by Tony Daniel
“We hope to preserve what is necessary to start again. It doesn’t matter if most of us die in our self-dug caves. What matters is that life on this planet survives.”
“But how can you know it will be enough?” Kirk said. “You’re taking an enormous gamble with existence itself.”
“Yes, we understand this,” said Hannah. “We are very good biologists and genetic engineers here on Vesbius. I myself followed in my father’s footsteps and took xenobiology as my study. That is why we know that there is so much more to learn about the universe and about life itself. But if there is any of Vesbius left after this disaster, we have a chance.” Hannah turned from the tree and pointed to the stars in the night sky. “Out there, we have no chance.”
Once again she turned and kissed Kirk, and this time the kiss became more fervent, a need that Kirk felt he must answer. The captain allowed her to draw him farther along into the double-moonlit glade, where a small stream ran and the grass was soft and fragrant. They made love in this meadow. And then, when they were finished, Hannah, as if rejuvenated by contact with him and by contact with her native ground, demanded that he do it again. Kirk gladly complied.
It was very late when Kirk returned to his quarters that evening, and he fell into bed both satisfied and perplexed. He wanted to help Hannah now more than ever. Nevertheless, he fell into a peaceful sleep, and he dreamed of her breath upon his face and her skin—alien, and yet not so far from human—upon his skin.
Four
Kirk awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee. McCoy had ordered a big pot for all of them. Kirk joined McCoy and Spock at the table in the common room that adjoined their quarters.
“Have a good time last night?” asked McCoy. “I mean, after the dance?” He smiled wryly at Kirk.
He knows exactly what I was up to last night, Kirk thought. I should know to never try to hide anything from Bones.
“Yes, we missed you on our return,” Spock said. “I was prepared to go and search for you, but the doctor convinced me this would not be the wisest of courses.”
Kirk nodded. “Bones was right.”
“I presume you were after facts that might better serve us in completing the mission?”
“Something like that, Spock,” said Kirk. He stretched himself out, loosened his muscles, then sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. “As a matter of fact, I did find out something. The Vesbians are not only genetically engineered, they’re like salmon or . . . like other species that are bonded to their place of origin.” Kirk glanced at Spock. Even though McCoy was as fully knowledgeable of pon farr, as was Kirk, each of them had agreed to speak of it as little as possible. It was a matter of intense privacy to Vulcans, seeing as the pon farr stripped Vulcans of their treasured logic and left them at the mercy of their emotions. “In any case,” Kirk continued, “if they leave this planet, in less than three to four standard weeks—they will die.”
“Remarkable,” said Spock. “This no doubt explains why they removed themselves from the Federation.”
“Correct,” said Kirk. “At least that’s what Hannah told me.”
“I wonder what else they’ve done to themselves,” said McCoy, almost to himself.
“What do you mean, Doctor?” asked Kirk.
McCoy stood up from his chair and began to pace around the room. Kirk knew this was McCoy’s way of working out a problem—his emotional, and often highly effective, manner of thinking things through.
“What I mean is that when you open Pandora’s box, who knows what will come out?” said McCoy. “Do you suppose they stopped at merely adapting themselves to the planet? Wouldn’t there be a great temptation to continue onward with their experiments, supposedly to make things better? I mean, you’ve seen this place, Jim. They’re master geneticists. Wouldn’t the temptation be to take themselves beyond their human limitations? That’s what Khan and his people did, as you well know. And what they made themselves into was a caricature of what it means to be human.”
Kirk got up, went to McCoy, and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve seen the Vesbians, Bones,” he said. “Do you think they bear the slightest resemblance to that madman Khan?”
McCoy met his gaze for a moment, but Kirk could see the fire dying down in the doctor’s eyes. “No,” McCoy admitted, “not most of them.” He nodded toward Spock. “But there is that ugly prejudice half the population seems to have toward Vulcans.”
“A prejudice Spock went a long way toward dissipating last night, at least among those he met at the dance.” Kirk turned to his first officer. “That was quite a display you put on, Mister Spock.”
