceed.” >> the Sublieutenant murmured as the figures approached the menacing dark mass of the bunker – entrance without molestation and took shelter in the leeward side of the structure, fanning out with admirable discipline and precision to establish a defensive perimeter, weapons trained outwards.

<< “On Target.” >> Uhlan Bochel reported as the wind howled around her, the driving snow looking like a hail of bright diamonds where millions of swirling flake glimmered in the light from her helmet-torch.

<< “Copy that. Secure & Hold.” >>

Vilar nodded, relieved that they had achieved that much. The Sublieutenant switched his comm unit over to a separate channel and contacted the D’deridex high in orbit above their position.

<< “Away Team to Rihanhansu. We have reached the bunker. No casualties.” >> Vilar reported, but part of him could not help wonder how long this would remain the case. Given the fates of those that had gone before, he retained a justifiable sense of pervading dread about what the immediate future may have in store for his team.

His blood ran cold when the imperious voice of Major Silak sounded in his ears.

<<”Your team is to proceed. Entry must be gained at any cost, Sublieutenant. Failure is not an option you wish to explore.” >> The Tal Shiar agent threatened poignantly.

<< “It shall be as you command, Major.”>> Vilar assured, advising << “Standby.”>> as he switched back to the squad command channel.

<<”Actual to Lead – element. You are go to execute entry. Proceed.” >> He commanded, zooming in the magnification, as if driven by some inner desire to be there standing alongside his people and sharing the danger.

<< “Copy that, Actual. Breaching now.” >> Bochel returned crisply and, in that moment, Vilar had never been prouder of his comrade.

The eternal night was suddenly illuminated by a flare of incandescence as the Uhlan’s team ignited the thermal lance and began to apply its white-hot attention upon the seam of the doors that had so far stood resolute and defiant against all attempts to pierced them.

Far below, the secrets to total war lay like the ultimate treasure – trove, if what they had been led to believe was really true.

There was not a Romulan alive who would not see the Star Empire restored to its rightful place of dominance amongst galactic affairs (save for those mewling-traitor scum of the so-called Republic) and even a veteran as hard-boiled as Vilar could not help but feel a flash of excitement flare in his chest at that prospect, even as the lance flared through the night – dark sheets of snow.

Such patriotic reflection was suddenly interrupted by an urgent sounding of the suits proximity sensors as they signaled motion on his perimeter.

<<”STAND TO! Contact! Range two-fifty meters. Bearing North/Northwest! Prepare to engage!” The Sublieutenant roared and brought his long-arm to bear instinctively, as he tried to glean more salient information from the combat – computer. How many targets were they facing? What kind of armament might they bring to bear.

The suit’s CPU whined as it went through the complex computations required to deliver this data to its occupants and those arrayed around him that were combat networked to the same tactical feed.

The computer showed a single target closing on their position fast.

<< “Lead element. Dig in. Enemy Front. Engage at will!”>> Vilar commanded the team down at the bunker’s edge. << “Fireteams. Covering fire.”>>

From their elevated position, the Sublieutenant and the remainder of the team were well situated to provide enfilading-fire on the approaching target, directing their weapons discharge down the long axis of the unit and maximizing their combat effectiveness on the single, incoming tango.

All around Vilar, his people readied themselves for contact and the Sublieutenant trained his weapon on where the HUD told him the threat was approaching from, even though he could see nothing tangible on his sensors to identify the enemy and the driving snow that filled his faceplate negated any visual confirmation, so obscured.

Then suddenly, with impossible speed, the contact split into two contacts, possibly anticipating their presence and swiftly pivoting from a frontal attack to a flanking maneuver. Vilar knew his only option was to engage and draw fire from at least one of his elements to allow the other to reposition themselves to regain the tactical-advantage.

He never got the chance.

Uhlan Bochel managed to yell, <<”CONTACT FRONT!”>> before her voice elongated into a meaningless scream as her 4 – man element at the bunker was completely enclosed between a nightmarish black rush of awful kinetic- motion.

Too late, the Sublieutenant realized the awful truth and his terrible, final mistake.

It was not one contact.

It was not even two enemy-contacts.

It was thousands.

A sound like a thousand chittering locusts filled his helmet audio-pickups as, even over the perpetual howl of the arctic storm, a vast undulating black cloud exploded from the blizzard, its surface alive with frenetic motion as it slammed into the Ulan and her team and eviscerated them to the very bone – cleaving through armored suit and flesh as if they were tissue paper.

