by L. A. Graf
Chapter Eight
UHURA WOKE with her face pressed against a hard, cold surface that blocked out half the light. Distant thumps and scrapes echoed around her, so muffled she couldn't tell where they came from. She lifted her head, but somehow the hard surface moved with her, refusing to go away. Her mind spun in dizzy circles for a moment, then focused enough to realize there was a leather thong tied around her neck, holding something onto her face. She lifted her hand and felt the curved bone contours of a Kitka mask, slipped over the head of her insulation suit.
"What on Earth ?" She sat up, bumping her head on ice. Through the narrow eye slits of the mask, she could see a dim blue light refracting through the shattered tunnel walls, with one bright sliver of glare overhead where the ceiling block had cracked away from the wall. The enormous slab of ice canted steeply down into the passage, meeting the floor just past Uhura's legs. She pulled in a startled breath, seeing how close she had come to being crushed. If Nhym hadn't tugged at her
"Nhym!" Uhura looked around frantically, then saw the small, fur-clad body snuffled under her arm and released her.
"Kraken Eyes awake!" The little Kitka sat up and patted at Uhura, her face bright with pleasure. "Not hurt?"
"I don't think so." Uhura managed to get her feet under her despite the cramped space in which she had to move. One numb ankle complained about the return of circulation with tiny needles of pain, but otherwise she seemed undamaged.
"Face not hurt?" Nhym persisted, peering up at Uhura in concern. "Nhym's mask keep warm?"
"Yes. Thank you for lending it to me." Uhura put up her hand to untie the leather strings, but small mittened fingers caught at hers and stopped her.
"No!" Nhym's whistle sounded fierce. "You keep Kitka mask now. Better for you than kraken eyes."
Uhura glanced down at her through the confining slits of the bone-carved face shield. She ought to be wearing her own goggles, but hadn't thought to bring them when she left the Chinit alcove. "Do you have another mask to wear?"
The girl sat back on her heels, looking indignant. "Always have two," she told Uhura as she pulled a second bone mask from one of her parka pockets. "Need if first one breaks."
Uhura smiled at her in wry affection. "A child after Chekov's heart," she said, then looked around their ice-walled prison with a new determination. The comment had reminded her that she didn't know where the other members of her party were. "Nhym, can we get out of here?"
The little Kitka paused in tying on her shield. "Maybe," she said. "Lots of ice down in tunnel, but Nhym hears people digging through."
Uhura recalled the muffled thumping sounds she'd heard before. "That sounds like something Chekov would do." She reached up to tap on her insulation-suit communicator. The ear-splitting static was gone, she noticed thankfully. "Lieutenant Chekov, can you hear me?"
There was a pause, then a passionate burst of Russian in her ear. Uhura blinked as the translator dutifully transcribed it into English.
"Uhura!" Chekov's voice sounded rough with relief and some other emotion, hidden below the urgency of his words. "Where are you? Are you injured?"
"No, I'm fine. Nhym and I are trapped in one of the tunnels, about twenty-five meters away from the Chinit alcove. Tenzing can show you where"
"Tenzing's dead." The relief vanished from his voice, leaving it grim with self-reproach. Chekov always took his squad's losses hard. "We just dug out her body."
"Oh, Chekov, no!" Uhura closed her eyes, remembering how she'd left the security guard without listening to her warning. She took in a shaking breath, feeling a chill creep into her despite her insulation suit. Gentle hands patted at her arm, and she heard a wordless hissing, the sound Kitka made to comfort each other. Uhura opened her eyes to see Nhym looking up at her, violet eyes worried behind her mask.
"I'm all right," she murmured to the girl, and saw her face brighten with a smile.
Chekov must have heard her, too. He cleared his throat. "Commander, I think we're near the alcove that you stayed in last night. Where are you relative to that?"
Uhura frowned, trying to remember the layout of the Kitka tunnels. "On the right-hand side of the alcove's opening, down where the tunnel bends to the right. There's a big block of ice slanting down from one side of the ceiling."
Uhura heard a shout that echoed through the ice as well as through her communicator. It sounded like Publicker. "Down here, sir! I can see her!"
Nhym yelped and pointed upward. Uhura tilted her head back to see a familiar shimmering mask peering down through the overhead crack in the ice. She reached her hand up into the narrow opening and felt gloved fingers close around it briefly.
