“Rescue us!” shouted the man. He cut his engine. “Take us with you!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” growled McCoy. “More rescuers will be coming with food and supplies, so be patient. Do you have badly injured among you?”
“A few,” answered the man in the boat.
McCoy held his breath and dropped lower. With his jets spraying water off the top of the waves, he tossed a bundle of locator badges into the open boat. When he saw his toss was good, he shot back up to safer heights.
He shouted down, “I’m a medic, so do what I say. Put those badges on people who are in critical condition, near death. It’s dangerous to transport with these ion storms, so we’re only transporting the criticals. If you have communicators, you can contact a hospital ship orbiting us—the Nightingale.”
The man in the boat nodded. “Yes, yes! We have been in contact with them. Thank you!” He pointed to the spot inland where Spock and Lisa had landed. “Tell your friends to be careful in the pneumotubes.”
“What are pneumotubes?”
“Our transit system. I’m sure there are people trapped down there, but we had no way to get them out.”
“Thanks for the warning.” McCoy waved, and the man gunned his engine and roared off into the choppy purple sea. He swung around and headed toward land in search of his comrades. He didn’t want to land, but maybe they had better land and conserve fuel, or they might be trapped out there.
Spock and Lisa had found a fairly level place to set down, on a metal plate in the middle of a sandy street. The fountain was nearby. McCoy dropped down and tried to land on the plate, but he missed by two meters and landed in the sand—up to his waist!
McCoy flailed about in the wet, gooey sand, and he sunk up to his chest! He had never been in quicksand, but it couldn’t be much worse than this. His jetpack pulled him off balance, and he sunk up to his chin. He was going to drown!
“On your back!” shouted Lisa. “Float!”
Float! He had two jets strapped to his back—he couldn’t float. The quicksand flowed over his ears and up to his nose. He started holding his breath, going down….
Suddenly a piece of rope slapped him in the face, and he reached desperately and grabbed it. The rope started to slip through his grimy fingers as Spock pulled on his end. With a surge of fear, McCoy gripped it, and the Vulcan yanked him out of the sand.
McCoy held on as he skidded mouth-first through the muck to the metal plate, which, he realized, was the top of a building. They lifted him out and set him on his stomach, and he coughed out sand and water for several moments.
“Liquefaction,” explained Spock. “We must find a way to stop these aftershocks.”
“No kidding,” croaked McCoy. “Thanks for pulling me out of there.” He staggered to his feet.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Lisa.
“No, I’d rather be sitting at home in a bathtub, my stomach full of turkey,” growled McCoy. “New Year’s Eve is only two days away. I wonder if we’ll live to see it.”
Spock totally ignored him and aimed his tricorder in the direction of the fountain. “The life signs are this way.”
Warily, McCoy followed Spock, while Lisa moved behind him. He could tell she was keeping an eye on him, and he appreciated the protection. McCoy was still a little shaky from his brush with death. They padded carefully along solid materials such as cement, rock, and metal.
Walking on top of a wall reminded McCoy of childhood games when he walked the curb and tried not to fall. Only this time falling was dangerous. He kept his hand on his starter switch, ready to zoom into the sky rather than fall into the deadly sand.
As he got closer to the huge fountain, he saw that it wasn’t really a fountain. It looked like something from a water park—a ring of circular slides pointed downward into a hole in the ground. There was a lip on each slide for easy entry, and these lips made the slides look like petals on a giant flower.
“They’re called pneumotubes,” said McCoy.
Spock nodded. “Individual public transportation. Most commendable.” He studied his tricorder. “I detect fourteen life signs approximately ninety meters below us.”
“Are you sure they’re alive?” asked Lisa.
The Vulcan stepped toward the pneumotube entrance. “They are alive, but they are trapped in tubes running through the ocean.”
“Can you get a fix for the transporter?” asked McCoy.
