STAR TREK®: NEW EARTH - THIN AIR

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Kirk to Enterprise.”

  “Go ahead, Captain,” Uhura said.

  “I want the transporter to lock on Dr. McCoy and his patient and beam them aboard. Medical emergency. Have a team standing by. Understand?”

  “Understood,” Uhura said.

  Kirk turned around. “Do your best, Bones.”

  McCoy only nodded as the transporter beam took him and his patient.

  Kirk waited a moment, staring at the empty space.

  Lilian, the warm, friendly, smart woman he had spent so many wonderful hours with over the past few months. This couldn’t happen to her.

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to think about the problem at hand. There were others down there that might face the same fate as Lilian. He had to help them. There was nothing more he could do for her.

  He turned back to the controls and dropped the shuttle down to the surface. He had no doubt there were others still alive, and this time he wasn’t going to be standing around watching a transport take off when they needed his help.

  Yanorada was resting in his chair, enjoying the quiet time before the next wave of information poured in. He was also enjoying the feeling of success. Even though he had no concrete evidence that the siliconic gel was forming as expected, every reading during the last Blind indicated it would. And in a few hours he would know for sure.

  Relaagith moved up quickly to stand beside Yanorada. It was clear the younger officer was upset about something, simply by his actions. But Relaagith had gotten upset a great deal over the last few months, and whatever small thing it was this time wasn’t going to bother Yanorada. Nothing was going to ruin his good mood.

  “Yes,” Yanorada finally said, letting his junior officer squirm for an extra moment. “What is it?”

  “Six battleships have taken up a position directly beyond us, sir.”

  Yanorada sat bolt upright and turned. “Our ships?”

  “Yes, sir,” Relaagith said.

  “Show me,” Yanorada ordered.

  Relaagith moved quickly over to the communications board and brought up the visual images. Then he put a system map under the visuals.

  He had been right. The six were Kauld warships, spaced in clearly defensive formation just beyond the asteroid belt. On the map it was obvious they were taking up positions where they could move quickly to defend Yanorada’s position from anything that might come at it from Belle Terre.

  “Stupid fools!” Yanorada said. Their location was like planting a flag on the asteroid and calling the humans to tell them where it was. Didn’t they know that?

  More than likely they did, and just didn’t care.

  Yanorada could feel his anger rising, pushing his good mood away like a wind shoving dust ahead of it.

  What kind of stupidity was this?

  Who had ordered this?

  And were the humans doing something that indicated this kind of protection was necessary? He needed answers and he didn’t dare try to get them.

  “Tell me they have not tried to contact us,” Yanorada asked, staring at the images of the ships as if he could get a message through to the commander inside simply by his glare.

  “They have not, sir,” Relaagith said.

  “Well, at least they are following orders that far,” Yanorada said. “But they believe their warships can handle anything. After this is over I will have the head of the person responsible for this act.”

  “Yes, sir,” Relaagith said. “What should we do now?”

  “Nothing, of course,” Yanorada said, disgusted. “If we contact them we will give away our location even clearer than they are doing. In a few hours we will gather our data again. Let them sit out there. I doubt the humans are going to move against them, considering what is happening on the planet. In a short time it won’t matter.”

  “But why did they do this, sir?” Relaagith asked. “If it endangers us?”

  “Because the military mind, and the idiots in charge of those ships believe they can win all battles, no matter how many times the humans prove to them they can’t. I’m sure someone back home could not stand the thought of us being here unprotected as victory neared.”

  “Oh,” Relaagith said, shaking his head. “But that makes no sense. We are the reason for the victory.”

  “To the warlords that believe in might always winning,” Yanorada said, staring at the image of the warships, “this action is only logical.”

  With one more look of disgust, Yanorada turned back to his command chair. The ego of the military mind sometimes astounded him. The stupidity of it did all the time.

  Luckily, in this instance, it was too late for them to mess things up.

  Tegan watched as Dr. Akins and two others worked over the body of Len Sterling, a thirty-six-year-old husband and father of three children. Len had been one of the first to come down with the allergic reaction to the olivium. Just a day before Charles had become sick.

  The emergency light over his bed had sounded ten minutes ago and they had been working quickly around him ever since. Len’s wife, Betty, stood off to one side, holding her hands under her chin, staring.

  Tegan had sat with Charles, holding the hand of her sleeping son, also watching.

  All the family members of the other patients did the same. All of them knew a moment just like this was coming for them very, very soon.

  After a few more minutes, Dr. Akins shook his head and stepped back. All the activity around Len’s bed stopped as if a switch had been flipped.

  “No, no, no,” Betty Sterling said, shaking her head and moving slowly up to the bed as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  But Tegan knew exactly what had happened. Tegan could see Len’s body, ravaged by the olivium allergy. Betty’s husband, father of her children, had died from a simple allergy, leaving her light-years from home, all on her own.

  And he had died for nothing. Simply leaving the area of the olivium would have cured him.

  The shielding in the hospital ship clearly wasn’t working. Soon Charles and the others would face the same fate. Each of them would be worked over, then Dr. Akins would step back and shake his head.

