“I’ll be right there,” answered Dr. Whelan. “Thank you for coming. Please excuse the way our people acted. They have been put through a nightmare.”
“I can believe it,” said McCoy. “But I can’t believe nobody got here before us.”
“Oh, others came here to make reports,” said the doctor. “They just didn’t stay. You’ll see why.” The little man turned to an assistant and started issuing orders.
McCoy shivered in the big, cold house. He ushered his charges out the door, through the wrecked neighborhood, back to the shuttlecraft. Spock, Lisa, and the two-man crew had already dispensed all of the food and were working on the supplies. The mob wasn’t unruly anymore, and there was orderly cooperation.
McCoy waved to his comrades. “Dr. Whelan is going to the shuttlecraft for medical supplies. Here are your eight passengers to take back.”
“Right this way,” said the tall Andorian. He made sure the hatch was open, and he personally guided each of the eight injured people into the shuttlecraft. Then he went in after them.
The Saurian turned to McCoy and held out a clawlike hand. The human gripped it warmly. “We’ve got to be going,” said the Saurian. “Take care of yourselves.”
“Tell Starfleet about all these people, and the ones on the boats!” McCoy waved his hands out to sea. “You might need to do an old-fashioned airlift for them.”
“We’ll tell them.” The pilot waved to Lisa and Spock, then he ducked into his shuttlecraft.
The three members of Disaster Relief pushed the crowd back to make room for the takeoff. They had barely cleared a path when the Mead zoomed off into the azure skies. Within seconds it was gone, and there was a frightened murmur in the crowd. It was as if all their hope had gone with the shuttlecraft.
Lisa let out a sigh. “It’s just us now, and there are so many of them to help.”
“The transporters are working at the moment,” said McCoy. “We transported twenty-two criticals out.”
Spock nodded with approval. “We have fulfilled our first two objectives—we delivered supplies and evacuated the injured. We should try to find individuals who are trapped and need immediate help.”
McCoy nodded. “Okay, let’s ask around.”
Suddenly there came a low roar from the depths of Playamar, and the ground beneath McCoy’s feet began to pitch and roll. It bucked like a trampoline, and McCoy staggered toward the gaping chasm.
Somebody screamed, “Aftershock!”
Chapter 7
McCoy threw himself to the ground and tried to scramble away from the gorge. But the earth was pitching and rolling underneath him, and he couldn’t control his movements. He leg swung over the crevice, and the cement began to crumble underneath him!
Then a strong hand gripped his arm and dragged him back to level land. Before he could catch his breath, the shaking stopped. McCoy looked up and saw Spock lying on the ground beside him. The Vulcan slowly removed his hand from McCoy’s arm.
“Thanks,” breathed the medic.
“Gratitude is not required,” said Spock. Even the Vulcan sounded out of breath.
“Lisa!” called McCoy.
She was wrapped around a box of medical equipment. “I’m okay. Was that an aftershock? It felt like a foreshock.”
“That was an aftershock.” A muscular man with a bushy red beard strode toward them. “That’s why waiting to be rescued is so terrible for us. The aftershocks are constant, and we never feel safe. We can’t leave this spot, and those people on the boats can’t come back to land.”
Spock took his tricorder off his belt and started taking measurements.
“Any casualties?” asked McCoy.
“Unknown,” said Spock. “I am not scanning for casualties.”
“Well, what are you scanning for?”
“The cause of the aftershocks. They should not be happening.”
McCoy shook his head with frustration. “That’s not our job, Spock. Didn’t Captain Raelius tell us to just do our job?”
“Saving lives is our mission,” answered the Vulcan. “Until these aftershocks stop, our success will be limited.”
“He’s right,” said the man with the red beard. “There are a lot of places we can’t get to because of the aftershocks.”
“Okay,” said McCoy. “Is there anybody still trapped? Anybody you people couldn’t rescue?”
“Yes!” said the man. “There are two people trapped nearby in a house at the bottom of a fissure. We were there when we heard about your landing. We couldn’t get to them, but we heard a voice.”
