even this much past their rendezvous, wouldn't mind at
all catching them in the crossfire except that he still
wanted to wait for a dawn attack. The sound was of a
single engine, not two. Was Easter fool enough
to approach so near with this much noise? Racher was still
puzzling over it when Gary Mitchell's
snowmobile crested the glacial ridge like a
motocross racer and roared straight for
Delphinus..
"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Racher risked
a shout over the mobile's roars.
There were mutters of disaffection, and he could feel his
people coiling dangerously tighter. But curiosity
conquered tension as the unfamiliar vehicle
fishtailed to a halt in front of the great grey
conning tower and a figure stepped out. Gary
Mitchell took off his goggles and hailed the
twosome on the tower.
"Evening!" he called up pleasantly enough. His
voice was easy on the cold air. "Looking for a
fellow name of Jim Kirk. Any idea how I can
reach him?"
Yoshi had heard the snowmobile too, and gone
to fetch Jason Nyere.
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
"Who wants to know?" Jason had ordered
everyone off the tower without a word.
Weaponless, groggy with sleep, and missing his
boots, he was in charge nevertheless.
"A friend," Mitchell replied easily, though
some- thing he thought he'd glimpsed in the dark as he
shot over the ridge, in conjunction with his strange
encounter on the way in, was beginning to coalesce in
an uneasy equation in his head. "He'll know me
when he sees me, Captain Nyere."
Thank God he recognised the voice from
Kelso's wire taps, Mitchell thought.
Something was out there in the dark behind him; he had
no time for formalities.
The mention of his name in conjunction with Kirk's
decided Nyere to trust this apparition out of the night,
for the moment. Slowly he began lowering the gangplank
to the stranger. Mitchell danced in the snow like a
boxer.
"Captain, I appreciate your need for
caution, but aside from the fact that Pm freezing out
here, there's something I think you should know about hidden just
over that rise there his
No one knew who fired first, whether it was one of
Racher's dozen made crazy with waiting, or
Racher himself, to cover the incredible blunder of leaving the
snowmobiles plainly visible against the snow. Racher
did not make blunders. Someone began to fire; all
hell brolly loose.
Mitchell dived for cover between ship and
snowmobile, wondered as he watched tracers
kicking up spurts of ice in search of him whether the
mobile's thin aluminum construction offered any
protection at all, wondered if he dared chance a
leap to the half-lowered gangplank or if that would
only make it easier for them to pick him off.
He realised he was probably dead. Nyere would
assume he'd been sent to decoy the
ambush and leave him to get chewed up in the
crossfire. Mitchell bur
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
rowed into the snow with his hands clasped over his head and
tried to remember how to pray.
Jason Nyere had ducked down from the
conning tower at the first burst, sealed it behind him,
and lowered the louvers over the ports while he
activated the Red Alert.
"Get below!" he bellowed, grabbing Sorahl's
arm, shoving Yoshi and Tatya toward the stairs.
"Find T'Lera and the doctor and seal yourselves off in
the infirmary until you hear from me personally.
Move!"
He was breaking out hand weapons and
scanning the Byrd Complex with infrared when
Melody and Kirk barreled more.
"Kirk, I want to talk to you!" Jason
tossed an automatic at Sawyer, who caught it
one-handed.
"What the hell, Captain?" She was about in the
mood to blow somebody's head off.
"I don't know yet!" Jason huffed. "Mr.
Kirk here's going to tell me. Whoever they
are, they're holed up in the buildings with some heavy
hardware." He briefed her as rounds from the
terrorists' weapons rattled off Delphinus's
thick hide like so many dried peas, shoved a string of
sonic grenades and a helmet at her. "Get up
there and keep "em busy. I'll have a head count for
you in a minute. Don't lose yours!"
"Sub!" Melody bolted up the stairs to the
gunnery slit halfway up the tower; visibility
was for spit, but she'd have to be damn careless to get
hit from there. "What about the guy under the mobile?"
"Cover him until we find out whose side he's
on!" Jason shouted back. "Kirk his
"Captain," Jim Kirk seized the moment,
"I've had weapons training. I can help."
Nyere narrowed his eyes at him. "I'll just bet
you can. The question is, whom?" Bursts from Melody's
automatic punctuated their sentences; the stench of
overheated lubricant permeated the bridge. "You
want
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
to explain to me how a guy in a snowmobile
slips through the security to get here, asks for you
by name, and before I can lower the drawbridge
I find myself fighting World War IV?"
"Gary . . ." Kirk said with a sick feeling.
It had to be. No one else would be so reckless.
