Sulu vaulted out of the captain’s chair and pulled Rahda upright in her chair. Her body was limp, her face covered in blood.
As he hurried to cut all power to the forward engines, another loud explosion from the front starboard corner of the bridge overpowered his senses for an instant. Very quickly, smoke filled the air. Lawton had been thrown from her station, and the console was on fire.
“Stay away from all the controls!” Sulu shouted. “Harper, get Farrell!”
As the engineer moved, Sulu finally succeeded in canceling forward thrust, but it didn’t look like it was going to be enough. He put the ship into reverse, building up the power as fast as he could. The Enterprise needed to get out of this distortion before—
The navigation console sparked and then belched out an enormous gout of smoke. Sulu hadn’t noticed Ensign Harper grab Farrell, but the navigator wasn’t there anymore, thank goodness. The force of the explosion knocked the unconscious Rahda out of her chair, and Sulu had to hold on tight to maintain his footing.
The Enterprise was pulling out of the distortion, but it was careening out of control now. He had to stabilize it, had to stop it from spinning off into space and even more trouble.
His hands sped over the controls as fast as they could. He didn’t have much time. The explosions had worked their way across the bridge from starboard to port.
There was a sudden flash of light and a loud noise. And then Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu didn’t see or hear anything at all.
Despite the stunning sight before him, Jim Kirk was frustrated. Their discovery of a sentient species cryogenically hidden from prying eyes would redefine the Enterprise’s mission of exploration in this sector, but that didn’t help them find their missing crewman.
Tricorders picked up thousands of Farrezzi life signs—Chekov estimated there were thirty-four thousand cryopods in this chamber alone. Who knew how many more of these chambers were hidden away beneath the planet’s surface, but there were no human life signs. None at all. Part of Kirk wanted to wake one of the aliens up and yell at it, demanding the location of his missing man. But, rationally, he knew that would be absurd.
“Captain.” Chekov’s voice rang out from around the other side of a row of pods. The landing party had fanned out, but Kirk had ordered everyone to stay in visual range of one another.
“Over here, Mister Chekov,” he answered. “Not too loud, remember.” Giotto had advised caution until he and Tra could ascertain that they were truly alone.
The ensign squeezed between two pods to join his captain. Barely able to contain his excitement, Chekov pointed at the pod in front of him. “Captain, this is remarkable. These beings are perfect pentamerian organisms!”
“Excellent, Mister Chekov.” Kirk waited a beat. “Now assume I don’t share your expert knowledge of biology.”
He had kept his voice light, but it still looked like the ensign was actually turning red. “Sorry, sir. They are radially symmetrical, in five roughly equal parts, like many species of Earth starfish, for example. That’s why we can’t pick a front or a back side, sir. There’s little about sentient pentamerians in our scientific literature, but what’s there leads me to think the Farrezzi can move in any direction without changing their orientation.”
“Remarkable.” Completely nonhumanoid sentients were rare. Kirk peered at the alien closely. “I don’t see a mouth.”
“That’s because we would expect it at the front, which doesn’t make sense from an anatomical standpoint.”
Chekov was clearly enjoying himself. Maybe the ensign would stop beating himself up over what had happened to Yüksel.
Chekov explained, “If you have five limbs and can move in any direction, the only parts of you that stay more or less the same regardless of where you’re facing are the upper and lower ends of your torso. If you look closely, you can see a… an aperture, there on top. Given that it is ringed by five eyestalks, I am tempted to say this is the Farrezzi’s mouth.”
The captain had a closer look, and he could see what Chekov was pointing at. The protruding eyes were closed, but it was clear what they were. Looking almost like the eyestalks of a crab, only many times bigger and equipped with eyelids, they were placed equidistant around the central torso. There was no clearly definable head, at least none that the captain could make out, since the torso, almost as long as Kirk, started out wider at the top and grew thinner at the bottom. The five limbs were attached below the torso’s halfway point. He imagined they could serve as both arms and legs.
“Good work, Ensign. Continue your scans. I’m going to talk to Ensign Seven Deers.”
A minute’s walk brought him to where Seven Deers was investigating a pod. However, she was more interested in its machinery than its inhabitant. Tubes ran along the floor of the chamber, connecting to each pod, and she was crouched on the floor, scanning them. “Report.”
“These are complete environments, Captain,” she said, not looking up. “Supplying the Farrezzi with water, air, and nutrients.”
“Air?” Kirk asked. “Were they designed to protect them from the planet’s toxicity?”
She nodded. “I think so. They slow the body’s metabolism through a chemical means. The system also seems to need a constant supply of water. All of the pods are connected to a system drawing water from elsewhere, probably subsurface.”
The entire population had fled underground to avoid their planet’s environmental collapse. It was a risky move, but Kirk had seen civilizations that had destroyed themselves. “Impressive.”
“One more thing, sir,” Seven Deers said. “It looks like the control mechanisms for this facility are at the north end of this cavern, the area beneath the launching complex. If Yüksel is down here—”
“Then he might have headed—or been taken—in that direction.” Kirk flipped open his communicator. “All hands, this is the captain. Converge on my location. We’re heading to the part of the chamber beneath the launching complex. If Yüksel is down here, that’s where he’ll be.”