McCoy looked around. Dr. Whelan had shown up and was taking charge of the medical supplies. Everything they had brought to the planet had been absorbed into the restless crowd, but it seemed like so little. What they really needed to do was get these people off the planet.
The wind picked up, blowing some dust into McCoy’s eyes.
“That is odd,” said Spock. “We are experiencing an ion storm.”
McCoy rubbed his eyes. “What’s odd about that? We were warned about the ion storms.”
“If the aftershocks and ion storms are this close together, there could be some connection.”
“Come on,” said McCoy, picking up a coil of rope. “Grab our equipment, and let’s get going. Lead on—what did you say your name is?”
“Berthold,” answered the big man. He motioned to three other locals to follow him, and they opened a path through the crowd. While McCoy and Lisa grabbed the backpacks, Spock hoisted the three jetpacks over his shoulder.
“You don’t need all three of those,” said McCoy. “I’m not wearing one.”
“Perhaps not,” said Spock. “But I will take all three.”
After five minutes, they were sliding on their rear ends down a slick mud bank. It was all McCoy could do to avoid the roots and rocks; it was pointless to worry about getting dirty. By the time he collapsed into a flue of mud at the bottom, he was totally covered.
Berthold pulled him out of the muck, and they both helped Lisa. Then came Spock, walking most of the way down. “We have left the bedrock,” he warned. “This area is subject to liquefaction.”
“Let’s cable ourselves together,” said McCoy. “Five-meter intervals.” Neither Lisa nor Spock argued with the order as they pulled their safety lines out. After adjusting the length, Lisa cabled to McCoy’s waist, while Spock cabled to hers.
Berthold was laughing. “Believe me, if the aftershocks want you, they will get you. Those won’t help.”
“We believe in teamwork,” said McCoy. He glanced at Lisa, and she gave him an encouraging smile.
The rescuers wound their way through a glade of trees, many of them broken and uprooted. They passed crushed houses and a playground under mud. Berthold and his people threw tree trunks over the most dangerous spots, so McCoy often found himself skittering across a muddy log. Birds shrieked as they flitted among the shattered trees.
Finally they came to a road and a roaring waterfall that pounded down from a bluff high overhead. The road was crumpled like an accordion, but one side of it had some intact cottages. There was a heavy mist in the air, which only added to the feeling of dampness and misery.
“Down there!” Berthold said. He pointed into the gorge where tons of water were plunging. “Careful, the waterfall wasn’t here two days ago.”
McCoy gazed up at the vertical river, marveling at the sheer force of it. He couldn’t imagine that it had suddenly appeared, but there it was, slicing through the land with a vengeance.
Spock was the first to get out his tricorder, and he walked perilously close to the edge of the gorge. Lisa and McCoy had to follow, because they were roped together. The medic began to wonder about the wisdom of that order.
“I detect life signs, two of them,” said the Vulcan.
McCoy got brave enough to step beside Spock and peer into the depths. Twenty meters below them, a tiny cottage rested on a ledge of mud and roots. The ground under the building had flattened
like a pancake, dropping it in one piece. It looked like a bird’s nest trembling in the wind.
“We must act quickly,” said Spock. “The ground on which we are standing could erode any moment.”
McCoy turned to Berthold. “Have you lowered lines down to them?”
“No, they are trapped under debris. They can’t get out of the house. We heard voices before, but not for a while.”
Everyone looked at McCoy, waiting for him to make a decision. No doubt Spock had an opinion, so McCoy knew that he had better get his orders out quickly. But what were his orders?
“We need to get down there,” he said. “But where can we attach a line in this mud?”
“That is a problem,” agreed Spock.
“Give me a jetpack,” said Lisa. She tossed off her backpack and some heavy items on her belt. Before McCoy realized that she was serious, Spock handed her a jetpack.
“Wait, you can’t,” he said.
“Yes, I can,” answered Lisa. She strapped the flying device to her back. “There’s plenty of room to land down there. Then it’s just a matter of getting into the house and sizing up the situation.”
