by L. A. Graf
"Has the geologist been burnt by this fire rain?" It was the first thing Israi had said since joining them in the shelter. Chekov was a little surprised to find out that Mutchler was alive at all.
"Let's hope not." Uhura scowled down at the clumsy radio on her wrist. "These things don't use subspace frequencies, which means these rocks must be interfering with the signal." She sighed and turned an unhappy look over her shoulder at the ashy rain. "I guess I'll be right back."
She climbed to her feet and trudged to the edge of the overhang, eyeing the drifting ash with grim suspicion. Chekov watched her reactivate the comm band from just beneath the lip of rock, then scowl and slip out into the pelting cinders. He wished she hadn't given him her jacket.
"Your exhaustion has made you thoughtless."
Chekov transferred his gaze to Israi, and found her almond eyes studying him in cool, almost clinical curiosity. Maybe she'd never seen a man bleed to death before. He thought about telling her to come closer if she wanted a better view, but found he couldn't even summon the energy for sarcasm.
Her chiding voice, though, was aimed only at Sulu. "Do not sit there as though you are powerless. Take off your jacket and cover him as well."
Sulu's hands leapt to release the seals on his jacket even before the Dohlman finished speaking. "Yes, Your Glory."
Shouldering out of the garment, he carefully overlapped it with Uhura's and offered Chekov a worried smile. The combined weight of the heavy duty jackets felt good, somehow comforting and safe, but didn't do anything to warm him. He doubted anything they could do here would.
"Kessh Chekov." Israi's tone was a clear summons, and he turned his attention back to her simply because there was nothing better to do. "I think that even your breed of human is not meant to be as white as you," she said, obviously passing judgment on his condition from her seat on the other side of the shelter. "You have lost much blood on this walk of yours, yes?"
He didn't want to admit it, but trying to lie and be brave was more than he could do right now. "Yes."
Israi nodded. "Have you enough to await a rescue from your people?"
"I …" A sudden shudder trembled through him, and he felt Sulu's hand tighten on his arm. He didn't want to talk about this, didn't want to face the truth out loud. "I don't know," he whispered at last. "… I don't think so …"
"You're going to be fine—"
"Silence!" The snap of Israi's anger cut off Sulu's words as sharply as any blade. "This kessh does not have time for useless comfort."
Chekov closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the warm rock face. The Elasians would certainly win no awards for their bedside manner today.
"Your Dohlman," Israi said after what seemed a very long time. Or perhaps Chekov had drifted off again—he couldn't be sure. "She does not cry the tears, does she? She has not bonded you."
The words meant nothing to Chekov, so he was relieved when Sulu said softly, "No," as if he'd expected this question all along.
"And yet you march for her," the Dohlman pressed. Chekov heard her move farther into the outcrop, dislodging small rocks as she came. "You have both fought for her, and she walks all this way that she might find her kessh. You all refuse to abandon each other. If there is no bond between you, why do these things happen?"
Chekov answered without even opening his eyes. "Duty."
And above him, at the same time, Sulu told her, "Friendship."
In many ways, they were the same thing. Chekov knew that he and Sulu both understood that.
"Among humans," Sulu explained, "no person can bond another without their consent. We have to choose to be bonded. When we do, we can form bonds that not even the fear of death can break apart."
Israi was silent for a moment. "Bonds like mine?"
"No, Your Glory." The stiff difficulty with which Sulu forced out the words made Chekov open his eyes and look at his friend in concern. He didn't know how to interpret the hollow tension he could read on the helmsman's thin face. "Not like yours. But just as strong."
"So it seems." As though drawn by the low murmur of Uhura's voice giving their coordinates to Mutchler, the Dohlman glanced behind her and hazarded an understanding smile. "Then she is forgiven for not helping you in the way a Dohlman should her underlings. She does not know the responsibility and pains of being a Dohlman, for all that she has been given the name."
Impatient with their talk, Rakatan Mons pealed a crack of thunder so strong and loud it echoed for uncounted minutes afterward. Sulu cried out in alarm, and, outside, Uhura ducked reflexively as though anything she did could protect her from the mountain's fury. Caught off guard by the dull tremor of pain pushed through him by the jerking ground, Chekov clenched his teeth around a hard grimace and fisted a hand against his side beneath the jackets.
