Spock’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Since the particulate nystromite is in combination with the more common varieties of space dust, I believe that our navigational deflectors will be reliably effective within this environment. I do need to caution, however, that our studies of this new substance are still very preliminary. There is no way to guarantee—”
Spock was cut off by Uhura saying, “Captain?”
The captain turned, asking, “Lieutenant, what is it?”
“I’m not entirely certain, given what Mister Spock was just saying,” she said as she pressed her Feinberg receiver to her ear, “but I believe I’m picking up subspace radio signals from the fourth planet.”
“What?” Kirk stood up from his chair and stepped up to where the communications officer sat.
“The signal is faint, and there’s a lot of interference,” she said, “but it has all the earmarks of intelligent communication.”
“Sentient life, in here,” Kirk said, and the glint in his eye was enough that he didn’t even have to speak the next order. Chekov turned back to his panel and had already entered the necessary commands by the time Kirk called out, “Mister Chekov, plot a course through the field and to the fourth planet.”
“Course plotted and laid in, sir,” he answered immediately.
Sulu smiled sidewise at him. “About time,” the helmsman whispered as he engaged the impulse engines and the Enterprise headed in.
* * *
Nystrom IV did turn out to be a Class-M planet, and although Uhura did not pick up any further radio transmissions, what they did find, once the Enterprise achieved orbit, was readings of an artificial power source on the surface. However, although scans were infinitely clearer at this closer range, there was still enough particulate nystromite in the planet’s atmosphere to call into question any of those readings, including the negative readings they’d found for any advanced life-forms.
“If you can’t even get a decent sensor scan through that stuff,” McCoy growled as he followed Kirk and Spock on their way to the transporter room, “why in hell would you trust that blasted machine to get your atoms through in working order?”
“Doctor, I am continually astonished by your ignorance of even the most basic operational principles of transporter technology,” Spock said without turning back or breaking his stride. “The same annular confinement beam used to clear the transporter target coordinates of any matter which may interfere with the rematerialization process—”
“And I’m continually astonished by your refusal to allow anything in this universe to astonish you. You really have no idea if the transporter will work in this system.”
“Bones,” Kirk interceded in his best calming manner, “I’ve already said you don’t need to come along.”
“For which I thank you,” McCoy said, sounding anything but grateful. “But now we’re talking about you, and the rest of the landing party.”
Kirk stopped just short of the transporter room doors, turned, and put his hands out on McCoy’s shoulders. “Bones. If I didn’t have both Spock and Scotty telling me that this would be safe—safer than piloting a shuttlecraft through a nystromite-heavy atmosphere—I wouldn’t be doing it. Now,” he said, clapping his palms on the doctor’s upper arms, “stop being such a mother hen.”
“Fine,” McCoy said unhappily, and then added, as Kirk turned away and rejoined Spock, “Good luck.”
The captain smiled back over his shoulder as he entered the transporter room, where the rest of the landing party had already gathered. Two members of the ship’s science section, Lieutenant Jean O’Reilly and Ensign David Frank, were joined by two security officers, Lieutenants Jameel Farah and Joseph D’Abruzzo. Kirk nodded a greeting to the group, and noted that D’Abruzzo had very quickly broken off eye contact with him. I should listen to McCoy, Kirk told himself.
Which really was not a thought he wanted to have just as he was climbing up on the transporter pad. He brusquely dismissed it as the rest of the party assumed their positions, then looked over to Lieutenant Kyle, who was standing behind the transporter control console. “Energize.”
The familiar sensation of the transporter enveloped him, and once it had faded, the captain found himself standing on the bank of a small creek, on the edge of a forest. Once he ascertained that the rest of the party members were present and accounted for, he pulled out his communicator. “Kirk to Enterprise.” He winced as he was answered by a blast of static, and started adjusting the two knobs below the speaker. “Enterprise, do you read me?”
After several seconds of fiddling with the settings, Uhura’s voice cut through the background noise: “. . . ing to compensate, sir. Are you reading now, Captain?”
“Yes, Lieutenant, I have you now.” The interference was still heavy, but that had been anticipated. “Landing party is down and safe. We’ll check in again within fifteen minutes.”
“Acknowledged, sir,” the lieutenant answered, and Kirk flipped the communicator shut. He paused a moment to take in their surroundings and to appreciate the natural beauty of this planet. To find a world with such a vibrant biosphere in orbit of a subdwarf star was remarkable, to say the least. The expressions on the faces of O’Reilly and Frank, as they surveyed the area with their tricorders, indicated that it was even more remarkable than Kirk knew.
He stepped over to where Spock stood studying his own portable scanner. “Any negative effects from the atmospheric nystromite on the tricorders?” he asked.
“Yes, but it appears minimal,” Spock answered, turning in a slow semicircle while his attention remained glued to his readout screen. “I believe my recalibrations will allow us to collect reliably accurate data.” The science officer looked up then, and pointed in roughly the same direction that the stream beside them was flowing, into the thick of the woods. “The power source is five hundred seventy-two meters in that direction,” he said.