"I don't know anything about who's shooting out there,
Captain, but the man in the snowmobile is a friend.
You can trust him as much as you can trust me. Just let
me get him out of there and his
"As much as I can trust you!" Nyere exploded;
he was charging a laser rifle, stringing sonic
grenades around his neck as they talked. "Where the
hell are my boots? Trust him like I can trust a
self-proclaimed pacifist who's suddenly a
weapons expert? Trust him when he's tailed by who
knows how many crazies attacking on God knows
what premise an Aeroationav vessel which, if I
could get clear of this ice could was He began
to wheeze, breathless, needing breath for more than argument.
"Kirk, I don't trust you, and if we live through
this, the first thing I'm going to do is ?"'
"You've got to believe me, Captain,
Mitchell has nothing to do with this attack!" Kirk
cut across him. HE had no idea how Elizabeth
Dehner managed to be beside him in the thick of
things, but he gripped her hand, tried to explain.
"Gary it has to be! I have to get him out of
there his
"Cap Jim!" Dehner's voice was shrill,
her pupils dilated with fear, a fear of more than
terrorists. "The Prime Directive. You can't!
If you kill anyone his
"I have to!" Kirk shouted, then got control of
himself. "Captain, you've got to his
"Doctor, I ordered you to stay below!" Jason
rumbled, leading her toward the stairs. He had
ov
erheard, not that he understood. Prime
Directive? What the hell . . .?
Dehner gave Kirk one last backward glance.
"Jim was 344
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
"All right, doctor!" he said tightly. "As you
were!" The military parlance suited Kirk,
Jason saw. He was going to take a chance. He
shoved a
limited-range laser rifle into Kirk's hands.
"Go give Sawyer some backup."
But halfway up the stairs with weapon in hand,
Kirk realized Dehner was right. He couldn't. Not
even for Gary. But he had to do something.
He plunged up the stairs and threw himself in beside
Melody at the gunnery slit; Sawyer
never took her eyes off her gunsight. She was
single-handedly holding the line, keeping whoever they
were inside the outbuildings with steady bursts of fire,
but for how long? From his limited perspective,
Kirk could see the buildings of the complex, their
shattered windows spitting varieties of death, and the
roof of the snowmobile, but no Gary.
"Thought a ship this size would be equipped with more
than hand weapons," he remarked, realising the one
he held was of such antique design he
probably wouldn't be much use with it if he could
figure out how to fire it.
"Brilliant deduction, cream puff!"
Melody spat between rounds. "We could take out a
whole city, except the heavy artillery's under the
ice, and we can't move this hulk under these conditions
without a full crew. If it were up to me, we'd
seal off and wait for them to run out of spitballs, but
captain seems to think your friend's worth saving."
She stood up and used her backhand to lob a
sonic grenade damn near inside the nearest
building to keep the crazies busy while she
reloaded. When the shock waves subsided, Kirk
tried to get her attention.
"Is there a way out of here besides
topside?"
"Auxiliary hatch 'round back of the radio
room. Puts the tower between you and them." Melody
slid a full clip home before it dawned on her
what he was suggesting. "Are you crazy?"
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
"If I can get Gary in, you can seal off,"
Kirk said hurriedly. "If I can't, you're rid
of both of us and you can seal off anyway. Give me
your grenades."
"And have you slam-dunk one in on me before you go
join the opposition! Like hell!"
"Melody," Kirk said patiently, the laser
rifle easier in his hands than it ought to be. If he
only had a hand-phaser. "Right now I could
vaporise the top of your head and the conning tower
simultaneously. Will one of you for God's sake
trust me enough his
"Captain sub!" Melody shouted past him,
fired another round, waited for Nyere to respond.
"I read ten to twelve of them, assorted
light-to-medium armament. And the cream puff
wants to go play in the snow!"
"Jesus!" Nyere breathed. He would have
been up there with her, but he was still on the infrared
trying to get a fix on each terrorist, and he was
anticipating trouble from below. Sure enough, T'Lera
was there.
"Captain Nyere."
Her voice seemed to strike him like a blow, and
even he for once cringed from the fire in those eyes.
She had disregarded Yoshi's instructions about
repairing to the infirmary for safety, had for that
matter disregarded Yoshi, deflecting him and all
things human until she did what she must. She was
in full command mode now, formidable. Sorahl
followed her without word, as if to the gates of hell,
Jason thought, if Vulcans had sum scribed
to such things.
"Dear God," Nyere breathed, seeing her.
"You're the last thing I need!"
"Captain." T'Lera had been briefed by her
son, held out her hands in a gesture of surrender.
"If it is us they want . . ."