"Tell me truthfully, Starfleet kessh." Israi was suddenly beside him, her eyes dilated to nearly black despite the lantern light bathing her face, her cheeks flushed and her voice breathless with something more urgent than fear. "Is this a good day to die?"
The mountain around them bucked and rolled again, and Chekov found himself smiling weakly at the desperate question. "It had better be."
The Dohlman wrapped her fingers around the ornate dagger strapped to her thigh. It was a slim and delicate weapon, well fitted to the hand that held it. Israi seemed acutely aware of its beauty as she tried to steady it before her in both shaking fists.
"Israi! No!"
The young Elasian shook her head, not even turning to face Uhura when the older woman hurried back into the shelter to grab at her arm. "He is not your bondsman, Uhura. With no Dohlman to protect him, he must make this decision himself." She locked serious eyes with Chekov, and tried to pull her arm out of Uhura's grip. "Is it a good day to die?"
Something about the bright terror in Uhura's dark eyes broke through his confusion. His breathing stuttered on a sudden spasm of horror. "No," he croaked. "It isn't." He saw Uhura dart a fearful look at the Dohlman.
Israi lowered the knife onto her lap, eyes grave. "You haven't blood enough left to stand, or even breathe," she told him seriously. "You will slip from this world in weakness if you wait—I offer you the chance to die in strength." She leaned forward with surprising concern and laid one small hand against his chest. "There is no dignity in dying as you are."
"There's no dignity in giving up, either. Please …" He wanted so badly not to seem afraid in front of her, in front of any of them, but there was nothing he could do to keep the pain and weakness out of his voice. "Whatever life is left me, it's mine. Let me keep it."
The young Dohlman nodded slowly, then slipped her knife back into its scabbard and tied the lace that bound it closed. Chekov noticed that Uhura kept one hand on the girl's arm until the very last knot in the leather had been tied. Even then, the creases of uncertain worry didn't leave the communications officer's brow.
"Very well," Israi said at last, very formally. She gently removed Uhura's hand from her arm, placing it in the lieutenant commander's lap with the same regal precision with which she'd scabbarded her blade. "I have learned that I must respect a different people's beliefs, and so I grant you this freedom. But there is no need for you to suffer any longer." Wiping her fingers through the sweat and ash on her elegant cheeks, Israi startled Chekov by leaning forward to stroke the side of his face with her hand. "You have served your duty well, Starfleet kessh," she said soothingly. "Sleep now in peace."
As though her words left him no choice, calmness and trust flowed over him in a delicious wave. Beside him, he heard Sulu groan in quiet sympathy just before sleep eroded the last of his thinking and carried him mercifully away.
Chapter Twenty-four
UHURA STARED DOWN AT Chekov's bruised face, astonished by the expression of smiling peace that curved his bloodless lips and smoothed the perpetual lines from between his eyebrows. His head rolled back into the crook of Sulu's elbow with a long, easy sigh, and his hand at last dropped away from his wounded s
ide.
"Israi." Uhura dropped to her knees, reaching out to catch the young Elasian's hand and turn it upward. Even through the fine glitter of ash that drifted into the overlapping halo of their lights, she could see moisture glistening on the slender gold fingertips. "What did you do to Chekov?"
The Dohlman's fingers turned and tightened reassuringly around Uhura's own. "It is difficult to comfort the unbonded, Uhura. I did not mean to steal your kessh from you. I only used the tears to make his pain less." She gestured down at the sleeping Russian. "You see it worked."
"Yes. Thank you." Uhura glanced from Chekov's serene face to the Sulu's fiercely haunted eyes, then pondered the small factory of alien biochemicals responsible for both expressions. "I think."
Sulu tore his own gaze away from the Dohlman. "Why aren't we getting beamed up now? Didn't you manage to contact Mutchler?"
