Star Trek - TOS - Battlestations

by Diane Carey

  communicator. We each had one of those kits, but two

  times sparse is only double sparse.

  "Nothing there," I muttered. I rolled the Feinberger

  in one hand, then plucked the electronic match. "Un-

  less these mechanical components could be altered

  somehow. Could you build a communicator?"

  "Without tools?" he answered. "Without a transta-

  tor/capacitor? Withouta"

  "Think in terms of 'withs,' not 'withouts,'" I de-

  manded. "What's here that could be used to build any

  kind of communications device, anything that could

  allow us to separate and still keep in touch? Maybe

  the Feinberger sensors could be readjusted or some-

  thing. Use your imagination."

  Sarda glared rather corrosively at the useless collec-

  tion of gadgets, fingered them, contemplated them,

  then continued staring them down. One by one he

  raised them for an individual 1ookwthe mediscanner,

  the match, the beacon--and put them down again.

  Eventually he shook his head and pressed his lips

  together. "I can see no provision here that would lend

  itself to the creation of any kind of sophisticated

  communications circuit."

  I slumped down, shaking my head. "It doesn't have

  107

  to be sophisticated. All it has to do is relay and

  receive. Or even just relay. It doesn't have to be able

  to signal a starship, for crying out loud."

  He frowned at my unfamiliar phrase, glowered se-

  verely, and tried once again to envision the impossible

  thing I demanded. After watching his battle, I plugged

  myself into the same circuits and tried to help. "This

  planetold has the same basic geological makeup and

  energy fields as Earth, say, before the Industrial Age.

  What was on Earth then that we could use now?"

  I really hoped he wouldn't start explaining it to me,

  but just apply whatever came up. Maybe if I tossed

  enough questions his way, one of the answers would

  strike a chord, preferably before we tore each other to

  bits. I'd never worked closely with a Vulcan before,

  yet I still got the idea that Sarda wasn't displaying the

  usual Vulcan level of patience. Instead of that elegant

  control, his was more of an induced frigidity. I kept

  sensing movement under the icy surface, a movement

  that frustrated him even more than my wild aspirations

  did. Sitting only inches from him, I now watched the

  internal fight tug at his stern expression and realized

  suddenly that, no matter what he said, victory in this

  Outlast meant as much to him as it did to me. I

  couldn't have substantiated that in a thousand years,

  but I felt it as surely as if he had engraved it on the skin

  of my hand. His lips tightened again, his amber eyes

  tinted green with the reflection of ferns, and his hand

  tightened on the Feinberger again.

  Then the ferns flickered. No... the flicker was in

  his eyes. He gazed tensely at nothing, his lips parting

  in perception. He stared, no longer at the kit, but now

  into the ferns, yet not seeing them. He was listening.

  I tensed. "What?"

  Still longer he stared, now tilting his head slightly,

  raising his eyes until the amber in them was corrupted

  by the cloud-strung sky. "An approach," he said.

  "Very faint."

  108

  "Sure?"

  "Yes."

  The kits rolled into our hands as if by some strange

  kinetic force, and we sank into the dewy ferns. I drew

  my mock phaser and set it for close range. My shoul-

  der shook, a giveaway of rookie tension as my fist

  closed around the weapon. If I was this nervous during

  Academy games, what would it be like some day on a

  real mission, when the phaser was set to kill?

  Ignoring the nagging signal of my own inadequacies,

  I pushed Sarda behind me and listened. Now I too

  could hear the rustle of approach. One of the teams

  was near, growing nearer.

  "Any hints?" I whispered. "Who is it?"

  "No way to tell yet," Sarda responded quietly.

  "Could be any of them."

  "I'm not ready to move on Vesco, but if it's the

  Norwegian or--"

  The jungle parted.

  Two people crept into view, weapons drawn. My

  heart sunk when I saw that they were wrapped in vines

  and leaves for camouflage. Should've thought of that,

  too. Everyone was getting the drop on me, and I was

  letting it go on. Something had to break, something...

  there had to be a way.

  I aimed my mock phaser, carefully. The enemy team

  was moving toward us. They sensed our eyes and

  paused, then moved forward again, ready for us,

  somehow knowing we were here. Both were human,

  both male, one tall and wiry, the other stocky but light

  on his feet. The vines covering them made it difficult

  for me to take aim in the jungle's dimness, but I tried

  anyway. Somewhere between those heavy leaves

  were human forms to hit. I tried to estimate down from

  the filtered blobs of faces in the overgrowth, and fired.

  A dye dart lanced away from me, swishing through

  the ferns. One of the faces dodged fast, and bright blue

  dye sprayed all over a palmetto.