"We'll have you out in no time, sir." Publicker looked up as thudding footsteps signaled the arrival of the rest of the squad. "Looks like the main slab's too big to move, sir, but there's a smaller chunk down to the left."
"Let me look." Chekov's masked face replaced his guard's for a moment. "Yes, that looks movable. Howard, stay up here and lever it back with the shovel while Publicker and I dig out around the base."
"What can I do?" Uhura asked as two dark shadows slid down the thick slab of ice above her. Nhym went to peer curiously around the edge of the block while metal scraped and thudded against the outer side.
"Just keep the little one out of our way," Chekov said. Uhura reached out to pull Nhym back to her side as the shoveling sound grew closer. "I'm afraid this block might"
A splintering sound interrupted him as the smaller block toppled outward without warning, letting a dazzle of arctic light into the tunnel. Uhura scrambled to her feet in alarm.
"Chekov! Are you all right?"
Another explosion of Russian answered her, and two snow-dappled black forms picked themselves out of a shattered mound of ice. Uhura sighed in relief, then bit her lip as the translator patiently repeated Chekov's words in careful English.
"I don't think you can do that," she said to the lieutenant, trying not to laugh. "Especially while you're dancing."
The chief security officer groaned, reaching out to pull her into a quick, fierce hug. "I forgot the translator was on," he said sheepishly before letting her go. Then he glanced down at Nhym, watching silently from beside Uhura. "I hope that didn't make any sense translated into Kitka."
"Don't worry," Uhura assured him. "It didn't make very much sense in English." She heard a chorus of excited Kitka wails, and looked up to see several natives peering down into the tunnel at them. She recognized Nhym's grandparents by the damp streaks of oil on their face masks, and touched Chekov's arm gently. "Can you lift Nhym up?"
"If she'll let me." He glanced down at the little girl, then surprised Uhura by pushing up his goggles before he bent to pick her up. The girl went into his arms willingly, lifting her mittened hands for her grandmother to catch as Chekov hoisted her to the tunnel's lip.
"Your turn next." The security chief turned back toward Uhura, his gloved hands already laced and lowered to form a boosting stirrup. His eyelashes were white with frost. Uhura smiled and reached up to lower his goggles for him, then put her foot into his interlocked hands and let him toss her up to Howard. The taller guard caught her wrists and swung her onto the ice sheet, then leaned down to haul the other men out.
"Good lord." Even through the narrow eye slits of her Kitka mask, Uhura could see the devastation the icequake had wreaked upon the native village. Alcoves stood open to the bitter cold along crumbled tunnels, their furred skin hangings torn away to reveal scattered belongings. The Kitka were already combing through the ruins, gathering what could be salvaged and packing it onto tables thatturned upside downhad suddenly metamorphosed into long, gleaming bone sleds.
"Is anyone else missing?" Uhura demanded, turning back to the little cluster of Chinit still standing beside her. Nhym's grandfather whistled a negative reply.
"All Kitka asleep in furs when ice shakes." He gave Nhym an affectionate swat on the shoulder. "Except for bad children out in halls."
Nhym ducked her head, then glanced up at Uhura in concern. "Time now to pack and move, Kraken Eyes. You come with Chinit?"
"No," Chekov said, before Uhura could answer. He pivoted to scan the scarred ice surface, shoulders tense beneath his snow-streaked insulation suit. "We're still missing personnel."
"Steno's people!" Uhura's eyes widened when she realized that neither the planetary officer nor his men were anywhere in sight. She reached up to dial her communicator to maximum output. "Mr. Steno, can you hear me? Are you trapped under the ice?"
A faint hiss of static answered her, followed by an equally faint voice. "He's not, sir, but I am."
"Jimenez!" Chekov identified the barely audible voice without hesitation. "Where are you?"
"At the communications console. I think I managed to save most of it" His voice broke into a hiss of pain.
"If the console's working, I should be able to get a fix on its signal." Uhura toggled the directional receiver on her suit communicator, then swung around in a slow circle. "There." She stopped, facing sunward. Past the dazzle off the ice, she could see a large crumpled dent several hundred meters away. "I think that's where he is."
