by Greg Cox
Kirk nodded. “I see your point.” He spoke again into the communicator. “Belay that order. Please dispatch a shuttlecraft to our coordinates.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” Spock replied from the bridge. “Mister Sulu will be on his way shortly.”
“We’ll keep our eyes out for him. Kirk out.” He put away his communicator and turned his attention back to Seven. “I’m looking forward to hearing your story, once we’re back aboard.”
“I doubt you will be disappointed, Captain.” She leaned against a tree trunk, letting it support her weight. “I believe—” She stiffened abruptly and drew her phaser. “Listen. Do you hear that?”
Hear what? At first, McCoy had no idea what she was reacting to, but then the distinctive whine of a transporter beam reached his merely human ears. Not from the Enterprise, though; he’d had his atoms beamed up and down enough to know that irritating hum by heart. This didn’t have the telltale ring of a Starfleet transporter. Somebody else was beaming down.
Maybe someone unfriendly.
“Good ears,” Kirk complimented Seven. He drew his own phaser, as did Jadello. A pillar of dazzling emerald sparks manifested in front of the startled landing party, who assumed a defensive posture. McCoy reached for his own weapon. Within seconds, four phasers were directed at the alien transporter effect.
Better safe than sorry, McCoy thought.
He waited tensely for their mysterious visitor to finish materializing, but the process seemed to be taking unusually long. His mouth went dry. His pulse was racing. “What’s keeping this party crasher?” he muttered under his breath. “Are they waiting for a holographic invitation?”
“I don’t like this,” Jadello said. “Something’s not right. . . .”
A third eye opened at the nape of his neck, scoping out their rear. “Captain!” he shouted in alarm. “Behind us!”
“What?” McCoy glanced back over his shoulder in time to see a gang of green Orion pirates creeping across the wooded hilltop toward them. Armed to the teeth, the men sported black leather gear and mean expressions. Scars and metal piercing made them look like foul-tempered survivors of a shrapnel explosion. McCoy knew a band of bloodthirsty brigands when he saw them. His gaze darted in confusion between the glittering transporter beam, which now appeared to be dissipating, and the advancing pirates.
Where the hell had they come from?
Jadello’s reflexes were faster than his. He shoved McCoy behind the thick trunk of a towering kapok tree, then spun around and fired at the intruders. A bright blue beam dropped one Orion, even as another raider, his surly features betraying his hostile intent, aimed a disruptor pistol at Kirk’s exposed back. McCoy doubted that it was set on stun.
“Captain!” Jadello dived into the pirate’s line of fire, firing back as he did so. A sizzling emerald blast struck the man head-on. A blinding green glow reduced him to atoms. Not even ashes remained of Jadello, whose final exclamation was cut off abruptly. “We’re under att—!”
Attack, McCoy realized, completing Jadello’s warning. Saved by the other man’s sacrifice, Kirk grabbed Seven and joined McCoy behind the boulder. They fired back at the Orions from behind the substantial tree trunk, which was at least three meters in diameter. In turn, the alien cutthroats darted from tree to tree, dodging the phaser beams as they closed on what remained of the landing party. Emerald blasts chipped away at bark and wood. McCoy counted more than a dozen attackers, all out for blood. Pointy teeth gave them the look of cannibals, a cosmetic choice no doubt intended to make their enemies tremble in fear. It almost worked.
“Damnit,” McCoy cursed. “They killed Jadello!”
“I know,” Kirk said gravely. The valiant security officer had taken a disruptor blast for him. Kirk glared vengefully at the Orions. “That’s another life those bastards owe me.”
The apparent leader of the raiders—a hulking bruiser with a spiky skull and a missing ear—appeared equally upset by the killing. “Misbegotten slackwit!” he berated the pirate who had disintegrated Jadello. A prosthetic metal hand slapped the offending lackey across the face. “I told you! Stun only. We want the future-woman alive!”
Seven, McCoy thought. They’re after Seven!