"I gave him our coordinates and he relayed them to the ship, but the Enterprise can't beam us up." Uhura clenched her teeth on remembered frustration, crouching down to shield Chekov as more luminous ash swirled under their protective ledge. "The Crown Regent has a whole armada here and she's using it to create an antitransporter screen around this planet."
Israi sprang to her feet with a spitting snarl. "It is not her armada, it is my armada! Now that I have the tears of a Dohlman, the Crown Regent has no right to command it as my protector." She whirled and began to stride the threemeter length of their shelter, the furious pacing of a caged leopard. "This should not be! I am truly Dohlman now, she is only my heir."
"But she doesn't know that yet, Your Glory," Sulu reminded her.
"Then I will tell her!" Israi skidded to a stop in front of Uhura, kicking enough ash into the gritty air to make both of them cough. Lightning crackled outside and turned the young Dohlman into a slim pillar of darkness, her expression unreadable. "You were right," she said bitterly. "I should have stayed with the idiot geologist. Then I could have used his communicator to tell the armada I have the tears—"
"And your aunt would have blasted you from orbit!" Uhura reached out to catch the girl before she could break free of shelter. "Israi, calm down. I haven't dragged you halfway across this volcano just to lose you now."
The Dohlman hissed in wordless frustration but allowed herself to be tugged down beside Uhura. Sulu squatted protectively beside her, forming a solid shoulder-to-shoulder wall that shielded Chekov from the thickening fall of ash. Uhura could feel the occasional wincing bite of hot cinder against the exposed skin of her neck and hands.
"Captain Kirk must be doing something about that defense screen," Sulu said at last, his voice almost lost beneath a renewed fusillade of volcanic explosions. "What exactly did he tell Mutchler?"
Uhura gave him a sidelong glance across Israi's dark head. "Mutchler says he talked to Mr. Scott. Evidently, neither the captain nor Mr. Spock were available."
Despite the exhausted shadows painted on his face by their upward-slanting lights, Sulu's head went up alertly. "Neither of them? During a red alert situation?" He paused to consider it. "They're up to something."
"I think so, too." Uhura twisted to look out into the ravine, ash spilling from where it had begun to accumulate on her shoulders. Behind the frenetic dance of lightning strikes, a sullen fire-shot glow was building in the ash cloud overhead. "I just hope they manage to pull it off in time."
Israi straightened between them, her neck curving proudly. "If they do not, I can comfort my bondsmen before they die." Her voice sounded all the more fierce for the faint quiver beneath the surface. "We—" She stretched her hand to Uhura again, the quick, childlike clutch of her fingers betraying the fear she refused to show in her voice. "We must be stronger than the males, Uhura. We will die the true death as all Dohlmen do, but this evil smoking mountain will not frighten us."
Uhura managed a smile for Israi's steadfast arrogance, even in the face of death. "No, it won't." She tightened her grip on the small hand clenched inside hers. "Even if you did not have the tears, Israi, you would still be truly Dohlman."
Ash blasted fiercely under the ledge before Israi could reply. For one horrible moment, Uhura thought the final spasm of the eruption had finally reached them. But the choking swirl of ash collapsed after a moment as if it had been kicked up by some brief violence of wind. It took a long moment for Uhura to recover enough breath to hear anything past her own coughing. When she finally did, her brain almost refused to acknowledge the rhythmic pulse her ears detected below the volcanic rumble. It took Israi's startled turn of head and Sulu's growing smile to bring belief pouring into Uhura in a warm flood of astonishment.
"It's a ship!" She scrambled up and went to peer eagerly through the red-flecked rain of cinders. A shuttle's familiar dark bulk loomed across the ravine, but the crossed-rock-hammer-and-satellite symbol it wore startled her into a curse.
"Federation Geological Survey!" Uhura ducked as a cascade of hot ash slid off the overhanging rocks above her and sizzled in sinuous drifts around her feet. "Don't tell me those idiot geologists are doing fieldwork now?"
"Not unless they're a hell of a lot better pilots than I am." Sulu dragged her back into the safety of their rock shelter. "That's Captain Kirk!"
