by L. A. Graf
"Very." Uhura could see muscles clench in Chekov's jaw when he faced the geologist. "But you're the one who told us we'd be better off outside when this earthquake hits."
"We would," Mutchler agreed. "But we don't have to go past that stupid door to get there." He jerked a thumb at the tunnel. "Lava tubes have two ends, you know. It may be a bit of a walk back to the camp, but we can get out going downhill as easily as we can get out going up."
Uhura exchanged a considering look with her security chief. "Will the Elasians think to guard the other end of the tunnel?"
"Only if they know about it," Chekov said grimly. "And there's only one way to find out if they do."
"Captain!" Spock looked up from his sensors, dark eyes locking with Kirk's as the captain turned the command chair to face him. "The Elasian flagship is arming phasers."
Kirk's blood raced with sudden alarm. "Red alert! All crews to battle stations!"
Bloody light throbbed across the bridge, and Kirk heard the echo of alert sirens from the lower decks of the ship behind status reports. The ripple of raising deflector screens, like heat waves above a desert, distorted the frigate-turned-warship's lines for only an instant. When the image cleared, the flagship had peeled away from the backdrop of smaller ships behind her, bright streaks of phaser fire stabbing across the black of space. Kirk braced himself against the back of his chair, waiting for the impact. And it never came.
Howard gave a cry of surprise from the security station. "They're firing on the Johnston Observatory!"
"But …" The navigator looked up in shock from his console. "That's an unarmed station—they don't even have defense screens!"
Kirk was already out of his chair, leaning over the helm and snapping orders. "Break orbit! Get us between that flagship and the observatory."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
The ship surged beneath Kirk's feet, and he felt his own heartbeat quicken as they picked up speed. "Mr. Howard, ready torpedoes for launch on my mark."
"Torpedoes armed and ready, sir."
"Captain." The science-station sensors painted Spock's face in pale contrast to the red emergency lighting. "I am reading extensive damage to the observatory's surface facilities, and loss of atmosphere in at least one inhabited lab."
Kirk paced back to his command chair, teeth clenched. "Communications—get me that armada's commander." The alien flagship filled the viewscreen now, slewing noseup as they silently braked to avoid collision with the starship now squarely in their path.
Ashcraft jerked his head up in surprise. "They're hailing us, sir."
Kirk smiled grimly. He'd been counting on that—they just took a little longer than he would have.
"Coming on screen now, sir."
"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the United Starship Enterprise—"
The dark, elegant woman who materialized on the screen didn't even wait for Kirk to finish his introduction. "Starfleet vessel Enterprise," she spat in a voice both deep and thickly accented. "You are trespassing in Elasian territory. You will remove yourselves from this quadrant immediately."
Judging her against the stockade fence of Elasian men behind her, Kirk guessed that she was taller than Elaan of Troyius, and broader through the shoulders and arms. But she and the late Dohlman were without doubt related. This one had the same magnificent cheekbones and piercing black eyes, the same disdainful downcast to her generous mouth. With her inky hair cropped close to her skull and only a topknot's worth of braids left to cascade past her armored shoulders, she looked like some sort of wild samurai, caught without her sword.
Kirk met her gaze steadily. "You are the Dohlman of this fleet?"
One of the tall, flat-faced men behind her announced in a booming voice, "You are in the presence of Her Grandeur, the Crown Regent of Elas, Heir and Guardian to the glorious Dohlman Israi."
"Ah." Kirk tipped her a formal, if stiff, little bow. "Your Grandeur," he said, quite carefully, "I'm afraid I can't act on your command without the permission of my own Dohlman. As she is—"
"Don't patronize me," the Crown Regent snapped. "Starfleet has no Dohlmen."
It wasn't quite the response Kirk had expected, and he straightened slowly, considering.
"You call yourself captain. That means you command this vessel. You will deal with me yourself."
"Very well." He paced down the few steps of the command chair's dais to round the dual helm console. "As the Federation authority in this quadrant, I'm ordering you to deactivate your weapons and withdraw to a distance of fifty thousand kilometers from Rakatan."