“All right.” Kirk nodded to the party’s two security officers. “Farah, you take point. D’Abruzzo, you’ll bring up the rear.” Farah nodded as he double-checked his phaser’s power level, and then, holding it at the ready, started into the woods. Spock and the two science officers followed, the trilling of their tricorders joining together in a strange but not unpleasant electronic harmony. They remained close to the stream, but as they worked their way deeper into the forest, the trees became larger and the bank narrower. Progress slowed as they had to start winding their way around the thick-trunked trees and up the gentle slope away from the waterway.
At one point, Kirk’s foot landed awkwardly on a root, sending him stumbling and nearly pitching forward onto his face. Just as he regained his balance, D’Abruzzo was there behind him, one hand grabbing onto his right arm. “Steady there, sir,” he said.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Kirk said. “Nice of you to help keep me upright for a change.”
“Aye, sir.” D’Abruzzo looked abashed as he pulled his hand away and took a step back from Kirk.
Do I really intimidate the boy that much? Kirk asked himself. D’Abruzzo certainly appeared to be more nervous now, caught under his captain’s scrutiny, than he had minutes before, on the lookout for any surprise threats as they explored this alien world. “Lieutenant . . . Joseph. May I call you Joseph? Or do you prefer Joe?”
“Whichever you like, Captain.”
Kirk struggled to hold back a sigh. “I believe that I owe you an apology,” he said, as they started following the rest of the team.
“Sir?” D’Abruzzo answered as he moved to keep up with him.
“In the gymnasium yesterday,” Kirk said, taking occasional glances over his shoulder to ensure the security officer was keeping up and listening. “I get the impression that you were somewhat uncomfortable being matched up with your commanding officer.”
D’Abruzzo hesitated before saying, “Perhaps somewhat, yes, sir.”
“And that’s my fault,” Kirk told him. “It really wasn’t all that long ago that I was in your place,
a young junior officer intent on doing whatever I had to to impress my superiors.” Briefly, he reflected on the sense of respect and awe with which his younger self had regarded Captain Bannock during his time aboard the Republic, and Captain Garrovick on the Farragut. “Sometimes, I suppose I forget that I’m the one being looked up to in that way now. But I want you to know that, on the judo mat, I absolutely want and expect that you consider me your equal.”
D’Abruzzo did not answer immediately, and when he did, what he said was, “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Kirk looked back over his shoulder again. “Of course.”
“Well, sir, it’s just . . .” D’Abruzzo hesitated again, then blurted out, “On the judo mat, we’re not. Equals. You’re pretty badly outmatched, to be honest.”
Before Kirk could find it in himself to answer that charge, Farah called back from the head of the column, “Captain!”
“What is it?” Kirk asked as he and Spock moved up to where Farah had stopped at the edge of a small clearing. The ground was covered with what looked like bootprints of differing shapes and patterns, clearly made in the very recent past. At the center of the roughly circular patch of bare soil was a pile of charred wood and ashes. “Spock?”
The Vulcan consulted his tricorder and reported, “My readings indicate that this fire was extinguished no less than thirty-six hours ago.”
“And what about signs of higher life-forms?” Kirk asked.
Spock shook his head. “Still detecting none.”
“Then where are the people who built this fire now?” Kirk asked, looking past Spock and beyond the tree line at the clearing’s edge. The Enterprise had first arrived at the Nystrom system a little less than thirty-six hours earlier. While it was by no means unthinkable that these beings could have left the planet and system without attracting the Enterprise’s notice, it seemed far more likely to the captain that they were still here on the planet.
Kirk’s question was answered by the whine of a weapon discharge from off to his left. A bolt of energy streaked past the edge of his peripheral vision, striking a nearby tree trunk. Tiny sharp bits of scorched bark peppered both him and Spock. “Take cover!”
The Enterprise party quickly fell back the way they had come, into the relative safety of the woods. Kirk, with Spock close at his heel, vaulted over a large fallen tree and pulled himself low to the ground behind it. The barrage of shots continued, though all of them flew wide and high. They’re just shooting blind, Kirk decided. They likely hadn’t even seen the landing party, but had merely detected movement around the old campsite and were trying to scare them away.
Not that their intentions would make any difference if one of those shots found its target.
Kirk, with his back against the tree’s moss-covered bark, pulled out his communicator and flipped the grille open with a snap of his wrist. “Kirk to Enterprise: we need an emergency beam-out, now!”
The only answer he got back was static.
* * *
Talk to me.
Uhura sat hunched over her station console, one hand cupped over the receiver she had inserted in her left ear, and the forefinger of her right hand plugged into the other. She listened intently to the signals being fed through the communications array, which most people would interpret as nothing more than meaningless noise. A part of her brain told her that those people would be absolutely correct in that conclusion.
The communications officer had been unable to tease any further information out of the brief signal they had intercepted when they had initially breached the nystromite field. Uhura had been scanning continually since then for any similar signal patterns that might signify a form of communication. To her frustration, though, she’d so far come up with nothing.