He suddenly realized that he’d forgotten all about the first transporter beam. Certain that he was about to be shot in the back, McCoy whirled around to discover that the sparkling column of energy had evaporated entirely, leaving not a soul behind. A distraction, he grasped. That first beam was just to get us looking in the wrong direction.
Good thing Jadello had literally had an eye at the back of his head.
He saved our bacon but good!
Kirk and Seven tried to hold off the attackers, but they were badly outnumbered. Seven remained cool as a cucumber, although her drawn face showed signs of strain. Her phaser blasts were precise and efficient, not wasting a shot. She took a moment to disassemble the captured fragments and secure them within her backpack.
“A prudent retreat is in order,” she stated. “Before we suffer additional losses.”
Kirk nodded in agreement.
“Contact the ship!” he ordered McCoy. “Get us out of here.”
My prescription exactly, McCoy thought. Fragments or no fragments, an emergency beam-out was clearly the appropriate treatment for their condition. He flipped open his communicator, only to find the transmission blocked. Static assailed his ears. He dialed through every frequency without success.
“It’s no good, Jim! They’re blocking us!”
Ten
“Commander Spock!” Ensign Chekov blurted from his station on the bridge. A thick Russian accent betrayed his roots. “Another vessel has entered the system. It just dropped out of warp.”
“Raise shields,” Spock instructed. He was not aware of any other Federation ships in the sector, so it was best to take all reasonable precautions. He flipped a switch on the armrest of the captain’s chair. “Yellow alert.”
He rotated the chair toward the communications station. “Hail the unknown vessel. Request identification.”
“I’m trying, sir,” Lieutenant Uhura said. “They’re not responding.”
Curious, Spock thought. The unidentified ship’s abrupt appearance, and ominous silence, were clearly cause for concern. In theory, the Enterprise’s current location and mission were known only to Starfleet.
“What’s happening?” Commissioner Santiago demanded. He and his aide had insisted on taking residence upon the bridge, the better to monitor the status of the landing party’s mission. The visiting diplomats stood just outside the recessed command circle, leaning against the reinforced red handrail. “Who is it?”
“That is what we are attempting to determine, Commissioner.” Spock turned back toward Chekov. “Status of vessel?”
“Approaching Gamma Trianguli VI,” the navigator reported. He shared the helm control station with Lieutenant Sharon Blackhorse, who was manning the helm while Sulu took a shuttle down to the planet to retrieve the landing party. She was an experienced pilot who often took the helm during the evening shift. Chekov kept a close eye on the sensor data. “Entering visual range.”
“On-screen,” Spock ordered.
The alien vessel resembled a cross between a shelled marine animal and a tank. Molded green plating, inscribed with alien hieroglyphics, armored the rounded contours of a squat, bulbous ship that was positively bristling with visible gunports. Its warp nacelles were tucked in dangerously close to the hull, so that they looked more like ribbing than the elegant extensions gracing the Enterprise. The vessel’s configuration and energy signatures clearly marked it as an Orion marauder, of the sort employed by professional mercenaries, freebooters, and slavers. Squinting at the image, Spock thought he discerned a name emblazoned on the ship’s green patina.
“Increase magnification,” he instructed. “Factor three.”
A closer view revealed cursive Orion script clearly printed on the beak-like prow of the ship. No serial number a
ccompanied the name.
“Navaar,” Uhura translated.
Chekov scowled at their unwelcome visitor. “Shall I ready weapons, sir?”
“Negative,” Spock said. “The vessel’s intentions are unknown. Arming torpedoes, or energizing the phaser banks, could be seen as provocative.”
“Provocative?” Santiago sounded as though he could not believe his ears. “Are you out of your mind, Spock? Those are Orions. Probably the same ones who attacked the conclave at Yusub!”
“We do not know that, Commissioner, and I remind you that a state of war does not exist between the Federation and the Orion Syndicate.”
“But they’re pirates!” Santiago insisted. “Bloodthirsty raiders and barbarians.”
“Quite often,” Spock agreed. “But I am sure I don’t need to remind you of the political complexities involved.”