Floodlights blazed around the shuttle, their sweeping arcs starkly silhouetted by the surrounding blizzard of ash. In the glare, Uhura saw two cumbersome figures detach themselves from the larger shadow of the ship and cross the ravine, arms full of unwieldy bundles. She recognized the first one's fast, dynamic stride and let out a trickling sigh of relief.
"It is the captain."
"You were expecting the Crown Regent?" The voice was distorted by suit amplifiers and muffled by ash, but its quiet humor was unmistakably Kirk's. The captain ducked in below the ledge, movements exaggerated to compensate for his clumsy environmental suit. "Sorry we had to drop in unannounced like this, but the fewer people who know what's going on down here, the safer we'll all be. Everyone all right?" Behind the glint of his face shield, the bright hazel gaze raked the shelter and fastened immediately on Chekov. "Spock, get Chekov into the shuttle and see what you can do for him. I'll carry the rest of them over."
The taller suited form bent silently, shaking his bundle out into a fireproof emergency blanket. He wrapped it carefully around the wounded security chief, then used his alien strength to lift Chekov like a sleeping puppy. "I advise you to hurry, Captain. The volcano is becoming dangerous."
"I'd noticed that, Mr. Spock." Kirk moved aside until the Vulcan left, then unrolled his own blanket and took a step toward Uhura and Israi. "Who's first?"
"Sulu," they said in unison.
Kirk's eyebrows shot up behind his visor, and Uhura wondered if she was getting too good at sounding like a Dohlman. "All right." He held the blanket out toward the helmsman. "Ready, Mr. Sulu?"
"But Your Glory—" Sulu met Israi's stern glare and his protest collapsed stillborn. He wrapped himself obediently in the emergency blanket, hands shaking hard with exhaustion. "I can walk across myself, Captain."
"Not over the half-meter of hot ash out there, you can't." Kirk grunted and hefted the pilot over one bulky shoulder, then swung out into the heavy deluge of glowing red cinders.
Uhura stood on tiptoes to watch them go, almost losing sight of them in the dust and smoke until their lurching shadows cut the murky gleam of the floodlights. Someone much smaller than Spock came out to meet them, steadying Sulu as Kirk set him down, then handing something to the captain. Kirk turned and came back to them, somehow managing a jolting run even in the awkward environmental suit.
Uhura spoke as soon as the captain ducked into the shelter, forcing the words out between gasping coughs. "Take Israi next, Captain."
"No!" Israi grabbed her wrists and swung her forward with startling Elasian strength. "I am the Dohlman of Elas, Kirk-insect, and I order you to take Uhura next!"
"That's enough." Kirk tossed a blanket at each of them, face grim behind his helmet's faceplate. "Wrap yourselves tight and stan
d next to each other. I'm taking you both."
Knowing that crisp snap of command, Uhura didn't waste time arguing. She hooded the flame-proof blanket over her head and wrapped herself tightly inside it, glancing out through the folds only long enough to see that Israi had copied her actions. Kirk grunted in satisfaction, then ducked and caught one of them over each wide shoulder of his environmental suit, rising with only a slight stagger under their combined weights.
"No worse than Sulu," he assured them, although the breathless catch of his voice contradicted him. "Hold on!"
Uhura never knew how he did it, but somehow the captain managed to sprint through the thundering ashfall. There was one nightmarish moment when smoky air swirled up into her face and stopped her breath with its heat. Then she heard machinery grate on trapped cinders, and felt herself spilled down to a blessedly ash-free floor.
She struggled free of the smoldering blanket with someone's help and looked up through steady shuttle lights to see a vaguely familiar face regarding her from an unkempt tousle of brown-gold hair. "Are you all right, Commander?"
Uhura nodded and turned toward Israi, but the Dohlman had already scrambled free of her blanket and gone to crouch over Sulu's crumpled body. The woman in the environmental suit caught Uhura's arm when she would have followed.
"It's all right," she assured Uhura. "Mr. Spock said he just passed out from exhaustion."
"And Chekov?" Uhura swung around to see Spock fitting an emergency oxygen mask over the Russian's face. Kirk was already in the cockpit, gloves stripped off and hands busy on the controls. The shuttle's impulse engines rose to a roar, but the science officer must have heard her despite the noise.