“Thank you, Captain. It is always gratifying to find the opportunity to make use of one’s studies and long hours spent with the briefing files.”
“Indeed.” Kirk let go of McCoy and returned to the table, determined to finish the most excellent Vesbian coffee. “Besides, Bones, while prejudice may be an ugly emotion, you have to admit—it’s very human.”
“Yes,” McCoy said. “Unfortunately.”
“So we’re left with a dilemma, gentlemen,” Kirk said. “The Vesbians must leave this planet. The caverns they’ve dug are a fool’s hope, are they not, Spock?”
“I would put the chances for the Vesbian plan succeeding at one in 93.275,” Spock answered. “The ecological damage from the asteroid strike will likely be an extinction-level event.”
“Nearly a hundred to one. Earth has recovered. It recovered when the dinosaurs died out.”
“The recovery took thousands, if not millions, of years.”
“So . . . not impossible, but—”
“A long shot.”
“A very long shot. But if the Vesbians evacuate—assuming we are able to convince them and then get twenty thousand people off this world inside a month, which is a very big ‘if’—then they’ll all die.”
McCoy sat down next to Kirk and looked him in the eye. “So what do we do, Captain?”
Kirk shook his head. “I’m . . . open to suggestions,” he replied. “But we have to come up with something.” Kirk drained the rest of his coffee. It, as all things Vesbian were beginning to do, reminded him of her.
“I will give the matter some consideration, Captain,” said Spock. “I—
BWAAA AAAH!
The unmistakable sound of an alarm klaxon cut through the air.
“What the devil—” said McCoy.
The ground began to tremble under their feet, as if an earthquake were hitting the complex. The walls shook, and a nearby tapestry fell, exposing a bare section of wall.
As quickly as it had come, the rumbling subsided.
“Earthquake?” said Kirk.
“Doubtful,” Spock replied. He checked his tricorder readings, rechecked them for certainty, and then said, “I believe the origin of the disturbance was technologically created. The shock waves the tricorder is displaying in feedback have a familiar signature—that of high-yield explosives.” Spock looked up from his tricorder display and caught both Kirk and McCoy in his cold Vulcan gaze. “That, gentlemen, was a bomb going off.”
“A bomb? Purpose?” asked Kirk.
“Unknown.”
“Let’s go find out, then.” Kirk got up grabbing his phaser and communicator, as the others did the same.
They followed Kirk out the door and into chaos.
Bureaucrats darted hither and yon, attempting to find out what had happened and what to do about it. Kirk found the chancellor in his office, monitoring vid feeds.
Kirk noticed that the electronic equipment in the office was not up to date but was at least twenty years behind the times. The Vesbians may be some of the best biologists in the sector, but they had not kept up on the technological front. Data was flooding in from all sectors. Beside the chancellor was Hannah, looking as if she’d slept the sleep of the absolutely innocent—although Kirk knew better.
The chancellor turned to Kirk. “It appears to be a terrorist attack, Captain,” he said. “It seems to
have been a coordinated attack across the settlement. We’re just awaiting word on—”
An intercom whistled and the chancellor keyed it on. He listened carefully to what the voice on the other end said, then leaned back, shook his head, and sighed.
“Tunnels five and seven are lost,” he said, to no one in particular. “That’s one third of our capacity.”
“How many were killed?” Kirk asked.
The chancellor looked shell-shocked. He answered without outward emotion: “Hundreds, I’m told.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Yes,” said the chancellor.
Hannah moved to stand beside him. She put a comforting hand on her father’s shoulder. “It was the Exos, Father. You know it was.”
Suddenly Major Merling burst into the room. “I came as soon as I heard, Mister Chancellor. This is deplorable, but as I’ve repeatedly warned you, the Exos will stop at nothing—” He cut himself off when he saw that the Enterprise landing party was on hand.
Too late to put that cat back in the bag, Kirk thought. “The Exos, what’s that?” he asked.