Chekov grunted, swinging his shovel up to his shoulder. "Publicker, I want you to get our supplies loaded onto the gravsled while we dig Jimenez out. Meet us there."
"Yessir." The guard hurried back to the collapsed puddle of their tent, careful to skirt the milling groups of natives as he went. Uhura followed Chekov and Howard across the ice sheet, listening to the console's signal grow steadily stronger in her ears. She stumbled once over a jagged ridge of ice, and felt Chekov catch her arm to steady her.
"You should be wearing goggles," he said sharply. "Publicker." He motioned sharply, and the guard ran an extra pair up to her, the strap already shortened.
"Oh. Thanks." Uhura pulled down Nhym's Kitka mask to dangle around her neck, and fitted the goggles over her eyes. The welcome blue screen of the polarizer slid down over the ice glare, bringing the wind-scoured arctic landscape into sharp focus. "I forgot I wasn't wearing them."
Chekov grunted again as they reached the side of the collapsed area. Here, the thinner arch of roof had broken like an eggshell, raining chunks down across a straggle of Nordstral gear. Uhura could see the tilted edge of a gravsled buried near one wall, a scrap of ice-pale green showing behind it. She opened her mouth, but Chekov was already moving, skidding down a slab of fallen ice toward the sled. Howard jumped down after him while Uhura picked her way more cautiously across the snow-crusted debris.
"Jimenez?" Chekov crouched beside the overturned sled, careful not to touch it or the slab of ice it supported. As Uhura came closer, she could see the young Nordstral guard curled in the sheltered space beneath, the silver gleam of the console visible beside him. "Where are you caught?"
"Left ankle," said Jimenez, his voice barely louder over his mike than it had been on the communicator. "Between the gravsled and the wall. I think it's broken."
Uhura quickly unsealed the emergency medikit strapped onto her insulation suit belt while Chekov and Howard hauled blocks of ice off the gravsled. "Here." She pulled out a thin hypo and dropped to her knees beside the young man. "This should help."
"Thanks, sir." He showed her where to open the shoulder seam of his insulation suit, then sighed when she pushed back his body slip and pressed the hypo to his pale brown skin. It hissed as it discharged its dose of painkiller. "That feels better already."
"Good." Uhura fastened his suit shut against the cold, then reached down to pat his hand reassuringly. "Lieutenant Chekov will have you out soon, then we'll get your ankle splinted."
"That's great." Under the dull gleam of the guard's plastic visor, Uhura saw the clenched muscles of his jaw relax. "I'm glad you're here. You're a lot better at this rescue stuff than we are."
"It's our job to be better at it." Ice crunched as Chekov came around the edge of the overturned sled and squatted down to search for a handhold along its base.
The young man sighed. "I know that, sir. I tried to tell Mr. Steno"
"But he didn't listen to you," Chekov finished for him. "Small wonder." He rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, securing his grip on the sled. "Ready to lift, Mr. Howard?"
"Aye, sir."
"All right. On my count of three"
"Where is Mr. Steno?" Uhura asked, more to distract Jimenez from the sled-lifting than from any real wish to know the answer. "Did he leave you here when the quake started?"
The young guard shook his head. "No, sir. He left a lot earlier than that "
"One," said Chekov between clenched teeth. His shoulders knotted with effort as he hefted the sled. "Two "
" with Alion," finished Jimenez.
The heavy sled rose without warning, then went crashing down into the ice a meter away.
McCoy knew there was no way he could outrun the cascading flood, particularly with the unconscious first mate limp in his arms. He turned, Nuie protected by the curve of his body, and met the onslaught of inrushing sea with the broad of his back. The biting, rotten-fish odor of brine stung his nose. Water colder than imaginable washed around his hips, making his legs as unresponsive as logs. The sodden weight of his clothing dragged at him, making it hard to stand. His injured hand screamed a throbbing litany of pain as saltwater scoured it like old-fashioned steel wool.
The water surged past and ran down the corridor to meet the panicked rush of crew erupting from their quarters and elsewhere aboard the ship. Their shouted cries and queries flew about like erratic ammunition.
Someone grabbed his arm. "Dr. McCoy! What happened?"
