“Captain, we’re pulling out while we still can. Even so, I don’t know if we’ll be able to make it back to the designated drop location for the ship. I’m ditching the shuttle. You’ve got to make it to the Enterprise on your own.”
“Wonderful,” came the response from the open comm. There might have been additional commentary, Sulu reflected, but if so, it was lost in a wash of interference. Like every other system on the shuttle, its communications were failing. Knowing the captain as well as he did by now, the helmsman wasn’t sure he needed to hear any additional opinions Kirk might have had on the subject of his transport’s failure anyway. He could just as easily imagine them.
Despite the damage it had suffered, the shuttle succeeded in exiting the volcano. Though the autopilot managed to put it on course, the rest of the crippled craft was rapidly failing system by system. It was evident to both officers that they weren’t going to make it all the way back—though a dazed Uhura wasn’t sure she cared if they did or not. Conditioning, not determination, forced her through the necessary motions.
As despair and indifference threatened to overwhelm Uhura’s training, Sulu could see the danger. “Uhura—ready to swim?”
Struggling to keep her balance inside the increasingly unstable shuttle, she nodded tersely. “I know you did everything you could. I’m ready.” Her voice strengthened, her professionalism carrying her forward despite what she was feeling inside.
Her thoughts, not to mention her emotions, were elsewhere. If necessary, Sulu resolved to push her out should they have to go down. They’d already been forced to leave Spock behind.
He was damned if he was going to leave Uhura as well.
* * *
Kirk was about done. Though fresher than the captain, so was McCoy. The majority of the doctor’s limited athletic capability lay in his hands. From the start of their flight, his legs had protested at the unnatural demands being placed on them. As a physician, he was intimately familiar with the physiological indicators of looming physical failure, and he heartily disliked having to apply them to himself. If only Kirk hadn’t impetuously stunned the domesticated animal McCoy had obtained for them to ride. If only a lot of things, the increasingly exhausted doctor mused. Not that he was surprised. Saddened, was more like it. The entire operation had struck him as a fool’s errand from the moment it had first been proposed. Present circumstances had, regrettably, only confirmed that initial opinion.
Nor did their current circumstances suggest that things were going to get any better, he told himself as he shouted at Kirk.
“Jim—Jim, the beach is that way!”
Something sharp and potentially lethal whizzed past the captain’s head. A glance back showed that the mob of Nibirans was continuing to close the gap. At the two officers’ present rate of retreat, it was only a matter of moments before the next flung knife, or spear, or simple rounded stone brought him and the captain to the ground.
Kirk might be brave, even at times recklessly so, but he was not blind to the reality of their limitations. Besides, they had accomplished his intent—drawing the natives away from the dangerous proximity to the temple. Barely slowing to a stop, Kirk proceeded to drape the parchment over a nearby tree branch. As he released it, the scroll unfurled all the way to the ground, revealing a host of markings and symbols that must have taken some Nibiran scribe untold hours of labor to render so precisely and clearly.
“Jim!” McCoy was nearly out of breath. “This is neither the time nor the place to make a dramatic presentation!” A glance showed that the bellowing Nibirans were nearly on top of them. “Besides which, I don’t think your intended audience is in the mood to listen to anything you have to say!”
Kirk yelled without looking back at him. “Doesn’t matter—we’re not going to the beach!”
“No.” Realizing the import of Kirk’s words, McCoy’s eyes widened. “No no no!”
Whatever the inscribed contents of the scroll, it caused the Nibirans to break off their furious pursuit of the sacrilegious strangers. Spying the cherished document dangling from the branch, they immediately came to a halt and dropped to their knees before it in profound supplication. With hands extended in front of them, they commenced a steady, reverent chanting: eyes closed, heads bobbing. The scripture of the gods had been recovered, and they were giving thanks.
A number of them, however, had more than passive veneration on their minds. For them, there remained the small matter of revenge. To the group of warrior/defenders who continued the pursuit, prayer could wait until those who had desecrated their most holy site had been suitably dealt with. If the gods so willed it, that reckoning would take place very soon now.
Struggling to keep up with Kirk, McCoy still put one foot in front of the other. He was simply not used to moving so fast. Having to do so now did nothing to improve his mood. He was not so fatigued that he failed to recognize the surroundings they had studied prior to the drop, however. He pointed to his left.
“Jim, this is all wrong! The pickup beach is that way!”
Kirk looked over at him, each word now interrupted by a short, hasty breath. “We won’t make it to the beach!”
McCoy knew for certain what was coming now, and he did not look forward to it.
There was not a lot of red forest left in front of them. Unfortunately, its absence didn’t translate into the presence of safe ground. It didn’t, in fact, translate into any ground at all.
Directly ahead of them the forest disappeared, giving way to a line of blue-green and cloud-pocked sky above. The nearer they drew to the edge of the forest, the more the view ahead was replaced by sky and, soon, by sea. The alien ocean lay too far below, the line at the bottom of the sheer cliff they were approaching marked by gravel and wave-washed boulders. Not that they could have survived such a fall had the rocks been replaced by the softest sand.