  109

  We scrambled. Sarda went one way, and I the other,

  while the enemy team raced through the ferns trying to

  get to us before we got another clear shot at them. The

  jungle burst into pandemonium. Vines tangled around

  our legs as we plunged behind thick bushes and

  avoided stinger plants while trying to keep our heads

  down.

  "Circle!" I hissed at Sarda. Just then, a dye dart

  whizzed by, just over my ear. I turned in time to see

  yellow dye smatter across a lichen-covered stump, and

  lost precious seconds staring at it and absorbing the

  horrible fact that I had almost been disqualified from

  the Outlast. In the same thought as my vow that they

  wouldn't come that close again came the awareness

  that I was entirely vulnerable to those dye darts. I took

  a broad dive for a wall of ferns just as another dart

  sang by.

  I'd lost track of Sarda. Frantic, I risked standing up

  straight and trying to get a bearing on him. If he went

  down, that was it. Half the purpose of the Outlast was

  teamwork. We had to work together, protect each

  other, and jointly survive. Separating might not have

  been the best idea. Where was he?

  The ground took a sharp dip without warning, and I

  slid down a bristly bank, just managing to keep control

  of my descent and land on my feet at the bottom.

  There, I paused and listened, crouching warily. Every

  muscle in my body quivered with anticipation, and I

  began to wonder if I could handle an actual survival

  episode, where lives really were at stake. After all, this

  was only a game. What would reality be like?

  I shook off that thought and put my mind back in the

  present, where it belonged, remembering what o
ne of

  my Academy professors had said about distraction

  being deadly. Sarda . . . I had to find him. If we

  couldn't communicate, separation could also be

  deadly. What if he'd already been hit? We could

  already be disqualified and I wouldn't even know it.

  110

  What if that happened? What if I'd been eliminated

  from the Outlast before I'd even made a single kill?

  What if--

  Sounds... rustling... over there.

  I crouched deeper into the ferns and crawled in the

  direction of the sounds. My legs ached as I moved

  forward, keeping my hand tightly around the mock

  phaser. Thorns caught my hair and pulled it, but I kept

  moving forward, letting them tear at me rather than

  adjust my position and give myself away. Only when I

  heard the voices, hissing at each other from deep

  within the steamy overgrowth, did I pause and realign

  my approach. They seemed to be moving away from

  me, but that could easily be an illusion of the jungle. I

  didn't trust it.

  Good thing, too, because in seconds I was almost

  beside the rustling. With a howl I hoped was ferocious,

  I plunged from the protection of the rough cycads,

  aimed at the noise, and fired.

  Instantly, a dye dart buzzed toward me and I

  plunged to one side. The ground came up to meet me,

  but the dye dart missed, splattering instead over the

  twisted roots and vines behind me. Blue paint flecked

  the shoulder of my uniform--blue? Blue!

  "Sarda!" I burst out of the cycads again.

  He was wide-eyed and waist-deep in some kind of

  brown and yellow cane growth, his mock phaser aimed

  squarely at me.

  "What about the others?" I gasped.

  "I thought--evidently I was mistaken," he said,

  brows drawn.

  "They've got to be here somewhere! Get behind

  me!"

  We joined forces and hunted. We found our prey, all

  right, and they found us. Dye darts flew, but none

  scored hits before one of us ran afoul of a trip wire

  strung across an open space, and down came a string

  of giant leaves brimming with stagnant water.

  111

  "Yuuuuuuuuck !" blurted one of our enemies. Gasp-

  ing and sputtering, we split off in different directions,

  drenched in the most ghastly rank stuff a jungle could

  offer.

  Sarda and I staggered back up our escarpment and

  rolled onto the moss, choking and definitely reeking.

  "What the--what the--what is this stuff?" I gasped.

  "A trap, obviously," he murmured, shaking drop-

  lets of stagnancy from his sleeves.

  "Oh, gaaack," I choked, my nose shriveling. "This

  is... underhanded!"

  "And obviously not set by that team."

  "Somebody's playing practical jokes!"

  As the echo of my words looped down through the

  ravine, Sarda cautiously advised, "Keep control of

  yourself, Lieutenant."

  "But this isn't the time or place for practical jokes!

  The Outlast just isn't the time for jokes !"

  Sarda grasped my arm to calm me down, only to let

  go when the sleeve squished and let loose a new waft

  of stink.

  I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists tight, glaring

  off down the escarpment with an acid scowl. 'Wesco!

  That slug. It could only be him. He used to do the

  same things to his dormmates at the Academy!"

  Sarda sighed and looked at his drenched uniform. "I

  believe he has turned that particular epithet back upon

  us," he commented.

  "Come on. We're going to take him out."

  I struck off down the ravine.

  "Piper! Wait!" Sarda chased me down the incline,

  catching desperately at my uniform parka. "Piper,

  stop before you give our position away."

