Together, cadet and kidnapper hit the rail and slipped to the floor. Fortunately, Kirk landed on top of his opponent, a situation that enabled him to use his weight to good advantage.
Out of the corner of his eye, the lieutenant saw Mitchell tackle the other kidnapper, but he didn’t have the luxury of waiting to see how their fight came out. He was too busy taking part in his own.
The Heiren Kirk faced was strong, like most of his species, but the lieutenant was quicker. Keeping his left hand clamped tightly over the kidnapper’s mouth, he warded off a blow from a heavy bronze fist with his right. Then he pulled back and drove the heel of his hand into the bridge of the Heiren’s nose.
It stunned the dissident, leaving him defenseless. Kirk’s second blow knocked the Heiren unconscious altogether.
Springing to his feet, the lieutenant got ready to [203] assist Mitchell. But it seemed the underclassman had the situation well in hand. His target was laid out flat on the floor, his eyes closed and a trickle of green blood running from each nostril.
“Good work,” Kirk breathed.
“Tell me about it,” came the less-than-modest reply. “So what do we do now?” Mitchell asked.
The lieutenant didn’t know where the telepath was being held, or how many of the kidnappers and their comrades were present in the warehouse. But if he and Mitchell had to conduct their search in their uniforms, he didn’t think they would get very far.
Then he glanced at the unconscious Heiren, with their long, loose-fitting robes and their generous hoods. With such clothing to conceal their appearances, Kirk and his companion might make their way through the building without fear of being discovered. That is, if their enemies didn’t look at them too closely.
“So?” the plebe prodded.
In response to Mitchell’s question, the upperclassman pointed to the two unconscious kidnappers. Then he jerked a thumb in the direction of the room they’d just come from.
“Quickly,” he added.
The plebe looked at him for a moment. Then understanding dawned and he smiled.
Without any further ado, they dragged their victims into the room with the dust and the boxes. Pulling off the Heiren’s robes and hoods, the cadets put them on over their uniforms.
[204] “Spiffy,” said Mitchell, patting down his new garb. “Of course, they could fit a little better___”
“We’ll get you a tailor later,” the lieutenant replied. “After we get the telepath out of here.”
Suddenly, the plebe’s expression changed. He plumbed the bottom of a pocket he had found in his robe. Then he took something out and held it where Kirk could see it.
It was small and strangely shaped, but there was no question as to its function. The device was a directed-energy weapon—the sort of technology that was forbidden in Heir’at.
“Obviously,” said Mitchell, tilting his head in the direction of his victim, “my friend the kidnapper doesn’t have the same regard for tradition that we do.”
The lieutenant searched his own pockets—and found the same kind of device in one of them. “I’d say he’s not the only one,” he observed, inspecting the thing as he turned it over in his hand.
It put an entirely different spin on the situation. The cadets were a good deal more dangerous with directed-energy weapons at their disposal. But then, so were the dissidents.
And there were a lot more of them.
Kirk set his device on stun. It was Starfleet policy. Reluctantly, Mitchell did the same.
“Come on,” said the lieutenant.
“Right with you,” said his companion.
And they began their search for the telepath.
* * *
[205] Mitchell followed Kirk down the stairs. His hand was stuffed into his robe pocket so he could keep his weapon concealed, but his heart was pumping so hard it seemed impossible the kidnappers wouldn’t hear it.
Somewhere down below, on one of the warehouse’s lower floors, the cadets would soon be risking their lives to rescue a being they had never met, from what might turn out to be an army of alien fanatics.
They might fail. Worse, they might die. But Mitchell couldn’t bring himself to ponder any of that. All he could think about at the moment was how much fun he was having.
He had joined Starfleet to touch the stars, to go where no man had gone before. But this trail of intrigue and adventure ... this leaping from rooftops and scaling walls ... it stirred him as he had never imagined anything could, all the way to the depths of his soul.
As for Kirk ... who knew? The man still seemed as freezer-unit serious as ever. But he was also starting to take some serious chances ... and just a little while ago, he had actually attempted a joke. Mitchell was finding it easier and easier to hold out hope for him.
Not that they would ever become friends again—not after the lieutenant’s determined announcement to the contrary. But if the plebe could make Kirk loosen up some more, if he could unearth a person from that stack of textbook tapes, that would be satisfaction enough.
Suddenly, the lieutenant held his hand up—a signal that he had seen something or someone down [206] below. Peering past the handrail, Mitchell saw an open door—and a flash of colorful robes beyond it.
There was conversation—not the jesting of the two whose clothes they had taken, but something of a more sober nature. As Mitchell tried to listen in, he could hear another voice.
But he didn’t hear it with his ears, as he had heard the others. This voice was in his head.
It didn’t speak in words, either. It spoke in sentiments, attitudes, emotions. Or maybe it just seemed that way, he thought, because that was all he could understand of it.
Still, one thing seemed absolutely certain to him, so certain he would have bet his life on it. The telepath they had come to rescue was in the room with the open door.
Excited about the discovery, the underclassman tapped Kirk on the shoulder. After all, now that the telepath had contacted them, they had to agree on a way to get the poor guy out of there.