“You may think we are simple brewers and fermenters of beverages, Captain, and in most ways we are,” said Chancellor Faber. He seemed on the verge of tears and averted his eyes downward. Kirk had seen this before. Shame. “I am sorry to say that we also seem to have grown our own version of a terrorist supremacist movement.”
“What are its demands?” asked Kirk.
“Immediate evacuation of the planet in response to the asteroid, absolute separation from the Federation . . . and other items having to do with our peculiar genetics here on Vesbius.”
“Evacuation and separation would seem to be incompatible goals at the moment. The Federation is your best hope,” Spock offered.
“Not in the mind of your typical Exos member, I’m afraid.”
“He speaks the truth,” put in Merling. “It’s a strong movement, perhaps a tenth of the people. It’s the twisted offshoot of a legitimate political faction. Exos concerns are represented in the Planetary Council by those who do not believe in their extreme methods. That’s not good enough for the hardcore. We believed we had the threat contained, but evidently not.”
“I never thought it was contained,” said Faber. “I knew they were biding their time. But there are so many other things to consider, so much to worry about in the coming days, that frankly even now a terrorist attack is a side issue.” A light blinked on the chancellor’s computer and he excused himself to take the call. Hannah Faber followed Kirk and his companions out into the entrance foyer.
“I must go and assess the damage, Captain,” Hannah said.
Her professionalism in the face of utter chaos impressed the captain.
“Of course,” said Kirk. “We can help. I can have the ship transport you there.”
Hannah turned to Kirk, a look of relief in her eyes. “We don’t have transporters. This is why we rely on the sleds.”
“I have a big ship with a very big power plant. My transporter is at your command.”
“You would do this?”
“Of course, Hannah.”
“Then let’s go,” she said.
“You will take your bodyguards, Hannah,” Chancellor Faber said. He motioned to Hox and Ferlein to go and stand beside Hannah.
So that’s who those two goons are, Kirk thought. Apparently the Exos insurrection was quite dangerous, if it meant supporting a security force for the governmental representatives.
“If she goes they must be beamed with her, Captain.”
“That’s fine,” Kirk said. “But let’s hurry.” Kirk wasted no time calling in the coordinates and having him, Spock, and Hannah transported to the number seven tunnel entrance. Doctor McCoy stayed behind to tend to the wounded at the government complex.
They materialized in the foothills of the mountains. Tunnel seven proved to be the same underground complex they had toured. Before them was a scene of devastation. The enormous door had been blown partially off its hinges. The ceiling had collapsed within. Hanging electrical wires were sparking, adding what light there was to the smoking darkness. Rescue crews were only now arriving, and Hannah began immediately to direct them.
While Kirk watched the young woman take charge, Spock stepped up to him and spoke: “Captain, if this was a terrorist attack—and there is every indication that it was—then it would be logical to assume that there may be a secondary strike.”
“Someone may have planted another bomb to go off once the cavalry is here.”
“Precisely,” said Spock.
“Check for whatever the signature of explosive devices might be and I’ll notify the ship to perform a sensor sweep.”
“It could be very difficult to isolate the reading.” Spock worked the controls on his tricorder.
“What do you suppose set off that series of explosions? We felt one over a hundred kilometers away. If they were pre-timed, there would have to be a signal. Do you have anything from just before the explosion on the tricorder’s passive records?”
Spock quickly scanned the device’s memory bank. “I believe I have isolated it, Captain. There was a strong electromagnetic pulse at 694.29 gigahertz.”
“They probably won’t use the same frequency to set off a secondary device, but bomb makers frequently rely on the same methods.”
“It stands to reason that a broad-spectrum pulse of sufficient strength would set off any remaining devices. An even stronger electromagnetic pulse would burn the activating circuit out. My tricorder is not powerful enough to achieve this aim, however.”
“No,” said Kirk, “but the Enterprise is.” He flipped open his communicator. “Scotty, I have an unusual request.” He then relayed the details to his chief engineer. “Can you do it?”
“Easy as a good scotch going down,” replied Scotty. “I can isolate it to as narrow or wide an area as you want.”