  Dr. Akins put his arm around Betty. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Tegan almost said out loud that she doubted he was sorry. More than likely he was relieved, and would be relieved when all of them were dead. She would even bet that Governor Pardonnet would be relieved as well when that time came. One less problem for them all to deal with.

  But Tegan said nothing. Len was not her husband, the father of her child. Instead she held Charles’s hand and just watched.

  Less than two hours until Gamma Night.

  Two hours after that, she and Charles would be leaving the system in the shuttle called Little Sister. Since she would be flying blind, she knew no one would be able to follow her, or even know which direction she went in. It didn’t matter, as long as the direction was out of the system.

  And from the looks of what had just happened to Len Sterling, it wasn’t going to be a moment too soon.

  Chapter Eleven

  “HOW IS SHE?” Governor Pardonnet asked, staring at Lilian Coates on the sickbay bed. Her skin was a pale white and her hair looked grimy and pulled back. The monitors over her head looked level, but Pardonnet didn’t know what that meant.

  Dr. McCoy stood near her right shoulder and Captain Kirk beside him. Clearly both men were very upset about her condition, but neither was allowing it to show much. Pardonnet knew how they felt. He cared about her as well. Probably not as much as Kirk, but a great deal.

  “No change, Governor,” McCoy said, glancing up at the monitor, then shaking his head. “She’s in a deep coma and at this point I think it’s better if we let it take its natural course. There’s not much else I can do, I’m afraid.”

  Captain Kirk only nodded.

  “So what happened?” Pardonnet asked. He’d gotten a quick report from Benny, the transport pilot, about what had happened to h
im, and how he had gone back to get the wounded. And Pardonnet knew the numbers, that counting Lilian, there were twenty-one survivors and fourteen dead. But no one had yet told him any details about what happened.

  Kirk glanced at Pardonnet, then nodded. “As I’m sure Benny told you, we found five of them in the transport.”

  “Afraid to take off,” Pardonnet said, laughing lightly. “Sometimes kids like Benny just don’t listen very well to important briefings.”

  “He listened just good enough to get himself in trouble,” McCoy said.

  “We got Benny airborne,” Kirk said, going on. “And then found ten more survivors in the rafters of the town hall. We had them in the shuttle when an earthquake caused by a nearby lightning strike and explosion, shook us up pretty good.”

  “It injured four of the colonists, two with broken bones,” McCoy said. “At that point we needed to get them out of the area and to a medical facility.”

  “Benny came back and got the four injured,” Kirk said, “while the other colonists volunteered to help us search for more survivors using oxygen masks.”

  Pardonnet watched as Kirk seemed to almost shudder, then compose himself again.

  “Let me tell you, Governor, walking around in that stuff is enough to make you have nightmares for years.”

  Pardonnet nodded. He had no idea and he hoped he would never find out. “I think the volunteers that stayed to help need bravery citations.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Kirk said. “Especially Benny. His actions were smart and above the call of duty.”

  “Understood,” Pardonnet said. Benny had been one of his best transport pilots since the first day they had arrived here. He was young and sometimes he was a little too reckless. And often he didn’t listen very well, but in situations like the one on the island, he could always be counted on to do the right thing.

  “Lilian,” Kirk said, looking down at her, “tried to make a run for us, we think from her home, but didn’t make it.”

  “And we didn’t see or hear her because of the transport taking off until she was already down and out of air,” McCoy said.

  Kirk didn’t say anything for a moment, but Pardonnet could tell he was really upset. Finally Kirk went on. “We got her to the shuttle, took the shuttle above the siliconic gel, and beamed her and Dr. McCoy here.”

  “Good thinking,” Pardonnet said.

  Kirk just frowned.

  “So where did you find the others?” Pardonnet asked.

  “Spock found two survivors in an air pocket in the old school building, and the other three survivors were the Leigh family, trapped in the rafters of their home. No one else made it. Two died when their roof collapsed on them.”

  Pardonnet nodded, then said. “I want to thank you for everyone.”

  Kirk just stared at Lilian.

  “Should I send a transport back in for the bodies?” Pardonnet asked, changing the subject a little.

  “As soon as the storm passes completely,” Kirk said. “It’s the lightning that is causing the explosions and earthquakes.”

  “Good,” Pardonnet said. He hated leaving the dead where they fell. It was always better to give them a decent burial and some closure for the families.

  “Captain Kirk to the bridge,” a woman’s voice said over the comm system, breaking the silence that had again dropped over the sickbay.

  Kirk stepped to the wall and, clearly annoyed, punched a button. “What is it?”

  “Captain,” Spock’s voice came back, “there has been some Kauld warship movement.”

  Pardonnet felt his stomach twist into an even tighter knot. What were the Kauld going to do now? Wasn’t the siliconic gel enough?

  “On my way,” Kirk said. With a quick glance at Lilian, he said to Pardonnet, “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Pardonnet said as Kirk strode from the room.

  Pardonnet turned and stared at Lilian, not knowing exactly what to do next. That wasn’t a normal feeling for him. He was usually decisive, but at the moment everything seemed out of his control.