“Under these conditions, it is unwise to be tied to each other.” Spock took his clasp off Lisa’s waist. Lisa removed her line from McCoy’s waist and gave him a smile. “I don’t think you want to come down there with me, do you, McCoy?”
“No, but somebody has got to go with you,” he said worriedly. He picked up a jetpack. “Let me see, the right hand is the stick, and the left hand is the throttle?”
“That is correct,” answered Spock. “However, I will accompany her. We have the jetpacks, but I need a rope for the victims.”
McCoy gave him the coil, and Spock handed one end to Berthold. “Would you secure that.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the local man. He and his crew took the thick line and dashed toward an outcropping of boulders.
McCoy opened his tricorder and took life-sign readings. Yes, the two victims were still alive. “Don’t be heroes,” he told Lisa and Spock. “Just slap those locator badges on them and get out of there. And keep in touch with me.”
Spock started the engines on his back and glanced in the direction of Berthold and his people. The big man waved from the rocks, and Spock shot off into the sky like a Roman candle. He hovered over the waterfall for a moment, looking like some giant bird in a prehistoric world.
Lisa quickly followed him into the dark blue sky. McCoy watched in amazement as the two humanoids began to descend into the chasm with noisy bursts from their thrusters. He already began to worry about how much fuel they were burning.
He peered anxiously over the lip of the gorge and watched tensely as Spock and Lisa dropped toward the roof of the cottage. The roof responded with uneasy groaning sounds, and part of it buckled!
McCoy caught his breath as he thought Spock would fall into the hole. But the Vulcan remained calm and dropped the rope through the hole in the roof. The brave pair remained tense for several seconds, ready to escape to the air if anything happened.
When nothing happened they turned off their jets and slid down the roof to the muddy ground. McCoy lost sight of them, and he nearly fell into the crevice trying to find them. Then he heard glass smashing, and he figured they were entering through a window. He took out his communicator.
What seemed like an eternity passed, and McCoy fought the temptation to contact them. He had plenty of time to fasten the jetpack to his back, although he hardly expected to use it. Finally his communicator chirped, and he snapped it open. “McCoy here.”
“We’re inside,” said Lisa, breathing hard. “There are two women. They’re both conscious, but one has a broken leg and possible internal injuries. Spock is moving the fallen beams and tying the rope to them.”
“What about transporting them?” asked McCoy.
“We checked. The Nightingale isn’t transporting after that last ion storm. It’s up to us. Don’t worry, we’ve already tied the rope to their arms, and Spock has them clear of the debris.”
Suddenly there came the sickening sound of wood splintering and cracking.
“Oh, no…” shouted Lisa.
“Lisa! Lisa!” shouted McCoy, but the communication was dead.
On his hands and knees, McCoy slid across the slippery mud to the lip of the chasm. He peered down, expecting the worst, and he saw it. The constant seepage of water had liquefied the soil, and the ledge was breaking apart! With awful groaning and cracking sounds, the cottage slipped toward the abyss.
“No!” cried McCoy, but he was powerless to save his friends trapped inside.
Chapter 8
McCoy was about to close his eyes, unable to watch Lisa, Spock, and the survivors die. Suddenly an explosion ripped the roof off the cottage and sent debris flying toward him. He covered his head but managed to keep watching through a crack in his fingers.
As the cottage slid toward the churning waterfall, Lisa and Spock burst through the hole in the roof. Their jetpacks blasted smoke, but they were trying to carry the injured victims at the same time. The extra weight made their flight erratic.
Their feet had barely cleared the roof when the house jerked like a crashing wave and plummeted into the waterfall. In a second, it was smashed into driftwood. The flyers couldn’t keep aloft for more than a few seconds with their precious cargo, and they dropped to the crumbling ledge.
McCoy jumped to his feet and waved at Berthold and his crew. “Start pulling them up! Slowly!”
The locals dug in and began pulling on the rope. McCoy leaned over the edge and saw the survivors being dragged through the mud. He wished there was a better way to get them out, but at least they were alive.