"No!" She slashed the air with both hands, giving her head a braid-whipping shake. "I will not negotiate terms with the spineless pink eunuchs who sought to murder my glorious Dohlman!"
Kirk caught himself just before showing his surprise. "No one has harmed Dohlman Israi."
"She has told me differently!" The Crown Regent came closer to her own screen. Kirk could hear the heavy sound of footsteps against her flagship's decking. "Those rockgrabbing worms the Federation claims as scientists used their machines to start an earth tremor near our mining camp; then your own false 'Dohlman' tore my neice from her cohort when that attempt to murder her failed." She dropped her hand to the knife hilt on her hip. "Either of these deeds could be considered a despicable act of war against the government of Elas!"
Kirk shook his head, keeping his own hands still at his sides. "I promise you, Your Grandeur, no one from the Enterprise or the Johnston Observatory has made any such attempt against Dohlman Israi. But you—" He gestured offscreen at where the engineering station still labored over distress calls from the observatory. "You have opened fire on an unarmed Geological Survey outpost. That violates every treaty Elas has with the United Federation of Planets."
"I spit on your Federation." She followed word with action, then ground her foot against the wet floor. "You are lying dogs who use your own laws to steal what rightfully belongs to Elas. We use Elasian laws to defend what is ours." The men behind her broke formation with no apparent direction from her. She flicked only the briefest glance after them as they dispersed out of sight all around her. "Our first shot was but a warning," she said, nodding to something obviously said to her by someone Kirk couldn't see. "You will remove all Federation pigs from Rakatan and its satellites, or I will crush this outpost like a rodent's skull."
Kirk stared at her coldly. "And you will start a war."
She tossed her chin as though utterly unconcerned. "The Federation is not the only government in the galaxy. And I have powerful allies."
Kirk thought about the distinctively Klingon construction of the flagship in which the Crown Regent rode, and clenched his hands around the knowledge of exactly which allies the Crown Regent could call upon. Turning his back on the viewscreen, Kirk caught the young communications officer's eyes with his own and pressed a finger to his lips. He waited until Ashcraft had dampened the audio signal, then looked at Spock and sighed. "How long will our screens have to be down in order to evacuate the observatory?"
The Vulcan raised an eyebrow in what could almost have been human surprise. "Captain, withdrawal of Federation personnel could be construed as acceptance of Elas's claim to Rakatan."
"The Crown Regent has three hundred single-pilot fighters with her, Spock." He knew his voice rang sharp with annoyance, but trusted his first officer to know it wasn't aimed at him. "Unless we're willing to shoot them all out of the sky, we can't guarantee the observatory's safety under these conditions. We can always return the geologists to the moonbase once we've settled everything up here."
Spock glanced aside to consult some reading on his board. "With a transporter room standing by, we will only require a window of one minute sixteen seconds." He lifted dark eyes to Kirk. "Dr. Bascomb is not likely to approve."
"I didn't intend to ask her permission." He nodded Spock back to his science console. "Have Transporter Room Two standing by, then contact Bascomb via a closed circuit. Tell her she's got five minutes to get her people and h
er data together, then we're pulling them out of there." At the Vulcan's tacit nod, Kirk bent to the arm of his command chair and thumbed open the intercom. "Transporter Room One."
"Scott here," the engineer's familiar voice replied.
"Scotty, have you got a fix on the landing party's communicators?"
There was a brief pause as the Scotsman consulted whatever readings his transporter console gave him. "Aye, sir," he said at last. "That Elasian defense screen has been down since we brought up Commander Uhura this afternoon."
Kirk nodded shortly. "Good." At least something was still going in their favor. "Lock on and beam them out of there as soon as I get our own shields down."
The engineer hesitated for only a moment. "Sir?"
"All of them," Kirk told him. "I don't care what they're doing or where they are, I want them back on this ship now."
"Aye-aye, Captain." Scott's voice was crisp with determination. "I'm on it."
"Kirk." The Crown Regent broke across the last of his conversation in a cruel, waspish tone. "Speak to me, Kirk, or I will open fire."