  Somewhere down very deep, I realized that I was

  losing control, letting anger get the better of me. Vesco

  and his tricks had prevented me from conquering the

  other team, and for no apparent reason. Why would he

  rig such a booby trap? Only when I started wondering

  112

  how he'd known where we were clustered did I re-

  member that his teammate was a Skorr and could fly.

  All this time, Vesco had had aerial reconnaissance at

  his disposal and we'd forgotten all about it. Anger hit

  me again. In my rage, I plowed right down the clearest

  areas of the jungle, just ahead of Sarda as he tried to

  force me to stop. Only when my feet sank into an

  unseen hole and I stumbled forward was he able to

  catch me.

  I clawed at the ferns and pulled myself up. Honey.

  My boots were dripping with honey. I looked around,

  down. Yes, there it was... a neatly dug hole brimming

  with raw honey, covered with dead bugs. Now the

  honey, and the bugs, were all over my legs.

  "That's it," I growled. "He's mine." The contami-

  nated honey sucked at my boots as I pushed myself up

  and turned once again down the incline, but Sarda

  caught me and, this time, held fast.

  He yanked me around. "Lieutenant," he began

  firmly, his pale eyes boring deep, "you must control

  yourself!"

  "Vesco's not playing fair," I insisted, then accused,

  "You're not human. You don't understand."

  Sarda grasped my shoulders and forced me to face

  him. "And ff he were playing fair, you wouldn't be

  walking into his trap. We can beat him as you desire,

  but not if you let him conquer you even before there is

  a confrontation. If I can try to think like a human for a

  few hours," he said with quiet punctuation, "I ask you

  to think like a Vulcan."

  Until he saw the fury fade from my face, he refused

  to let go of my arms. Determination narrowed his

  eyes. And in those moments of fire and ice, the trial

  that forged our relationship found its power of crea-

  tion.

  The moment drew itself out. How much real time

  passed, I've no idea. We read each other, communi-

  cated more deeply than words can manage, and made

  113

  not a move until we both knew I had completely

  absorbed and accepted his pact. Think like a human;

  think like a Vulcan. The ultimate empathy--trade

  minds.

  I nodded.

  "You're right," I said. "You're right."

  Sarda took a deep breath. Relief layered the deter-

  mination in his eyes. For a few uncomfortable seconds

  he struggled to regain the stiff composure of his race.

  "I would estimate that Vesco has littered this area with

  such traps."

  "I should've remembered. Vesco's specialties are

  reactology and reflexology," I told him. "He's out to

  rattle us."

  "And very nearly succeeding," he said, his scowl

  putting me in my place.

  I held my foot up so the insect-laden honey could

  drip off, then moved aside as carnivorous plants

  slinked out to lick at the vibrations of drops they

  hoped were blood. "Yeah . . . sorry. Well, Vesco's a

  psych
ologist. I should have expected he'd use it. Let's

  start using our own specialties."

  Immediately, Sarda unrolled the kit and began prov-

  ing that he hadn't been entirely unaffected by my

  earlier insults either. Evidently he had found his way

  through my bitterness to that faint ring of truth at its

  core. He'd opened his mind as I'd dared him to and

  discovered that he could readjust the receiving mecha-

  nisms on the mediscanners to read old-style carrier

  waves. A couple of hours work and pop, communica-

  tion. Of course, it wasn't as easy as it sounded, but we

  did manage to arrange a rough kind of transceiver.

  "It's called a radio," Sarda explained. "Very low

  gain vibrations, not very efficient."

  "Efficient enough," I said, fondling the mangled

  Feinberger, now removed from its shell and hooked up

  with about a dozen spidery additions from pieces of

  114

  uniform, parts of the electric match, and anything else

  we could jury-rig to our purpose. It wouldn't work

  very well, but it would work.

  We put it to use almost immediately. Sarda took a

  place in a tree high on the escarpment, and I made my

  way down into the ravine, hoping against hope that the

  three other tea ms still remained for me to beat. If there

  was only one team left, I had already forfeited the

  Outlast.

  From his high vantage point, Sarda was able to

  pinpoint the positions of the two-man team we'd just

  missed, and with his superior ability to judge distance

  he helped me zero in on them. In minutes, their

  uniforms were stained a satisfying bright blue. Defeat

  rose in their faces---I empathized, believe me--but

  they weren't allowed to utter a sound, They were

  "dead." According to the rules, they sat down right

  where they were and the leader engaged his locator

  beam. I watched, probably out of paranoia, as they

  were unceremoniously beamed up to the monitor ship.

  Now... the Norwegian. And Vesco.

  I had to wait, straining my patience, not to mention

  my courage, while Sarda tried to locate the two most

  dangerous teams. While on the bottom of the ravine, I

  ran into two more of Vesco's unfriendly little traps--

  one involving a sizable spider and the other layering

  my right arm with needleplants--but my promise to