“Not from here. Actually it is to their advantage to be trapped under water, as the shifting land would have crushed the tubes. We must act quickly.”
Spock picked up a shiny pad from the ground. It was about the size of a beach towel, and McCoy saw that the plaza was littered with them.
“I believe that a rider is supposed to recline on this pad,” said Spock. “Then he is drawn through the tubes via manipulation of air pressure. One might attain considerable speed. However, we cannot use them under the circumstances.” The Vulcan started toward the closest pneumotube.
“Spock!” called McCoy, “you’re not going down there, are you?”
The Vulcan tied one end of his rope to the petal portion of the tube. “To take an accurate reading, I have no choice but to get closer. The descent will be slow, as the pneumatic equipment is not working.”
“What about flooding?” asked McCoy.
“At the first sign of danger, we’ll come back up,” said Lisa. “We’ve got to check on them.”
“Hang on.” McCoy opened his communicator and reported, “Gamma team to Nightingale.”
“Go ahead, Gamma, this is Chief Henshaw.”
“We have distributed locator badges to the people in the boats off Sunshine Hamlet. They will be calling you to transport their critical cases.”
“That’s all we’re transporting, critical cases,” answered the transporter chief.
McCoy glanced at the determined Vulcan and the equally determined woman. “We are going down into an underground transportation system. Can you track my signal in case we need to transport quickly?”
“Not with your locator badge,” said the chief. “But if you keep your communicator with you, I can track your coordinates.”
“Thank you. Gamma out.”
Spock climbed upon the petal, dropped the rope down the pneumotube, and turned on a light on his belt.Within seconds he vanished into the darkness. McCoy peered down and could see the bobbing light for a few meters, then it vanished, too. Lisa slipped in after Spock, and the tube swallowed her as well.
McCoy took a deep breath and cursed James T. Kirk for landing him in this mess. He climbed upon the petal and found it grimy and dirty. As he edged himself down the slide, he realized that it would be slow going without the pneumatics and slick pads.
Even with a light on his belt, it was dark, dirty, and confining in the broken tunnel. He felt as if he was crawling into an old tomb.
McCoy didn’t know how far they had sunk into the pit. It felt like a hundred meters, but maybe it was only ten. Finally he heard Spock’s voice echoing up through the darkness. “I have stopped at an obstruction. I will attempt to dislodge it with a forcefield brace.”
“Be careful,” said McCoy. But the words had no sooner left his mouth than the pneumotube began to shake. McCoy rattled around inside the tube, and chunks of dirt tumbled down upon his head.
“Aftershock!” he shouted. After he said the dreaded word, the shaking abruptly stopped.
“It wasn’t an aftershock,” said Lisa. “It was Spock setting off the forcefield brace.”
“Wow, it felt just like an aftershock!”
After a few moments, Spock’s voice came up from below. “That is a brilliant observation, McCoy.”
The medic blinked in surprise. “Did you get hit in the head, Spock?”
“No. I am taking a tricorder reading, and there is a miniature ion storm occurring inside this tube.”
McCoy rubbed dirt out of his eyes. “Spock, what is this thing you have for ion storms?
What about the survivors? Can we get to them?”
“We cannot rescue them, because this tube is still blocked. But I have pinpointed their coordinates, and we could transport them when it is safe. We must return to the ship immediately and talk to Captain Raelius.”
“Captain Raelius!” snapped McCoy. “Let’s just do our job and leave the captain alone.”
“We may be able to stop the aftershocks.”
“Stop the aftershocks? Are you kidding me?”
“Vulcans do not kid,” came the solemn reply. “Nor do we lie. We must return to the surface and transport immediately back to the Nightingale.”
McCoy growled, “Come on, we’re cadets, not engineers. Let somebody else figure out the aftershocks, and that’s an order.”
He heard Spock’s communicator snap open and beep. “As a cadet, I am still a civilian. If necessary, I will request to transport right now.”
“Don’t you dare, you green-skinned mannequin!”