Although the Federation took a dim view of the Orions’ more unsavory activities, prudence and the Prime Directive obliged Starfleet to more or less tolerate the Orions in areas of space that were not exclusively aligned with the Federation. If independent worlds, such as Yusub, wanted to do business with the Orions, Starfleet could not take unilateral action, provided no Federation ships, colonies, or citizens were victimized. Furthermore, many Orion privateers and mercenaries operated just within the boundaries of local laws, which tended to be enforced with various degrees of laxity throughout the quadrant. To Spock’s knowledge, the Orions were currently supplying arms, soldiers, and slave labor to at least sixteen interplanetary conflicts and civil wars not involving the Federation. Orions sometimes clashed with Starfleet peacekeeping forces and were rumored to have frequent dealings with the Klingon Empire, but that hardly justified a preemptive attack. Gamma Trianguli VI was not an official Federation protectorate. Legally, the Orions had as much right to visit the planet as the Enterprise—and Spock did not wish to initiate an armed conflict by reacting too hastily.
“Complexities be damned,” Santiago snarled, taking the opposite view. “You should be opening fire, not clinging to legal niceties!”
“An unusual position for a diplomat,” Spock replied. “Respectfully, I submit that your emotions are getting the better of you.”
“At least I have emotions! And I know a threat when I see one!”
Spock found Santiago’s presence increasingly distracting. “Do not force me to have you removed from the bridge, Commissioner.”
“Please, sir,” Cyril Hague pleaded, attempting to calm his superior. “I’m sure Commander Spock knows what he’s doing.”
“Like hell he does,” the diplomat muttered. “This is on you, Spock, if we pay for your caution with our lives.”
“I am quite aware of that, Commissioner.” He focused on the task at hand. “Lieutenant Uhura, any word from the Navaar?”
“No, sir.” She adjusted her earpiece. “They continue to ignore my hails.”
Spock wondered what the Orions were after. Despite the variables involved, the possibility that the Navaar’s arrival here, at the same time that the Enterprise was orbiting the planet, was a mere coincidence that defied probability. He calculated the odds at roughly 235.6 to one.
“The marauder has dropped its shields,” Chekov reported. “It is beaming something—or someone—down to the planet.”
“What is the current status of the shuttle?” Spock asked.
Chekov checked the shuttlecraft’s flight telemetry. “Still several minutes away from rendezvousing with the landing party, sir.”
Spock concluded that he could not wait for Sulu and the shuttle to reach Captain Kirk and the others, nor take the time to determine where precisely the Orions’ transporter beam was targeted. Every moment counted.
“Contact the landing party,” he ordered. “Prepare for emergency transport.”
“Hold on!” Santiago protested. “You can’t lower our shields to beam Kirk and the others back. Not with that Orion marauder out there!”
“The Navaar’s shields are currently lowered as well,” Spock pointed out, although he privately acknowledged the significant risks involved. “And would you prefer to let the Orions capture the captain . . . and Doctor Seven?”
The dire implications of such an occurrence, and the possible repercussions with regards to Federation security, were not lost on the commissioner. “I . . . I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Then it is fortunate that I did,” Spock said. “Please carry out my order, Lieutenant Uhura.”
“Aye, sir.” She immediately attempted to alert the captain. Her brisk efforts, however, swiftly gave way to a worried expression. “Commander! I can’t get through to the landing party.” She consulted her monitors. “We’re being jammed.”
“That should not be possible,” Spock observed, “unless they know our secure frequencies and protocols.”
Starfleet’s encryption protocols were closely guarded. Multiple redundant systems were also in place to guarantee reliable communications capability. In theory, disrupting the Enterprise’s signals should have been beyond the Orions’ abilities.
“I don’t understand it, sir.” Uhura worked her controls, trying to get past the interference. “It’s as though they know just how to block us.”
“Those crafty bastards!” Santiago fumed. “How the devil are they doing this?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” Hague replied.
“The Orions have completed two transports,” Chekov announced. “The Navaar has raised its shields again.”