They could stop and try to confront the howling locals who were drawing closer every second—or . . .
There was no time for analysis. Without breaking stride, the two men hurled themselves over the edge. As he plunged over the cliff, arms flailing and legs kicking, McCoy barely had time to hear what Kirk yelled as side by side they accelerated toward the waves far below.
It was a sentiment he echoed at the top of his lungs as rocks and water rushed toward them.
* * *
Slightly more salty than any of Earth’s oceans, the water through which Kirk and McCoy now found themselves swimming was murky but unpolluted. Clouds of brightly hued local aquatic life-forms swam past and around them. For the most part, the two humans were ignored. On a couple of occasions, multi-finned predators flashing impressive cutlery approached for a closer look. Both times they circled the swimmers once or twice before twisting sinuously away, having decided that the peculiar shapes did not conform to anything recognizable as their natural prey. Or perhaps it was the suddenly wide eyes of a certain submerged doctor that caused them to depart.
Reaching up, McCoy tugged at the sleeve of his silvery, form-fitting suit. The advanced diveskins he and Kirk had worn beneath their native kaftans now kept him warm in the cool alien depths. Extracted from inner pockets, goggles equipped with attached recycling breathers allowed both men to breathe comfortably underwater. The emergency devices would last only thirty minutes at most. That would be more than enough for McCoy. He had no intention of remaining in the alien sea even that long.
Despite knowing the location of their destination, it took a while for the two swimmers to orient themselves in their unfamiliar surroundings. From time to time, they would exchange looks and hand signals before deciding to move onward.
Only when the outlines of a massive, familiar shape began to emerge from their watery surroundings did they begin to relax. Ahead lay something huge and foreign to the world of Nibiru: the submerged bulk of the Starship Enterprise. It loomed before them like some great shining inhabitant of the deep as schools of alien water dwellers flashed and darted around it.
&n
bsp; The small personnel airlock through which they entered had been designed to deal with the airlessness of space, not an influx of seawater. It still served its function, however, and the minor mess caused by the damp entry of the two officers would not take long to clean up. The few flopping ocean dwellers that had been unlucky enough to be caught in the hasty entrance would profitably find their way into the ship’s science labs.
Having removed goggles and inhalers, both men were still catching their breaths when the inner portal cycled to reveal the characteristically disgruntled figure of the ship’s chief engineer, Montgomery Scott. The nearby continental supervolcano was not the only thing emitting an excess of heat. Scott’s annoyed gaze flicked from one sodden officer to the other.
“D’you lot ’ave any idea how ridiculous it is to hide a starship on the bottom of a bleedin’ ocean? Just so the locals won’t get a regulation-breakin’ gander at us? We’ve been down ’ere since last night, and my people are sick of ’avin’ to—”
Head inclined to his left, a wincing McCoy was struggling to drain the last drops of water from his ear. “Believe me, Mr. Scott, no one regrets our inability to utilize the transporter under these conditions more than I.”
Their recent close escape already forgotten, Kirk had no time for might-have-beens. His full attention was focused on the engineer.
“Mr. Scott—where’s Spock?”
The chief’s attitude immediately changed from irritation to worry, reflecting the captain’s concern. “Still in the volcano, sir. We picked up Uhura and Sulu not long ago, and they say that’s where they left ’im.”
Kirk’s expression tightened. “Left him?”
Scott rushed to explain. “Sulu said he was losing the shuttle and they had no choice but to pull back. Apparently they were in the process of dropping him when . . . the lift cable broke.”
“Broke . . .?” Kirk was unable to finish the thought. As he fought to extricate himself from the diveskin, it seemed as if every snug twist and wrinkle in the fabric was conspiring to hold him back.
* * *
Being quite familiar from his studies with the ancient human concept of Hades, a part of Spock noted and filed for future examination its remarkable similarity to his present surroundings. He had no time for additional philosophical rumination, since the red-hot magma surrounding him was bubbling and heaving steadily higher, even as he worked with increasing speed to activate the device he had brought with him.
He was relieved to see that it had suffered nothing more serious than cosmetic damage. The assorted dents and scratches were of no consequence. Spock did not relax entirely, however, until his entry of a final series of numbers and commands triggered a rapidly decreasing numerical sequence on the nullifier’s multiple readouts. On the right-hand side, a fist-sized hollow began to glow an intense bright white.
Rising to his feet, he gazed down at his completed handiwork with a considerable degree of satisfaction: so much so that he was able to ignore the rift that appeared in the volcano’s flank. It provided a temporary respite from dying as the lava lake that had been building around him eagerly sought the new egress.