“You two, stop fighting!” ordered Lisa. She looked up at McCoy, and he could see her dirty face in the beam of his light. “McCoy, you’re the boss, but if Spock knows something about these aftershocks, we ought to report it.”
“Let’s get back to the surface,” said McCoy, “and he can tell me first.”
Chapter 9
An hour later there was a break in the ion storms, and hundreds of people from Playamar were beamed to the Nightingale. They included people trapped in the pneumotubes, critical cases from the boats, plus McCoy, Spock, and Lisa.
The cadets found Captain Raelius in the shuttlebay, where she was still busy organizing the relief effort.
She scowled at them. “This had better be good, or I might accuse you of deserting your post.”
“Can we talk privately, Captain?” asked McCoy. “It’s sensitive information.”
The captain looked with a puzzled expression from McCoy to Lisa, then Spock. She saw that the young cadets were serious, and she nodded. After assigning a lieutenant to take over for her, she led them into a small briefing room.
“Talk quickly,” she said.
McCoy looked at Spock, and the Vulcan began, “We noticed that the aftershocks were always followed by ion storms.”
“We noticed that, too,” said Raelius. “Do you have a theory?”
“Yes,” said the Vulcan. “We were underground, and I used a forcefield brace to loosen some debris. It was Cadet McCoy who observed that the effect was very much like an aftershock. I took a reading and noticed that ion levels were higher. Increased ion activity is a known by-product of forcefields.”
Raelius frowned thoughtfully. “So you think the aftershocks are caused by forcefields. Who could be doing it, from where?”
“Unknown,” answered Spock. “However, I have studied the geology of Playamar, and there are extensive underground caverns. A powerful forcefield generator aimed at the crust could duplicate seismic waves. This would create the effect we are calling aftershocks.”
“For what purpose?” asked Raelius.
McCoy snapped his fingers. “To get the colonists off the planet! Spock, didn’t you tell me a neighboring race didn’t want this colony to be built here?”
Spock nodded. “The Danai. As members of the Federation, they would have access to a powerful forcefield generator.”
The captain pounded her fist on the table. “All right, I am pulling you three off the rescue detail to pursue this. But I’m shorthanded. It had better turn up something quickly.”
“We need the ship’s sensors,” said Spock, “to scan the caverns for life signs.”
“We’ve probably already done it.” Raelius opened up her communicator. “Captain Raelius to the bridge.”
A voice answered, “This is Commander Inzolar.”
“Commander, there are deep caverns on the planet. Have we done a scan to see if there are any life signs in those caverns?”
“One moment,” said Commander Inzolar. The moment was tense as McCoy gazed at Captain Raelius, wondering if this was a wild-goose chase.
“Captain,” said the voice from the bridge. “We have some distorted readings that might be life signs in the bottom level of the Gemming Cavern. No more than six beings. I can send you coordinates.”
“Very well,” said Raelius. “And send three armed Security officers to the shuttlebay.” She turned to McCoy.
“I can’t arm a bunch of cadets, but I can send a Security team with you. Is that all right?”
“We’ll be careful, sir,” vowed McCoy.
After reviewing the data from the Gemming Cavern, Captain Raelius decided that there were living beings down there. It was impossible to tell what species they were, or their exact location. There was plenty of space to transport down, because the caverns had huge cathedral-like chambers.
Captain Raelius cleared her throat. “We don’t want to cause an uproar about this theory until we’re sure. As far as everyone else is concerned, we’re sending a rescue party to check out these life signs. Because of conditions, you have an escort.”
Raelius glanced at the red-shirted Security detail of two men and one woman. Then she turned back to the cadets. “You are not to be heroes. Just report what you find. Are we sure it’s safe to be that far underground with the aftershocks?”
“It is safer than being on the surface, Captain,” answered Spock. “That level of the Gemming Caverns is in bedrock, so there is no danger of liquefaction.”