She'd already been remarkably patient, compared to the Elasians Kirk had known. He couldn't help smiling somewhat at that thought. Turning, he seated himself as casually as possible while Ashcraft reopened their channel. "I wouldn't be too trigger-happy, if I were you, Your Grandeur," he offered, sitting back. Before her scowl could grow into a new string of insults, he continued, "In the spirit of cooperation, I'm removing all personnel from the Skaftar moonbase. I trust you will allow me to drop my screens long enough to effect a safe transfer."
She studied him for what seemed a very long time before stepping back from her own viewscreen and crossing her arms. "My neice Elaan warned me of your many wiles," she said with no small amount of disdain. "Make no attempt to deceive me."
Kirk couldn't help feeling that any deception on his part would be the least of the untruths floating around this coveted planet. Nodding to Howard, he stated formally, "Mr. Howard, lower shields."
The guard's face looked positively grim with apprehension as he threw the chain of simple switches. "Shields down," he finally announced, not looking up from his panel.
Kirk nodded again, and opened the intercom. "Transporter Room Two. Are you ready to beam up the geologists?"
"Aye, sir. Dr. Bascomb and crew report ready."
"Energize."
Only a moment later, the technician's voice came back, more subdued than before. "Beam-up complete, sir. We've got seven geologists safely aboard."
Four fewer than they should have had. Kirk thought of the breached lab in the Crown Regent's first phaser volley, and anger pushed dully against his chest.
"Your business here is finished," the Crown Regent announced. She waved in haughty dismissal. "You may now withdraw with your tail between your legs and leave us to our mining."
Kirk shook his head, clenching his hands on the arms of his command chair. "Not so fast, Your Grandeur." The flash of bitter fury in her eyes came nowhere near making up for what she'd done to those geologists. "I still have my orders, and those orders require me to secure proof that you have the rights you claim to this planet. I'm not going anywhere until I've got that."
"Impudent dog! I should unleash my cohort on you for such presumption!"
"And if you do," Kirk returned, "I will be forced to return fire, endangering you, your armada, and the Dohlman Israi." He leaned forward to lace his hands between his knees. "Face it, Your Grandeur. No matter who ends up with rightful claim to this planet, the Enterprise still has you outgunned. And neither of us wants this to come down to a fight."
But, as an Elasian, she would probably die before admitting that. Kirk matched stares with her for a long, hard minute; then she swung away with a brutal curse and the scene flicked again to the darkness of space and the waiting armada. Kirk sat back with a sigh.
"We take round one." He slapped open the intercom with the side of his hand. "Scotty, what's the status on our landing party?"
"I … I don't know, sir."
The nearness of the engineer's voice startled Kirk. He jumped to his feet, turning, and found himself facing the burly Scotsman as he exited the turbolift. "What's the matter?" Kirk frowned at the collection of equipment in Scott's cupped hands. "You didn't bring them up?"
"I tried, sir." Scott held out his hand to display four Starfleet-issue communicators and one Geological Survey comm band. "All I got was these."
Chapter Thirteen
"SO—DO YOU THINK they know we're gone?" Sulu's voice, barely louder than a breath, floated across the darkness between them.
Aided only slightly by the pale Rakatan moon, Chekov watched Elasian men disappear from one slab of floodlighting and rematerialize in the next as they made their unhurried passages between the prefab mining buildings. "I don't think so." He raised up slightly on one elbow and pointed past Sulu's nose. Gamow waited where they'd left her, just inside the edge of the encampment with her fine, reflective carapace stained amber in the tiny moon's light. "No guards," he whispered when the helmsman turned his head to look.
"Isn't that good?" Sulu asked.
Chekov crawled back away from the chain of rubble they'd chosen as their blind, tugging on Sulu's jacket for him to follow. "Not necessarily." Ashy dirt hissed in a dry river down the volcano flanks below them, and Chekov felt every muscle in his neck and shoulders knot as he willed the billow of dust to continue downhill, out of reach of the lights from the Elasian mining camp. He wished for a moon as large and white as Earth's Luna, so he could see where he was going and not just feel his way through the breathless alien darkness. Then he considered how much a full Earth moon would aid the Elasians in hunting them down, and was sorry he'd even had the thought.