“Excellent. Stand by, Scotty.” Kirk closed the communicator and went to find Hannah. She was about to lead the first search party into the partially collapsed structure.
“Wait,” Kirk said. “We believe this could be a setup.” He explained his reasoning, and Hannah nodded.
“I have to reluctantly concur,” she replied, “but that changes nothing. We have to go in there and try to pull out any survivors.”
“I understand,” Kirk said. “Let us try to disable any remaining bombs. We believe that we may be able to put them out of commission entirely with a strong enough pulse. The Enterprise will be able to lay down a directed EMP blast like nothing this planet has ever experienced before. Will you ask your people to stand clear of the shelter for a little longer?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Hannah turned.
“Fire Chief Manuel,” she called out to a woman Kirk assumed was one of the fire-suppression and EMT workers.
“Ma’am?”
“Halt entry into the tunnel for—” Hannah turned to Kirk.
“Give me one minute.”
“Two minutes. No one is to enter until my signal.”
The fire chief was obviously unsure why her boss was ordering inaction, but she quickly obeyed orders and relayed the stop command over her comm unit.
Hannah turned to Kirk. “Captain.”
Kirk opened his communicator. “All right, Scotty. Now!” he said.
Within seconds, the silent and invisible pulse was delivered. Nothing changed.
“Well?” said Hannah.
“If it worked, then you’re safe. If it didn’t . . . I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
“Fair enough,” Hannah replied. “Chief Manuel, all clear! Let’s move!”
The day became a fever dream of rock dust and the acrid smell of burning insulation and ductwork. Kirk and Spock teamed with Hannah to conduct searches using Spock’s tricorder to read for life signs. The Enterprise’s sensors could not penetrate to the depth of the tunnels, but the tricorder was good to a distance of about five hundred kilom
eters in any direction. It proved invaluable.
Kirk’s most intense memory of the day was when he and Hannah attempted to free a young man trapped beneath a girder weighed down by a rock collapse. The boy was about eighteen years of age. He’d been in the tunnel as the setup man for the main crew, laying out the tools and material that the workers would need when they came to work after a shift change and generally getting everything tidied up in the short break between shifts. Work in the tunnel was ongoing at this point, so the fact that the bombs had gone off at a shift change indicated that the Exos were not attempting to cause casualties so much as to bring the whole complex down and prevent it from being completed.
The young man, Balan, was completely trapped under the girder, and there was no way he was going to get out without the use of heavy equipment. Spock moved in with his Vulcan strength and, with the aid of Hanna’s bodyguards Hox and Ferlein’s muscular help, was able to lift the girder slightly—but not enough to free the young man. The movement did reveal the sticking point, which was the beam that had shattered Balan’s knee. In the brief glimpse, it appeared he was bleeding from a nicked vessel as well, and he would not survive for long if he remained pinned in the debris.
“I’m really scared,” Balan said to Hannah. She knelt down beside him and caressed his head. “I was the replacement, you know. My parents had a son who didn’t make it through the die off. Then they kept trying after the modifications were made, but they never could have the boy. I have four sisters. I used to really hate having all that girl energy around, but I’m going to miss it now.”
Hannah smiled as best she could. “You’ll see them again, don’t worry. We’ll get you out of here,” she said.
It was Spock who suggested the only solution, and Kirk quickly agreed.
“We’re going to have to take off your leg, Balan,” said Kirk. “You may be able to have it regenerated. Are you ready?”
Balan bit his lip but nodded. He looked up at Hannah. “You’ll be here with me, won’t you, Ms. Faber?”
“Yes, of course I will, Balan,” Hannah replied.
Kirk took out his phaser and set it on a narrow beam. He placed it extremely close to the leg he was going to cut into and lined up for the incision. Spock and Hannah’s bodyguards then lifted the girder just enough so that Kirk could cut farther down the leg, taking off less than he might have otherwise, and leaving more of the leg that would not need regeneration treatment. Limb regeneration could take over two years, and the more of the original there was, the sooner that could be accomplished.