Captain Raelius turned to the security officers. “My team has two missions—to rescue people, and to investigate the aftershocks. Set your phasers to stun, but do what you must to protect them. I want everyone back in one piece, and quickly. We can’t spare anybody.”
“Yes, sir,” snapped Ensign Yermakov, the leader of the Security detail.
Raelius took a deep breath. “If we can stop the aftershocks, it would save a lot of lives. If there are more storms, we may not be able to beam you out of there right away. You may have to spend some time in those caverns.”
McCoy gulped. “How long?”
“Until we can beam you out. Maybe you can climb out, but I doubt it. Take emergency rations and water.”
“Yes, sir,” said McCoy, getting a frightened chill. He had already transported once today, and now he was going to transport through solid rock. All with ion storms that could scramble him for good. What fun.
Ten minutes later, after strapping on extra canteens and rations, McCoy stepped up on the transporter platform. Spock, Lisa, and the three officers in red were already waiting for him. Well, at least there were no jetpacks this time, he thought with relief.
He sure hoped that Spock was right—that it was safe to be underground during an aftershock. Whether they were natural or induced, the quakes were still a nightmare, especially in a dark place with no escape.
“I’ll be putting you down in Pharoah’s Chamber,” said the gray-haired transporter chief.
“Pharoah’s Chamber?” asked McCoy.
“That’s just the name. There’s plenty of room, and it’s close to the location of the survivors.”
McCoy nodded. “Go ahead.”
He screwed his eyes shut as a strange tingling overcame his senses. Was it more intense because they were transporting through rock, or did he just imagine that? The first change he noticed in his surroundings was the cool, dry air. Then he noticed his footing wasn’t very steady, and he stumbled off a pile of rocks.
McCoy dropped into a pile of dust that shot into his nostrils and made him sneeze.
“Quiet,” cautioned Spock.
McCoy sniffed. “You can’t stop a sneeze.”
“I can,” said the Vulcan.
The medic scowled and tried to accustom his eyes to the darkness. It was an abrupt change from the bright lights of the hospital ship. The others in his party were shining their lights around the vast cavern, and it looked like an old newsreel of an air raid at night.
The beams crisscrossed and revealed huge stalactites han
ging from the ceiling and stalagmites forming underneath them. They looked like the monstrous teeth of a dragon, as seen from inside the dragon’s mouth.
McCoy played his light across a gray stalactite. He expected to see it glistening and dripping. Instead it looked aged and dry, caked with the dust of millennia.
“Where’s the water?” asked Lisa. “Why isn’t it dripping?”
“These are dead caves,” answered Spock. “Also known as dry caves. The formation of the chambers, stalactites, and stalagmites happened millions of years ago. I estimate that these caves have been dry for eight hundred years.”
“Even with all that water on the surface?” asked McCoy.
“Down here,” answered Spock, “there is no source of water. However, it is not entirely safe.”
The Vulcan shined his light across the cave floor, which was littered with broken stalactites and stalagmites. Some of them were chunks taller than a man.
“The aftershocks have not caused liquefaction here,” said Spock “but they have caused many of these formations to crumble.”
“It’s a tragedy,” said Lisa angrily.
Ensign Yermakov snapped his tricorder shut. “I detect life-forms at less than four hundred meters. May I suggest we talk less and proceed with caution.”
“Be my guest, sir,” said McCoy, motioning the red-shirted trio forward.
In silence, they shuffled through a dark cathedral of gaping teeth and crumbled ruins. McCoy was content to follow the Security detail. He looked around, trying to imagine that an underground sea had once filled this chamber. Now it was dry, dusty, and silent, like an old library.
Pharoah’s Chamber must have been the size of a football field, because McCoy was winded by the time the passageway narrowed. After ten meters it became completely blocked, and they couldn’t get through. It took frantic searching with tricorders to locate a narrow slit that led to the next chamber.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #2: Aftershock Page 7