  “I’ll keep you informed as well, Governor,” McCoy said, lightly touching his arm. “I think you’ve got sixty thousand colonists that need you more at the moment than Lilian does.”

  Pardonnet nodded. The doctor was right. There were a million things that had to be done in the new canyon city to get people to safety before another disaster hit.

  He turned and headed for the door.

  “Governor,” McCoy said, “make sure her son and cat are taken care of.”

  “Already done,” Pardonnet said. “They are with a good family. Please do send me regular reports on her condition.”

  “Regular reports,” McCoy agreed.

  “Thanks.”

  Pardonnet went out the sickbay door and headed for the transporter room, his mind already working on the next problem that needed to be solved.

  “Captain,” Spock said as Kirk stepped onto the bridge, “six Kauld warships have taken up a defensive position just outside the system.”

  “Defensive? On screen,” Kirk said, moving around and dropping into his chair. Uhura was at her normal position, Sulu was on the helm, and Spock was at the science station.

  The moment the six warships were visible, Kirk knew he hadn’t heard Spock wrong. They were clearly in a fairly standard defensive position, wing-shaped, with three on one side and three on the other, spread out over a wide distance just outside the system’s Oort belt.

  “Any idea as to what they’re doing?” Kirk asked. “Anything behind them they are protecting?”

  “No, sir,” Spock said. “They took up this position and have remained that way now for almost thirty minutes. There is no other Kauld movement in the area.”

  Kirk sat and stared at the warships on the screen. It was clear they were ready to protect something, but the question was, what? If he could figure that out, he might know the why as well.

  “Put a position map of the system on screen,” Kirk said, “showing Belle Terre and the Oort cloud, and anything between Belle Terre and those ships.”

  The map appeared a moment later, showing nothing but a few larger asteroids in the Oort belt.

  Kirk glanced around at Spock and smiled. “We were wondering earlier how the Kauld were observing the progress of the siliconic gel?”

  “We were, Captain,” Spock agreed.

  “Mr. Spock, how many asteroids large enough to contain an observation station are between those ships and Belle Terre?”

  “Seventeen,” Spock said.

  Kirk stared at the Kauld warships’ position, then smiled. “Using only the two center lead ships as a reference, how many asteroids large enough now?”

  “Three, Captain,” Spock said, looking up at Kirk from his station. “And two are spinning too fast to be of any use.”

  Kirk laughed. “I’d put my money on the remaining asteroid as our watcher’s station. Can you get it on screen?”

  The distant image of a large rock appeared.

  “I’m unable to detect any energy signatures, or other signs of life from this distance,” Spock said. “But they could be screened. There are, however, some clearly artificial formations on the far side.”

  “But why would the Kauld point out their observation post like this?” Sulu asked.

  “The Kauld are a warlike race, Mr. Sulu,” Spock said. “They would have little faith in the present attack using siliconic gel.”

  “But since the idea is seemingly working,” Kirk said, laughing, “they will suddenly feel the need to protect those involved with it with the military.”

  “So whoever came up with those nanoassemblers might just be on that rock?” Sulu asked, shaking his head.

  “Again,” Kirk said, staring at the rock, smiling, “I’d bet on it. And I’ll wager the Kauld in that rock are madder than hell at their own military.”

  Kirk turned to face Spock. “So tell me, how were they getting the information from Bell
e Terre without our detecting it over the last few months?”

  “Any standard form of communication we would have been noticed,” Spock said. “So I would logically assume the information was being transmitted during Gamma Night.”

  “How?” Kirk asked. Gamma Night had frustrated him so much since their arrival here, any thought of being able to communicate during that time seemed alien to him.

  “A tight laser beam, precisely aimed the moment before Gamma Night set in, would carry enough stored information,” Spock said.

  “The Kauld sure like lasers,” Sulu said, laughing.

  Kirk was thinking the same thing, which was why Spock’s suggestion made sense. A short, directional signal moments before Gamma Night would not likely be noticed. And nothing being sent during Gamma Night could be detected owing to the interference. Which meant that somewhere on Belle Terre there was a secret laser facility aimed at that asteroid.

  During the rebuilding after the Burn and the natural disasters, it would have been possible for the Kauld, or some agents of the Kauld, to come in and secretly build such a place. But the question was, where?

  Kirk turned to his science officer. “Spock, is there any area of Belle Terre that always, no matter when Gamma Night came, faces that asteroid?”

  “I will check,” Spock said, and ran his fingers over his console. A moment later the small northern area of Belle Terre appeared on his screen, and he transferred the image to the main viewer. It was mostly ice-covered and barren. “Owing to the angle of Belle Terre’s axis, the position of the asteroid is always in line with this area.”

  “How long until the next Gamma Night?” Kirk asked.

  “Forty-six minutes,” Spock said.

  “So how are we going to find that laser station on the surface?” Kirk asked. “And destroy it in the next forty-six minutes.”

  “I would suggest, Captain,” Spock said, “that we wait until it starts to align itself with the asteroid.”

  “Good thinking, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, nodding. Any laser station would have to be first loaded with information from around the planet, then aligned with the asteroid. “How long do you suppose we will have to find it and destroy it?”