But when the lieutenant turned around in response, his expression wasn’t anything like what Mitchell had expected. Kirk seemed surprised, expectant—as if he were waiting for the underclassman to give him some urgent new piece of tactical data.
As if he hadn’t heard the telepath’s summons at all.
Mitchell pointed to his temple. But Kirk shook his head, a crease forming at the bridge of his nose. Obviously, he didn’t have the slightest idea what Mitchell was referring to.
Interesting, the plebe thought. Whatever the tele-path is transmitting, I’m the only one receiving it.
[207] He had always suspected that his flashes of insight were just the tip of the iceberg ... that his brain was somehow more sensitive to telepathic stimuli than the average human’s. Here, it seemed, was some evidence to back the up.
Unfortunately, the underclassman would have to explore the question another time. At that moment, his first concern had to be his mission.
Kirk shrugged, no doubt wondering why Mitchell had tapped him. The plebe frowned and directed his companion to the open door. Then he mouthed the words “He’s in there. The te-le-path.”
The lieutenant turned and regarded his fellow cadet. For a second or two, he seemed to ponder how Mitchell might know such a thing. Finally, he just appeared to accept it.
“What do we do?” asked the underclassman, his voice barely a whisper. After all, the telepath hadn’t given him any instructions.
The lieutenant frowned, peered past the handrail at what else he could see of the building’s second floor, and finally turned back to his colleague. “We go in blasting,” he mouthed back.
And that’s what they did.
The cadets walked down the rest of the stairs, careful to keep their weapons in their pockets—so if any of the other dissidents caught sight of them, they wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong. Then they entered the room as casually as they could—and used the fraction of a second their dis
guises bought them to assess the situation.
[208] Mitchell saw five figures.
Four were standing, their heads turning to see who had come in. All of them had weapons in their hands identical to the ones the cadets had “borrowed,” though they held the devices cavalierly, almost carelessly. Clearly, they weren’t expecting to have to use them anytime soon.
The fifth figure was seated, his arms and legs bound to a chair with leather thongs. He was a tall, lean Heiren of middle age, wearing a simple white robe with dark blue trim, and he didn’t appear the least bit surprised by the humans’ appearance. In fact, it seemed to Mitchell that he had been waiting for them.
One of the kidnappers began to speak—perhaps to challenge the newcomers’ presence there. But before he could get his question out, Kirk drew his weapon and blasted the Heiren with a stream of dark blue energy. At the same time, Mitchell took out one of the kidnapper’s comrades.
Before the unconscious bodies of their adversaries could skid into the wall behind them, the cadets took aim at the two remaining dissidents in the room. Unfortunately, the Heiren had raised their weapons by then and were taking aim as well.
Four sapphire-colored beams sliced through the air. Two missed, though one of them came close enough to Mitchell’s ribs to burn a hole in his robes. The other two beams found their targets, knocking the kidnappers senseless.
It all took place in the space of a second. By the time the plebe’s heart started beating again, it was over.
[209] The combat had taken place quickly and quietly, with a minimum of trouble, exactly the way he and Kirk had hoped it would. And as the cadets had also hoped, they had won.
The bronze-skinned figure in the chair looked up at them—first at Kirk, then at Mitchell—as they put their weapons away. His yellow eyes remained locked with the underclassman’s.
“You’re the sensitive,” he said.
“I guess so,” Mitchell responded. The Heiren’s remark seemed to confirm his suspicions about his abilities.
The telepath’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re a rarity,” he observed. “Just as I am.”
“If you say so,” said the underclassman.
Kirk looked from one of them to the other. Then he went over to the telepath and began to tug on the prisoner’s bonds.
“Now that we’ve gotten to know each other,” he declared, “maybe we can think about getting out of here.”
“Let’s go back the way we came in,” Mitchell suggested.
It seemed like the most obvious route. After all, they weren’t likely to meet with any resistance, and going down the drainpipe would be easier than going up.
“Sounds good to me,” said Kirk.
But before they could go anywhere, they heard a loud voice that seemed to climb the stairs. It was calling a name.
The cadets looked at each other. As the lieutenant [210] worked harder to free the telepath, Mitchell moved to the door and closed it.
Again, the voice called, only slightly muffled by the door. There was no response. What’s more, the underclassman thought he knew why.
“They’re on to us,” he concluded, taking out his weapon again. “Our friends upstairs must have been due to check in or something.”
“Could be,” Kirk replied.
With a determined tug, he pulled away the last of the ropes that bound the telepath’s wrists. Then he knelt to attack the bonds that restricted the Heiren’s ankles.
Suddenly, they heard a rush of feet up the stairs. For a moment, Mitchell thought the door to their room would be flung open—but it wasn’t. Instead, the commotion seemed to pass them by.
“We can’t get out that way anymore,” Mitchell observed, doing his best to remain calm.
But it wasn’t easy. Cold sweat was trickling between the underclassman’s shoulder blades, and his heart was beating so hard he thought his ribs were going to splinter.
Suddenly, it occurred to him, their gambit didn’t seem like quite so much fun anymore.
“We’ll have to go out the front door,” Kirk responded.
“That’ll be guarded too,” Mitchell reminded him.