Sulu caught up to him, for whatever reason moving more easily among the loosened stones. Crawling up the face of Rakatan Mons had stained both their hands and trousers an iron red to rival their uniform jackets. In the fullness of the night, the dust conspired to make both of them nearly invisible, even when they stood side by side.
"So why is it not good that they haven't missed us?" Sulu asked, pointing Chekov toward a clearer passage just a little to their left. "You just in the mood to argue with these guys, or what?"
"No." Chekov slid carefully to the lower edge of the slope, then let himself drop to what he remembered as a stretch of more even ground that he couldn't actually see. "The farther along we get in our escape, the more justification they'll have for killing us on sight."
Sulu landed beside his friend with a grunt. "You do have a talent for looking at the bright side of things. Come on—this way."
They hiked the rest of the distance to the landing party in silence. Chekov tried to listen for sounds of pursuit as they scrambled down the dirty mountain, tried to watch for some sign of Israi's cohort circling around from the sides. But vast, unbroken night made everything look unnaturally distant and two-dimensional, and even the slightest whisper of wind on rock traveled through the dry atmosphere like thunder. Every nerve in his body felt alert and overextended, and trying to walk without losing track of Sulu's dim outline didn't help. Chekov wondered how much longer it would take to exhaust himself beyond the point of being useful with worry over what to do when the Elasians caught up to them.
"We're back." Sulu's quiet greeting to the others was Chekov's first clue that they were nearly on top of the landing party's hideout.
Bodies just inside the mouth of the narrow hollow jostled further back into the blackness, giving Sulu and Chekov room to slip in away from even the most anemic touch of moonlight. The sudden blind pressure of total sightlessness sent a weak shiver through Chekov's insides. He found a wall to lean back against for the sake of keeping track of up and down, then folded his arms and blinked into the darkness in the hopes his eyes would adjust and he'd be able to see.
"Did you have any problems?" Uhura asked. She sounded both disembodied and impossibly near, and Chekov almost jumped at the loudness of
her voice.
"No, we're fine," Sulu answered for both of them. "They don't even know we're gone."
Mutchler's sigh was just as overwhelming, but Chekov was ready for it this time. "Well, so far so good."
Chekov decided not to bother reexplaining the disadvantages attached to their current run of luck. "Dr. Mutchler was right," he said, nominally meaning the report for Uhura. "The shuttle's only about three hundred meters west of here."
"And straight up," Sulu added sourly. "The climb is not fun."
Uhura made a small, thoughtful noise. "What are our chances of being able to board the shuttle without attracting attention?"
"Fairly good." Chekov mentally pictured the miningcamp layout, complete with the few guards they'd spotted in their reconnaissance. "Most of their lighting is concentrated around where the Dohlman's quarters used to be, and there's no one assigned to watch the shuttle itself." He turned to face where instinct said Uhura should be. "There's always the possibility they've already disabled the shuttle, though, so they know we can't make use of it."
"Mr. Cheerful strikes again."
If Chekov had been sure which body he could feel beside him was Sulu, he'd have kicked the helmsman.
"Then why are we doing this?" Mutchler moved aimlessly from somewhere deeper back in the cut, and everyone ahead of him jostled a step in response to whoever he first bumped into. "Why are we all going into this if we aren't even sure we'll be able to get out of it again?"
"You would rather wait for your earthquake in the Elasian punishment cells?" Chekov asked testily. But Uhura spoke over him calmly, and he assumed it was her hand that landed warningly on his arm.
"Even if Gamow won't fly," she explained, "we can still use her subspace radio. Once we've made contact with the Enterprise, they can beam us out of here."
"But only if we're all together," Sulu added. "Without our communicators, there's no way to determine coordinates for the rest of the landing party if we get separated."
Mutchler sighed with obvious unhappiness, and Chekov heard what sounded like the scuff of a boot against the ridged basalt floor. "So all we have to do is climb up there and get inside your shuttle? How hard do you think that will be?"