“Who would have taken him, sir?” asked Rawlins. “Everyone down here is asleep.”
“Good question, Lieutenant.” Kirk mulled over the possibilities. “My instinct is that it’s some Farrezzi, who stayed awake to guard this place. Yüksel may have set off some alarms.” The captain looked at the rows of pods, the bluish light illuminating the life-forms within them. Too bad this survey had to turn into a manhunt. “We can explore this place after we get him back.”
McCoy didn’t understand how the Enterprise could have encountered another of those space-time ripples at sub-light. Nevertheless, he’d made sure to keep himself safe this time, clinging to his desk at the first sign of trouble. This quick reaction meant, of course, that he was ready to spring into action once the bucking stopped.
One minute after the Enterprise hit the distortion, he ordered the nurses to go through sickbay and discharge anyone remotely fit for duty, anticipating more casualties. Thank goodness they’d already sent quite a few of them to their quarters early on. His comatose espers would have to wait. As McCoy changed into a clean surgical smock, he briefly considered what effect yet another delay in finding a treatment for their affliction might have, but pushed the thought aside.
Easy to ignore problems you’re not capable of handling, isn’t it?
There was Jocelyn’s voice. What was wrong with him? He’d been in stressful situations before, but he’d never heard voices.
I told you—you’re out of your depth this time, Leonard.
He’d have liked nothing more than to shut the voice up, but finding out how would have to wait. For now, he needed to get to work. McCoy rounded up the med techs and told them to double-check every cart and every tray, and if there was some item missing, they were to replace it. He couldn’t afford to waste time during emergency surgery.
Two minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, the first casualty was at his door: Petty Officer Carriere, who’d been flung by an exploding computer
console. What the hell was going on out there? Dozens of lacerations all across the face, where little bits of metal had buried themselves with enormous force.
This was going to be ugly.
Burns, broken arms, cracked ribs, concussions, the gamut. McCoy was fairly certain that there wasn’t a single type of crash injury he hadn’t seen today. Injury reports kept on coming in over the comm, but they were having trouble just keeping up with what was already in sickbay.
Ten minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, he was examining a bruised lieutenant from the history department. She was sitting in a chair in his office, since all the biobeds were full—even those in the examination room. The incident had left her with a nasty cut on her forehead, but he’d have that healed in no time.
“So, Lieutenant Watley,” he said as he moved the regenerator over her wound, “anything else you feel the need to report?”
The young woman regarded him with a quizzical expression. “What do you mean, sir?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, even though he did, “anything out of the ordinary. Are you hearing voices, for instance? Imagining things? Memories suddenly come to life, that sort of thing?”
Her expression grew confused. “Uh, no, sir. Should I? I mean, it’s only a minor head wound.”
“Are you a doctor, Lieutenant?” he said, though the accompanying smile took the edge off his words. In fact, McCoy was asking her these questions not because he believed her injury could cause her to hallucinate, but because he was unsettled by what was happening to him.
“No, sir,” she said, suitably chastised. “I haven’t heard or seen anything unusual. Sorry, sir,” she added when she saw his face.
“Don’t worry about it. Routine questions in head wound cases. Everything can be a symptom of something, and I’d hate to miss it because I failed to ask a stupid question.”
Maybe he was losing his mind, then. For now, the only thing he could do was keep on working.
Sixteen minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, Ryan Leslie returned bearing an injured comrade. His guards were bringing injured personnel here. It was Abrams who suggested going with them to either treat people on the spot or get them to sickbay. McCoy couldn’t spare many of his staff, but he also couldn’t afford for injured personnel to be lying out there, helpless, so he sent Abrams and Thomas out with the security people, telling them to cover the ship from top to bottom, checking names against the crew roster and making sure nobody was lying alone and helpless in their quarters, in need of immediate medical attention.
Only those who really needed the help were coming into sickbay, and many of them had been given first aid by their comrades.
Twenty-two minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, Uhura and Harper came hurrying into sickbay, the body of Lieutenant Sulu slumped between them.
“Uhura! What happened?”
Sulu’s face was covered in first- and second-degree burns, his uniform shirt partially blackened. A massive bandage on the back of his head was evidence that he’d apparently been thrown backward onto the deck. McCoy handed the dermal regenerator he was using on a crewman to Messier and went to give the two of them a hand. Together, they lifted Sulu onto a biobed that had been vacated only a few minutes before.
Uhura was covered in soot but seemed physically unharmed. “The distortion we hit was the biggest so far.” She was breathing heavily. “Normal space. Most of the bridge consoles… exploded from some kind of energy surge.”
McCoy was listening, but his mind was focused on the readings on the monitor above Sulu’s head. If he worked quickly, Sulu would be fine. But the doctor couldn’t afford to waste any time at all.
Uhura was now telling Harper to go back up to the bridge and get Rodriguez to help with Rahda and Farrell.
“What about Lawton?” asked McCoy, as he began loading up a set of hyposprays.
“She’s fine,” said Uhura. “Completely shaken, but physically okay. I told her to help out in the physics lab.”