"I don't know." He shook his head, shoulders sagging under the combined weight of Nuie and their water-soaked clothing. "There was a call to the bridge. Nuie " He shifted the Kitka's heavy form. He needed to get him to sickbay and check his vital signs, if he wasn't dead already. "Then everythingSomebody said something about an icequake "
A wealth of profanity greeted that information. "Where's Captain Mandeville?" someone else asked.
"I don't know." Captain Mandeville? Where was Kirk? For the first time, McCoy noticed the water had subsided from around his legs, sloshing about his ankles as though he were a child wading in the Chattahoochee. He turned as best he could, Nuie dragging at his arms. The door to the bridge was closed and Kirk wasn't in sight. That meant
"Oh, dear God!" McCoy slammed to his knees on the hard decking, cradling Nuie, forgotten, in his arms. He stared at the door like it was the final epitaph on the headstone of a friend wrongfully taken, and felt a cold deeper than Nordstral's sea take hold of him.
"Dr. McCoy?"
Dammit! It was just like Kirk to make certain everyone was safe, then stay behind to face the danger by himself. McCoy knew it would get Kirk killed one day, but not yet, dear Lord, please not yet
"Dr. McCoy!"
Someone tugged McCoy's sleeve. He felt an irrational urge to bite them for their trouble. "There was water coming in." He struggled to get up, and finally managed with the helpful aid of a hand under his arm. "I don't know why. I think we hit something. Captain Mandeville went to take care of it. Captain Kirk got us off the bridge " He felt more exhausted than he ever had, as though the fighting spirit had just been sucked out of his bones like the winning kraken sucking down the loser's vitals. How could he go back to the Enterprise and tell everyone that Kirk was dead?
"They're still in there? Flooded bridge!" The Soroya crewman looked grim as she turned and started issuing orders. McCoy stared at the closed-up bridge.
"Dr. McCoy?"
He suspected the query had been repeated several times before he heard it. He caught himself staring at the iron barrier of the bridge door, his heart cold with dread, and shook his head hard. His eyes met the crewman's. "Yes?"
"Do you need help getting Nuie to sickbay, sir? I don't think you should be here, in case " The sentence died off.
McCoy felt a surge of annoyance. Here was exactly where he should be, in case. Bu
t there was also Nuie to consider. Nuie who, for more time than was excusable, he hadn't even really been thinking about. Kirk would have McCoy's head on a platter if the Kitka crewman died because he chose to needlessly hang around a rescue operation when he could be putting his talents to better use elsewhere. He could practically hear Kirk berating him, and was amused by the man's ability to lead even when he wasn't in the same room.
"I can handle him," he replied, and wondered just exactly to whom he was referring. "DoDo you think they might actually be alive?"
The crewman positioned herself a little more noticeably between McCoy and the working crew, giving him an intangible nudge toward sickbay. "If they got to the life units in time, sure. If they didn't, there's nothing you're going to want to see."
He appreciated her bluntness. Now was not a time for delicately skirting around the issue. "How long?"
"Depends on how long it takes you to get out of here and let us do our work."
A tiny smile curved McCoy's lips for just an instant and he nodded. Stooping, he shouldered Nuie into a fireman's carry and continued down the corridor to sickbay. He never once looked back to watch the crew at their industry. He didn't want to jinx their efforts.
Chekov squinted up toward the sun, trying to gauge their distance from the Kitka encampment by the star's slow procession across the arctic sky. He caught himself wishing he'd spent more time before planetfall studying the Nordstral star system, but discarded that thought with a steamy sigh: skirling curtains of snow corkscrewed across the land and skyhe could barely see the sun, much less glean any useful information from it.
"Damn him," he muttered for what felt like the hundredth time since they'd set out after Steno and his men. He was meaning the invective more and more every time he uttered it.
"Chekov, you're starting to sound like you take this personally."
He looked back at Uhura, a few lengthy strides behind him, and reminded himself again that she'd never be able to match their pace if he didn't force himself to walk slowly. Stopping to let her catch up, he noted with approval that Publicker and Howardnearly treading on the lieutenant commander's heelshalted, also, to make sure their loaded gravsled didn't overtake her. As far as Chekov was concerned, thinking to put six-foot-three-inch Howard in the rear and himself in the lead had done wonders at forcing their little group to stick together.