Jason groaned. "Don't you understand? This is
my ship! I'm not in the habit of tossing lambs
to the slaughter, and until I know who and what I'm
combatting, you are in my ways" His hands too made
a gesture
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
of surrender. "For the love of God, T'Lera."
He had never addressed her by name before.
"Please!"
It cost her much, but T'Lera acquiesced. It
was not given to her to dictate to another's command, even
if lives were lost. She nodded once and was gone,
Sorahl with her.
Now all Jason Nyere had to contend with, aside
from a dozen terrorists, was this enigma named Kirk.
A ship's captain's greatest skill lay in
split-second gut-instinct decisiveness, in any
century. Kirk recognized the struggle Nyere
fought with himself and for once kept his mouth shut.
Nyere's hand was on the string of grenades around his own
neck, when
"Pete's sake!" Melody shrieked, hurling
herself backward and halfway down the stairs as a
wave of flame shot through the gunnery slit,
dissipating in a greasy-stinking fireball that would have
fried her in an instant if not for her tennis
player's reflexes. "They've got a flamert"
Twenty-first-century flame-throwers, Kirk
remembered vaguely, having heard Sulu
raving about them once, were napalm-fed,
laser-powered, and had a range of over a hundred
yards. Hardly kid stuff, even by his century's
standards. He felt Nyere thrust the grenades
into his hands.
"We can't hold up long under one of those," the
captain breathed. "Leave the slit open and they'll
cook us one by one. Close it and they'll fine-tune
the thing and slice us open like a tin can. You've got
three minutes to get your friend. I'll lower the
gangplank in two. When you see the tower light go
on, move."
Kirk gripped his arm briefly, warriors"
gesture of gratitude too ancient
to eradicate, and moved.
He hadn't bothered with outdoor clothing, wouldn't
have wanted the encumbrance of it, gave no thought to the
incredible cold until he had to pry his hands loose
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
from the ladder rungs as he let himself down the far
side of the tower and flung himself onto the ice. He
half ran, half slid until he reached the little
of the prow that stuck up through the ice, his last bit of
cover. Another wave of flame shot out of
Bvrd toward the tower illuming a scene out of
somebody's hell before plunging it back into darkness.
In that instant Kirk spotted Mitchell facedown
in the snow and prayed he was only covering.
Something exploded, knocking Kirk sideways
off his feet. Melody was throwing grenades again,
covering him. This one sent the flame-thrower back
into hiding and sent Kirk into motion. He leaped,
rolled, scuttled forward on hands
and knees,
crawled on his belly like a reptile, ran the last
few yards zigzag around a burst of automatic
fire that Melody quelled with yet another grenade
as Kirk dived behind the snowmobile and smack on
top of Mitchell.
"Gary, it's me!" he screamed above the
racket, shaking Mitchell to keep him from
reflexively ripping his head off. Recognition
brought wild laughter and a great deal of mutual
back
pounding.
"Are you all right?"
"Sure, kid!" came the answer, but
Mitchell's voice was ragged, his lips trembling
from more than cold.
Kirk saw the tower light strobe on and
sweep across the battered facades of the outbuildings,
sending the terrorists scattering back from the windows out
of range. The gangplank started down. Kirk
shoved Mitchell toward it.
"Go! I'll cover for you!"
He thought he remembered what to do with an
old-style sonic grenade; he was about to find out.
He allowed himself to watch Mitchell leap for the
gangplank and scramble upward to the hatch, then
slipped two grenades off the string, flipped the
safeties and sent them rolling in opposite
directions down the alley between the complex and the ship as
far as he could 348
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
throw. Let them figure out that strategy, he
thought, head down to weather the synchronised blasts.
The tower light swung over his head again. Mitchell
was safe inside. Kirk ran for it.
In the twisted synapses of Racher's mind, it was
all Easter's fault.
He and his dozen had had great fun at the expense
of the monosyllabic Provo and his traveling
circus with its cumbersome killing toys rocket
launchers and vaporizers and a neutron cannon so
unwieldy it took two people to fire it
toys so powerful they could not be used in
close-quarters hand-to-hand without destroying
attacker along with victims. Cowards' toys,
Racher had called them, wishing he had them now.
If all had gone as planned, Racher thought,
spitting fire with his flame-thrower, they'd have had no
need for such awkward hardware, would already be inside
carving their way inch by bloody inch to victory. Now
only the flame-thrower stood between them and total
rout. The heavy toys were with Easter, wherever the
bloody hell Easter was, and there was no way
to breach the ship.
"Pointless!" one of Racher's lieutenants
Strangers from the Sky Page 39