* * *
Acquiring speed thanks to gravity, the magma tsunami swept down a portion of the volcano’s exterior slope, incinerating everything in its path. A tremendous blast sent volcanic bombs the size of shuttlecraft flying ahead of the lava. The first structure to be demolished was the largest native temple on the planet’s main continent, crushed by one such plunging mass of rapidly cooling rock. Ordinarily the indigenous structure would have been packed wall-to-wall with worshippers and priests and genuflecting attendants. Uncharacteristically, it was completely empty—those who would normally have been praying and working within having been distracted and drawn away by the theft of an irreplaceable holy scroll. Captain Kirk’s actions had saved their lives.
* * *
On the bridge, Pavel Chekov swiveled in the command chair. The look on his face was one of relief as he spotted Kirk among those stepping out of the elevator. Throughout the wide, curving room that was the heart of the Enterprise, officers and ensigns barely glanced up from the multitude of multihued flashing readouts and monitors that marked their respective stations.
“Keptin on the bridge!” Having formally announced the obvious, Chekov vacated the command seat and gratefully returned to his navigator’s station.
Resuming full command as rapidly as he did his chair, Kirk directed his concern toward Communications. It had occurred to him that circumstances might have prevented Lieutenant Uhura from being present, and while Kirk was fully prepared to deal with her absence, he was gratified as well as impressed to see her seated at her assigned station. Those same circumstances prevented him from extending any immediate sympathy, though; there was no time.
“Lieutenant, do we have a channel open to Mr. Spock? Any channel, however limited.”
Her reply was patently more taut than usual. “Extreme heat distortion is interfering with his equipment, but we’ve still got contact. I’ll push it as much as we have to.”
Struck by the underlying emotion in her voice, he considered commenting on it, and decided otherwise. The need for Uhura to carry out her duties would help to distract her from personal concerns. Right now, he needed everyone on the bridge functioning at a hundred percent efficiency.
How fortunate, he mused dryly, that he never overreacted in situations laden with emotion.
“Spock . . . report!”
* * *
With the lava lake beginning to rise around him once more, despite having found an exit in the volcano’s flank, Spock concluded the final bit of necessary programming to the Rankine nullifier. Straightening, he stepped back from the case. Its dimensions were modest, its capabilities awe-inspiring. If it works, he reminded himself.
“I have activated the device, Captain. When the countdown is complete, the consequent geochemical reaction should render the volcano inert, thereby eliminating the volatile tectonic trigger that our calculations indicated would set off catastrophic seismic disturbances throughout the crust of Nibiru.”
* * *
“Yeah, and that’s gonna render him inert,” McCoy put in tersely.
Kirk’s mind raced as he growled something decidedly non-regulation under his breath. “Can we use our transporter to pull him out yet?”
At his station again, Sulu shook his head. “Negative, Captain. No more than we could use them from the start, when it was decided to carry out the operation utilizing one of our shuttlecraft. The unstable nature of the magnetic and other fields within the throat of the volcano are such that the usual immutable transporter reach and positioning systematics could be knocked off by as much as several millimeters—which, of course, would be fatal to anyone traveling via beam. I regret to say that the situation has not changed. If anything, it has grown worse.”
Chekov chimed in with unnecessary emphasis. “A Mr. Spock retrieved several millimeters out of proper entanglement would not be a Mr. Spock as we know him, Keptin. Or likely one who would appear alive.”
Neither of his officers was telling Kirk anything he did not already know. Still . . .
“There has to be a work-around, Mr. Chekov. Something we can do to make it function effectively. We need to beam Spock back onto the ship. If there’s no perfect way to do it, then give me the next best way.”
There was nothing the youthful Chekov liked better than a challenge—though he preferred those that did not involve putting at risk the life of another shipmate. His thoughts whirled, colliding and re-forming even as he ventured some of them aloud.
“Maybe if we could manage a direct line of sight? One as close as possible. If we could get right above him, the interference would not be eliminated—but it would be greatly minimized. There’s no guarantee it would work, Keptin, but it’s the best option I can think of.”
Scott would have been remiss in his duty had he not chosen to speak up. “Hold position above an active supervolcan
o on the verge of a cataclysmic explosion? Sir, this ship is designed to hold a position in interstellar space, or in orbit. It was not built to cope with radical in-atmospheric distortions. She maneuvers better at warp speed than on thruster power.”
Looking back, Kirk smiled thinly at his chief engineer. “Seems to be doing okay right now, Mr. Scott.”
The chief engineer didn’t back down. “Because the surroundin’ atmosphere is relatively stable, sir. I am willing to predict that if we are hoverin’ directly above the volcano and it blows, conditions will be more than slightly altered—and not for the better.”
“I believe Mr. Scott is correct, sir.” Sulu spoke without looking up from his instrumentation. “If we were to be caught in a sufficiently violent eruption, I don’t think I could maintain altitude. Especially taking into account how close we would be to the surface. There would be essentially no room in which to attempt emergency maneuvering.”
A furiously cogitating Kirk contemplated his choices. None of them appealed to him. In any event, he had no chance to reach a conclusion before a voice over the comm interrupted his thoughts. Distortion fractured the message, but the voice was, once again, unmistakable. It also evinced a good deal of exasperation.
Star Trek Into Darkness Page 2