Spock hoped that he had not missed an opportunity to disable the other ship, albeit without provocation. “Location of the transport?”
Chekov consulted his readings. “Somewhere on the southern continent, sir. Not far from the captain’s last reported location.”
Blackhorse glanced back at Spock, clearly worried about the landing party’s safety. She maneuvered the Enterprise to present a smaller target to the marauder. “Now what, sir?”
“An excellent question, helmsman.”
Spock found himself on the horns of a dilemma. In order to beam reinforcements down to the planet, or even to allow Sulu’s shuttle to return to the ship, the Enterprise would indeed have to lower its shields, leaving it vulnerable to an attack. Spock doubted that the captain would approve. As daring as Kirk could sometimes be, he would surely hesitate to risk the entire ship for the sake of just four people. Even if one of those people possessed forbidden knowledge of the future.
“Make every effort to reach the captain,” Spock instructed Uhura. “And continue hailing the Navaar as well.” A lack of reliable data made anticipating the Orions’ next move problematic. “What do we know of the Navaar?”
Ensign Rick Cozzone had taken Spock’s usual post at the science station. He was a rangy, dark-haired youth who had recently served on Deep Space Station K-5, where he had shown an aptitude for sensor analysis.
“According to the computer, the ship is registered to a Captain Habroz. Beyond that, details are sketchy.” Cozzone shrugged apologetically. “The Orions are not known for their compliance with interstellar navigation protocols.”
Spock knew that to be a severe understatement. “So we have no idea why the Navaar is here . . . or what they are seeking on the planet’s surface.”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Cyril Hague said.
Eleven
“Still no luck?” Kirk asked.
“Not so much as a four-leaf clover,” McCoy grumbled. He smacked the uncooperative communicator with his palm, but to no avail. Nothing but static greeted his hails. “I can’t reach the ship!”
Which meant they were stuck on Gamma Trianguli VI, at least until they could rendezvous with Sulu’s shuttle. McCoy searched the sky but spotted no sign of their ride. Would Sulu even be able to land on the wooded hilltop—and in the middle of a firefight, no less?
An emerald stun blast zipped over McCoy’s head, practically grazing his scalp. The charged atmosphere made his thick brown hair stand on end. The trigger-
happy Orions were fanning out around them, attempting to block off the landing party’s escape routes. Kirk and Seven tried to hold the bandits off with their phasers, but McCoy knew that the thick tree trunk wasn’t going to protect them much longer. It was only a matter of time before the Orions got a clear shot at them.
Kirk saw that, too.
“Can you run?” he asked Seven, who had been showing definite signs of fatigue since her mysterious detour through time. McCoy wondered how much longer she could keep going.
“Self-preservation is a powerful motivator,” she replied.
“All right, then,” Kirk decided. He gestured toward the slope to their right. “We’ll head downhill, away from the village, and make for the fields. With any luck, the crops will conceal us.” He hefted his phaser. “I’ll cover you.”
McCoy glanced down the hill. The forested slope descended steeply to the waving rows of cornstalks below. The bluff looked worryingly precipitous, and far more intimidating than the rolling hills of his native Georgia. No gentle beds of honeysuckle or clover would cushion his fall if he missed a step. It was a long, bumpy way down.
Still, it beat being waylaid by a gang of bloody-minded thugs!
“Okay, Jim,” he replied. “Ready when you are.”
The leader of the Orions had another idea. “Just give us the woman from the future!” he bellowed from behind the shelter of another leafy kapok tree. Spreading buttress roots helped the tree cling to the side of the hill. The Orion’s gravelly voice was deeper than the Altairian Abyss. “No one else needs to get hurt!”
Like the late Lieutenant Jadello.
“Go to hell,” Kirk muttered. Obviously, he wasn’t about to turn Seven over to the Orions, not with all the dangerous future knowledge she possessed. They might as well hand her over to the Klingons or the Romulans and be done with it. Kirk gave McCoy a shove to get him going. “Run for it. Now!”