“Good,” was what McCoy meant to say, but it sounded more like a grunt. Uhura’s breathing had slowed back down, and she seemed fine. But poor Sulu. So much for bringing the ship back to Mu Arigulon under his own command.
A realization hit him. “Wait a blasted minute! Who’s in command, now?”
Uhura thought for a moment that struck McCoy as uncharacteristically long. “Lieutenant DeSalle—he’s in auxiliary. I’m going to relieve him.”
“He’ll have his hands full in engineering,” said McCoy.
Uhura began to walk away, toward the exit.
“Wait!” McCoy grabbed a hypospray from his tray. “You should have thought of this yourself.” He jabbed the hypo into her arm. “You’ll need a stimulant. It’s been a long day, and it’s only going to get longer.”
Her eyes brightened almost immediately. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be in auxiliary control if you need anything.”
McCoy watched her go, her upright frame indicating her confidence. She would handle the situation to her utmost abilities.
If only you were capable of the same.
He ignored Jocelyn’s voice and went back to working on Sulu.
Thirty-four minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, he lost his first patient.
SEVEN
Twenty-one Years Ago
Jocelyn’s a logistics major, and she too isn’t happy about taking a philosophy class—she’s just better at hiding it. Their “dates” are typically extended study sessions in McCoy’s dorm room or, more commonly, hers. They help each other focus. Leonard needs the help. A junior at Ole Miss, he always feels like he’s drowning in work. He knows it’s only going to get worse.
They’re both from Georgia, albeit from opposite sides of the state. She’s from Waycross, while Leonard calls Forsyth home. Over summer vacation, Leonard spends his weekends and the odd weeknight with her, while working at his father’s practice. Spending most of the week separated is awful for them both, and they talk to each other incessantly.
Thankfully, the summer is soon over and they’re back at school for their senior year. Leonard still lives on campus—easier to study at the library. Jocelyn has an off-campus apartment, which is great. Really great. He tries not to spend too much time with her—he’s trying to stay at the top of the class and he’s applying to medical schools.
As winter break nears and Leonard’s applications are sent, he asks Jocelyn about her post-graduation plans. She’s cagey, saying they “depend.” Leonard wonders what they depend on.
The day before they go home for the holidays, he takes her on a walk around campus. In Doctor Ducey’s classroom, he gets down on one knee and looks up into those brown eyes. Leonard extends his hand, a simple diamond ring in his palm. “Jocelyn Abigail Darnell, will you marry me?”
She says yes.
Stardate 4757.8 (1803 hours)
As the Columbus landing party worked their way across the chamber, the blue light gave everything a cold, dismal glow. Everyone’s skin looked washed out, especially Tra’s, whose Arkenite skin was pale to begin with.
Chekov checked his tricorder, puzzled by the readout. His analysis of the gas being pumped into each cryopod indicated that it almost matched the atmosphere of the planet. There were still trace elements of toxicity in the atmosphere, but according to his scans of the Farrezzi, they were well within the aliens’ tolerance. Why hadn’t they woken up?
The Farrezzi should already have returned to the surface. Chekov wondered if he could persuade the captain to wake up some of these aliens and ask them what had happened. His scans explained the near-dry lakes and rivers they had seen near every population center: the water was being diverted into the pods.
Answers could wait until after they found Yüksel. The captain was determined to locate him, but Commander Giotto was still saying that taking the entire landing party was an unnecessary risk.
“No risk is unnecessary if it gets one of our men back, Commander,” the c
aptain had snapped.
The chamber had appeared to be one large room in the initial scans, but it had turned out to be subdivided into smaller sections by thin clear walls, with the same semicircular doors. They made their way into the next section of the chamber, where Chekov’s tricorder registered another thirty-four thousand cryopods. It was hard to scan down here; the Farrezzi had hidden themselves well.
Chekov’s tricorder began to let off a steady beep. “Energy reading ahead, Captain.”
Kirk looked back at him. “Human? Or Farrezzi?”
“Farrezzi, but—” The ensign found himself fumbling for words. “This is a different signature. Not the same as the cryopod readings.”
“Okay, Mister Chekov,” the captain said, “guide us toward it.” With the captain and Giotto on point, and Chekov right behind them, Y Tra was bringing up the rear, following Seven Deers and Rawlins in the middle. Their tricorders actively absorbed every bit of data.
The ensign guided the landing party through a spiraling maze of pods. After two minutes, Giotto held up a hand.
“Do you hear that, Captain?” he asked.
Chekov could barely make out an irregular noise. It sounded like something metallic being pulled over a stone floor.
“Something is moving, Captain.”
“Chekov, can you tell what it is?”
Chekov shook his head. “No, sir. I think I am picking up active life signs. It could just be a tight cluster of cryopods.”
“Guards?” asked Kirk. “The ones who took Yüksel?”
“Or killed him,” murmured Giotto, so quietly only the captain and Chekov could hear.
Chekov’s tricorder bleeped, overly loud in the relative silence of the cavern, so he slipped it into silent mode. “Captain, I am picking up an unusual life sign to our right. Not Farrezzi, but I cannot tell what it is.”
Star Trek®: A Choice of Catastrophes Page 12