So absorbed was she in listening for alien messages that she failed to hear Sulu move up behind her and speak her name. It wasn’t until he lightly tapped her shoulder that she responded, gasping and nearly throwing herself out of her seat. She spun around toward the helmsman, who had stepped back away from her, the back of his thighs pressed to the red railing at the edge of the bridge’s upper level, and his hands held palms out in what was meant to be a calming gesture. “Sorry, Uhura, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”
“No, it’s all right, sir,” Uhura said as she quickly recomposed herself. With the captain and Mister Spock down on the planet, Sulu had the conn of the Enterprise, and she made sure to afford him the deference that entailed. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you.”
Sulu dismissed the apology with a shake of his head and took a step closer to her again. “Have you picked up something interesting?”
“No,” she said with a frustrated sigh, plucking out the earpiece. “I’m not picking up anything.” Uhura dropped the device onto her console and then rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know, maybe I really didn’t hear what I thought I heard when we broke through the asteroid field.” She hated to think that she could have made such a mistake or, worse, that her mistake might have led them on some kind of wild snipe hunt. But it wasn’t something she could dismiss as an impossibility, either.
Sulu considered her with a thoughtful expression, then said, “Well, to me, it seems just as likely that whatever you heard wasn’t intended to be heard by anyone outside of this anomaly. And once whoever it was realized that we were here, they went silent.”
Uhura’s eyes widened as she considered that scenario, and what it meant to the ship. “Do you really think that?”
“I think it’s something we have to consider as a possibility. And if there are others in this system keeping their eyes on us, then it’s to our advantage that we did get your warning right off the bat.” Sulu gave her a smile of encouragement and said, “Keep listening, and let me know if you hear anything more.”
“Aye, sir,” Uhura said, smiling back at him. He turned and continued to walk the circuit of the upper bridge stations as she picked up her earpiece again. He’s going to make an excellent commanding officer someday, Uhura thought, replacing the receiver in her ear.
The earpiece was still full of static, but Uhura immediately detected a difference in its tonal quality. She removed it and checked the settings, thinking at first that she’d knocked something out of adjustment when she’d tossed it down earlier. Everything appeared to be normal, but when she put the device to her ear again, there was still the same unexplained change in the signal.
Acting on a hunch, Uhura switched the active channel on her board and tried to hail the planet’s surface. “Enterprise to Captain Kirk.” She received no reply. “Enterprise to landing party, come in.”
Sulu, now standing at the engineering station where he had been talking with Ensign Strassman, turned back around toward her. “What is it, Uhura?” he asked.
Before she could answer, the ship was rocked by a surprise collision.
* * *
“Enterprise!” Kirk put the communicator directly to his lips, trying to make himself heard to the communications officer while at the same time hoping not to draw the attention of whoever it was still shooting at them. “Enterprise, come in!” The captain tried manipulating the device’s settings as he repeated his message, but to no avail. With a frustrated sigh, he snapped the communicator shut and looked over to where Spock had taken cover, flat on his stomach behind the thick trunk of another ancient tree. With only a look passing between them, his first officer clearly understood that the landing party was all on their own.
Kirk slipped the communicator back into place at the small of his back, and then drew his phaser. Slowly, the captain lifted himself off the forest floor, turned over onto his knees, and peered over the top of his log to try to assess their situation. The rapid-fire volley of shots ended as suddenly as it had started, and a stillness descended over the forest, broken only by the faint buzz of flying insects. Kirk slowed his breathing as he listened, and after only a few seconds, he heard approaching footfalls, and then indistinct voices.
> He looked around for the other members of the landing party. Ensign Frank was off to his right, past Spock. To his left, Kirk spotted a glimpse of a red uniform shirt, belonging to either D’Abruzzo or Farah, standing out plainly against the browns and greens of his surroundings. Kirk winced, and wondered why Starfleet opted to put their security personnel in such a highly visible color. O’Reilly and the second security officer were out of Kirk’s sight, and he hoped out of sight of the aliens who were now making their way toward the clearing.
There were two of them, both humanoid, standing just over a meter and a half tall, wearing gray armor-plated uniforms and carrying what looked like phaser rifles. Both wore helmets of the same dull gray material, with translucent visors covering their faces. Through the face plates, they appeared to be reptilian, or perhaps amphibian, with greenish complexions and large, outward-bulging eyes.
They stopped as they entered the clearing and immediately took notice of the dead campfire. “See? They were here,” the first of the pair said.
“This fire has been dead for three dohs,” the second one said as she—both aliens had higher-pitched voices that made Kirk automatically identify them as female—lowered herself onto her haunches and sifted her gloved hand through the cold ashes. “It was probably just some animal you heard; the Taarpi are long gone.”
“It was no animal. It was voices.”
Kirk held himself perfectly still as he watched and waited to see what these two would do next. They didn’t seem to be carrying tricorders or any similar scanning devices, which gave him some hope that they still might be able to escape notice and avoid any sort of confrontation. Whoever these “Taarpi” were, the captain was sure he did not want his landing party mistaken for them.
The alien soldier who had been studying the dead fire now stood and began to pace in a slow circle around the clearing. Even through the visor, Kirk got the distinct impression that not much was escaping the notice of those large eyes. “Oh, pyurb,” she said, as something on the ground caught her attention and she squatted down again.
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Shocks of Adversity Page 3