The lieutenant clenched his jaw and whipped away the last of the Heiren’s bonds. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Oh, good, thought the plebe, as the telepath stood [211] up on uncertain legs. Just what we need in our moment of jeopardy—platitudes from the ol’ professor.
But Kirk seemed to have more than platitudes in mind. He pulled the big, colorful robe away from one of the Heiren they had stunned and held it out for the telepath.
“Put it on,” he said.
The telepath did as he was told. Last of all, he pulled the robe’s hood up over his head.
“Now follow my lead,” the lieutenant told them.
Then he took out his weapon, opened the door, and looked both ways. Satisfied that the way was clear, he headed for the stairs. Mitchell and the telepath had little choice but to fall in behind him.
As they began their descent, the underclassman caught a glimpse of what awaited them. The first floor of the warehouse was one big room, designed to store anything that could fit through the front door. But at the moment, it held only dissidents.
There had to be ten or twelve of them, at least—it was difficult to tell at a glance. But clearly, the cadets were outnumbered. They wouldn’t stand a chance in a firefight.
And even with their hoods pulled up, they weren’t going to fool the kidnappers for more than a couple of seconds. One of their enemies was bound to see through their disguises and blow the whistle on them.
Kirk had to have come to much the same conclusion. Still, the lieutenant continued to make his way down the stairs undaunted, as if the warehouse and everything in it belonged to him.
Suddenly, without warning, Kirk whirled and [212] aimed his energy weapon at Mitchell’s face. At least, that was how it seemed to the cadet. It took him a fraction of a second to realize Kirk was aiming past him, at something up the stairs. He spun around to see what it was.
But there was nothing there.
As Mitchell tried to figure out what was going on, the lieutenant pressed his trigger. His weapon spat a stream of dark blue fire, punching a hole in the second-floor ceiling.
“They’re trying to escape!” he bellowed—loudly enough to be heard back in the bakery, all the way across town.
Then he fired a second time, smashing a second hole in the ceiling next to the first.
That got the attention of the Heiren gathered on the first floor. Whipping out their directed-energy devices, they assaulted the stairs, ascending them two steps at a time. With their festive robes, they looked like a multicolored river that had decided to defy gravity by flowing upstream.
Mitchell watched the Heiren flow around him as if he were a rock in a raging current, Kirk on one side of him and the telepath on the other. Before he knew it, the dissidents had left them behind—and the way to the front door was as clear as it could be.
The plebe took a moment—and only a moment—to appreciate what the lieutenant had accomplished, and to ask himself why he hadn’t thought of it. Then he grabbed the telepath by the arm and escorted him the rest of the way down the stairs.
Chapter Seventeen
JIM KIRK was giddy with success.
He had hoodwinked a whole roomful of alien kidnappers. And not only that, he had done it on the spur of the moment, without any of the careful, deliberate planning on which he normally prided himself.
It was a lesson. No—more than that. It was a revelation. There was a lot to be said for acting impulsively—for following your instincts when the odds were against you.
The proof of it was right across the room from him. The warehouse’s front door stood unguarded and uncontested, abandoned by the kidnappers in their rush to follow Kirk’s ruse.
Smiling despite himself, the lieutenant approached the door and reached for its handle. But before he [214] could turn it, he heard a voice roll like th
under behind him.
“Stop them! They’ve got the telepath!”
It was almost the same thing he himself had shouted moments earlier. But this time, it was the truth.
Whirling, Kirk identified the source of the warning—a tall, broad-shouldered Heiren with an ugly scar across the bridge of his nose and an energy weapon pointed menacingly in their direction. Without hesitating, the lieutenant raised his own weapon. Mitchell, who was standing right beside him, did the same.
All three of them fired at the same time. It wasn’t clear whether the cadets both hit their target, or if it was only one of them. All that was certain was that the Heiren missed, and that he went flying backward into the wall a moment later.
The lieutenant didn’t wait to see the kidnapper tumble down the stairs. He didn’t wait to see if the Heiren’s cry turned his comrades around and brought them clamoring in pursuit. He just turned the handle on the door, flung it open, and cleared the steps ahead of him with a leap.
But even before he landed on the cobblestones outside, he saw that he and his comrades weren’t out of the woods yet. Instead of the single sentinel who had been sitting on the barrel outside the warehouse, Kirk saw a handful of Heiren clustered on either side of the steps.
There were six or seven of them in all—and the [215] lieutenant didn’t believe for a minute it was just a social gathering. Something had aroused the kidnappers’ suspicions and encouraged them to send out more guards.
Of course, if there were any trouble, they had expected it to come from the square outside—not from the warehouse itself. So as Kirk emerged, the sentinels were too surprised to react right away. They hesitated for a fraction of a second, and it proved their undoing.
Rolling as he landed, the lieutenant came up in a kneeling position and fired. As closely as the Heiren were clustered, it was hardly a surprise that he hit one of them.
As Kirk felled a second dissident, Mitchell and the telepath emerged from the building as well. But they didn’t look shocked at all at the size of the gathering. It was as if they had anticipated it.
STAR TREK: TOS #85 - My Brother's Keeper, Book One - Republic Page 16