Lisa and Spock flew out of the gorge and landed on the rim near McCoy. Lisa was beaming with a combination of fear, excitement, and pride. Spock looked slightly winded but as calm as if he did this kind of thing every day.
McCoy felt like bawling them out for taking risks. Instead he said, “I don’t think you’re supposed to use the forcefield braces like that.”
Lisa smiled and promptly grabbed the rope. They all began to haul on the rope, easing the injured women up the slope. Spock leaned over the edge and lifted them the last few meters.
It was a mother and a daughter, and they appeared to be more in shock than anything else. McCoy ran a scan for internal injuries. When he found none, he set the daughter’s broken leg with a splint and gave the mother a hypo for shock.
The locals appeared with stretchers, and they took charge of the injured women. They thanked the rescuers profusely, but they were anxious to get back to the safety of the bedrock. McCoy couldn’t blame them.
He looked around at the cockeyed planet that had been a paradise only a few days ago. There was so much to be done in this one town that it was overwhelming.
Most of the town was impassable, a swamp—but they had to keep looking for survivors. How could they even get around in this deadly quagmire?
The answer was strapped to McCoy’s back, but he didn’t want to think about it. “Shall we walk down the road a ways?”
Spock turned to look at the crinkled road, which was slashed with streams and fissures. “Walking is most illogical.”
Lisa put McCoy’s hands on his jetpack controls. “Come on, it’s really quite simple. The control stick is here, and the throttle is there. I saw you doing this in training.”
“Just one flight,” protested McCoy. “That was all I had time for. You guys go along. I’ll walk.”
“Here,” she said, “you start it like this.” She pushed the starter button, and the tiny jet engines roared to life.
“I don’t want to!” yelled McCoy.
Before he could turn off the engines, the ground moved and knocked him off balance. Aftershock! he thought in panic. As he staggered down the slippery hill toward the fissure, his hand cranked the throttle on the jetpack. He shot twenty meters into the air, leaving his stomach and most of his senses down below.
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But McCoy’s reflexes were good, and he didn’t panic. He knew there was nothing but safety straight up, so he kept an even keel as he let up on the throttle. With the jets roaring in his ears, he slowed to a hover. It was safe in the air over Playamar, he told himself, with most of the trees and buildings already knocked down.
McCoy looked down to see the aftershock still going on. As the ground shimmied and shook, water flowed in and turned it into mush. Trees and buildings tumbled over, tilted, or cracked apart in slow-motion devastation.
By the time Lisa and Spock joined him in the air, the aftershock was over. There was nothing left but the shrieking of frightened birds and the thud of walls collapsing further.
Spock put his jetpack on autopilot and whipped open his tricorder. In a few seconds, he had seen all he needed. “Another ion storm,” he reported.
“What about survivors?” asked McCoy. It was strange having a conversation in midair, but it was safer than being on the ground.
Spock nodded in the direction of the marina, the hardest hit area of Sunshine Hamlet. The latest aftershock had turned it into a giant pool of quivering sand. “I am picking up life signs in that direction,” said the Vulcan.
McCoy gulped and looked up. “You lead, we’ll follow.”
They zoomed over the devastated city, gazing at a panorama of ruin. From the air, Sunshine Hamlet looked like a sand castle that had been struck by a wave—dirty, misshapen, crumbling.
McCoy would have feared that everyone was dead were it not for the hundreds of boats bobbing offshore, plus the people clinging to the bedrock. He sighed and concentrated on their destination.
There was little left of the marina except for sunken boats, tumbled buildings, and sand. Sand covered everything. Ahead of him, Spock swerved toward what looked like a fountain, and Lisa followed him without hesitation.
Was he going to land? wondered McCoy. The medic had been worried about taking to the air—now he was worried about landing.
He looked toward the ocean and saw a small motorboat steaming his way. The people on the flotilla of boats seemed to be watching the motorboat, as if it was an envoy from the boat people to the flying people. McCoy dipped cautiously toward the water, only getting low enough to hear what the pilot was yelling.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #2: Aftershock Page 6