Sublieutenant Vilar screamed hoarsely in fright and range as his weapon kicked in his hand and his squad sent a hail of lancing green disruptor energy searing towards the rushing black mass, but if their weapons-fire had any tangible effect, it was unclear. The roiling black mass seemed to shift and flow organically around where the energy hit it, a bewildering motion that happened at speeds that the eye could scarcely register.

The beams just seemed to pass through it as the dark, swirling cloud of death as it left behind what remained of Bochel and her soldiers. The heat bloom from their bodies widely dispersed and cooling rapidly to dark – blue and black and the harsh arctic environment sucked away their vitality with vampiric – enthusiasm.

With frightening force and speed the black could climbed steeply in the sky and as it rose, its shape widened and funneled out and Sublieutenant Vilar suddenly understood that he faced a murmuration of thousands of individual, minute drones (no larger than a small dice) that flowed through the air in perfect coordinated unison in a stunning aerial display.

The Swarm.

Each powered by a single, micro-suspensor, the external carapace of each drone was sharply angled to deflect sensor returns and this also turned each individual unit into a tint airborne armored- razor.

There was no need to fit the miniscule devices with a weapons system. When engaged collective, the entire Swarm was a weapons system and a terrifyingly effective one at that.

Able to pierce flesh & armor with ease, the swarm cared not how many of its number perished and fell by the wayside as there was always another that would take its place and persist until their target was annihilated. Taking its cue from nature, it was a weapon awe-inspiringly awful in its simplicity and typical of the mindless evolution that the destructive minds that had created it, whilst they slowly destroyed the planet around them.

The Swarm flowed up into the freezing night, constantly spreading out and coming together. Individual streams of the tiny, murderous drones following subsets of tribalism as they coordinated with each other.

A breathtaking ballet of flowing death.

The murmarating-swarm reached the apex of its climb and then its head crested gracefully back towards the ground, the mass trailing behind and the entire ghastly flow seeming more than alive.

To his credit,  Sublieutenant Vilar stood their ground and did not flee (though in truth there was nowhere left to go) and continued firing to the last as the Swarm enveloped them and the vivid bright green flashes of energy stabbed out from the cloud for a brief moment and then ceased as the Romulans were torn to shreds and the top of the snowdrift was levelled by its passing.

Its purpose completed, The Swarm flowed back into the eternal night to come to roost within the protection of its hardened launcher and teach individual drone mated with its assigned recharging-point and began to dream the endless sleep of the offline, ready to fly to the defense of its long – dead masters should anyone dare to attempt to disturb their tomb.

The indifferent arctic wind pervaded, as it had done for thousands of years and, from their vantage point some three kilometers away from this scene of sudden and efficient carnage, Lieutenant – Commander Lane Hanley watched with shock these events unfolded, her suit’s imager ramped up to maximum amplification.

=^= “God – Damn!” =^= Chief Harvey rumbled across the comm. Safe to do so now that there was no-one else left alive to intercept the communication.

=^= “That certainly presents a unique problem.” =^= Professor Venrax admitted phlegmatically, as the Republic scientist considered the violence of the scene from under a crust of snowfall.

Hanley narrowed her eyes and considered all that had just occurred. Given the proliferation of bodies around the entrance, the Free State was obviously intent on gaining access to the secrets of the bunker below and would doubtless mount another attempt as soon as they had recovered from this latest setback.

Of her own options, these had been narrow and few ever since the Starfleet CO had entered orbit around the Hellworld and she knew that she only really had one choice left. It would mean cutting their last lifeline and sacrificing what they hoped would be the last use of the battered USS Kirk’s transporter.

Their only sure ticket out of this mess.

As always, when faced with a hard decision, Lane had been taught that it was just better to get on and do the thing than waste time living in fear of the decision. So (with much trepidation) she keyed a comm channel to the USS Kirk and risked discovery by D’deridex that stalked above.

=^= “Away team to USS Kirk. This is the Captain.” =^=

There was a haze of static and then Lane was relieved to hear the familiar voice of her friend and XO, Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil, sound back at her faintly across the channel.

=^= “ Kirk here. Go head Actual. Shop’s open for business.” =^=

Hanley smiled despite of the grim situation. Bo’ was telling her that the repairs to the ship were progressing well in a way that the Free State ship, even if it was listing into their signal, would find it hard to ascertain.

These things would have to wait, however. The bunker awaited and the Swarm would have to be countered, if they were ever to have a chance at thwarting the Tal Shiar’s ambitions to secure the secrets within.

Faced with losing her only method of extraction, Hanley ordered;

=^= “We need Six.” =^=