by L. A. Graf
“—that something is draining our power,” Uhura guessed. “The alien caves?”
D’Amato nodded. “The power loss isn’t very noticeable, this far away. At least, not yet. But apparently we’re not really safe even here, sir. We’re still not outside the reach of whatever force is coming from inside those caves.”
“Will running the flare make our power loss worse?”
D’Amato queried his tricorder, then shook his head and showed her its unhelpful splay of extrapolated curves. “Hard to tell, sir. All this subspace interference is still messing up the analytical circuits. It might be doing that. And we might lose power at exactly this rate without running it at all.”
Uhura frowned and tried to weigh various scenarios of failure against each other. No power meant no more hails to the Enterprise, but no light flare meant no chance of bringing Captain Kirk in tonight, before he could stumble back into the clutches of whatever alien weapon or transporter they’d encountered back in that cave. If they were going to lose power anyway, there was no reason not to run the flare, but if they could conserve power by shutting everything down right now ...
[197] “Sir, I hear something,” said a polite Russian voice from behind Uhura. She turned and found Ensign Chekov standing with one ear cocked toward the light-slashed sky. “I think it’s a shuttle.”
Like any good communications officer, Uhura could make her voice ring like a bell when she needed to. “Quiet, everyone!” she commanded. Silence dropped over the base camp, except for the annoying crackle of the high-voltage accelerators. Uhura was about to order Tomlinson to turn them off, too, but then she heard what Chekov’s less distracted ears had already caught—the distant but unmistakable wail of a shuttle dropping at high speed through a planetary atmosphere. Uhura glanced up at the sky, then realized how useless it was to look for a shuttle’s blinking lights past the white column of light they had sent fountaining up into Tlaoli’s sky. That thought led to another, more urgent one.
“Tomlinson, Sanner, Chekov, Smith—get this thing out into an open space!” Uhura ordered. “If the shuttle’s using it to home in on us—”
She didn’t need to complete that sentence. The four crewmen picked up the light flare by its makeshift legs and marched in double time out toward the edge of camp, while Martine frantically strung out power cables behind them. “Almost out of line,” she warned as they passed the supply tent.
“Set it there, on the edge of the open space.” Uhura cast a glance back toward D’Amato. “Is the power holding out?”
He nodded. “It’s not dropping any faster than it was [198] before. Or any slower.” D’Amato glanced up at the approaching drone of the shuttle. “I just hope the same power draining effect doesn’t hit the shuttle when it starts getting close to us.”
It certainly didn’t seem to. With a confident, roaring swoop that told Uhura who the pilot was likely to be, a slice of shadow detached itself from the dark eastern sky and flickered into a big silver cargo shuttle as it passed through their fountain of light. It swung around and hovered in the light just long enough for them to read the name Drake on its blunt hull, then settled down in the open space with a thump violent enough to suggest the pilot hadn’t been completely sure where the ground was. There was a pause before the shuttle’s hatch swung open to let out a wiry, blinking figure.
“This had better be the new base camp for Survey Team Three,” said Dr. McCoy’s familiar caustic voice. “Because I’m not getting back in that shuttle until there’s enough light for Lieutenant Sulu to notice that not a single damned one of his instruments is working.”
It was strange, Sulu thought, how out of place he felt down here. It wasn’t just that his uniform was clean instead of mud-caked, or that his skin wasn’t dark with bruises. He’d been just as clean and healthy at the first two landings he’d made on Tlaoli, and it hadn’t seemed to separate him from the weather-beaten survey teams he’d picked up there. But there was something almost claustrophobic in the way the survivors of the Tlaoli caves moved around in small groups, never alone. There was some bone-deep terror that haunted them, a shadow [199] that darkened even their initial shouts of welcome and relief.
None of their halting explanations of the alien technology they’d encountered had really explained that fear to him, either. All Sulu had been able to gather was that some kind of alien transporter system had been activated by draining the power from their instruments. He’d told them about the power loss the Enterprise had experienced after trying to transport them, and they agreed that it probably explained why it had gotten so much colder and more dangerous in the caves after that. But Sulu still didn’t understand why the alien force had flung only Captain Kirk and one hapless young ensign through space, when it clearly had the power to haul down entire 190-ton starships. Or why Ensign Chekov had lost only a few hours of his memory after that experience, while Kirk might have lost all of his.
The dark-haired young man had been standing quietly at the edge of the group when they’d broken the bad news about Kirk’s absence, and Sulu had to clamp his teeth down hard to bite off the comment he otherwise would have made. But he still couldn’t erase the uncharitable feeling that it was rotten luck to have lost the ship’s captain instead of a brand-new and unknown crewman. He’d wondered at the time, catching a sidelong glimpse of the ensign’s bleak face, if the young man thought the same thing.
Now he stood next to Uhura and that same silent ensign, watching the rocky western horizon for the first nebulous glow of sunrise. Around them, the base camp bustled with activity despite the predawn [200] darkness: scientists downloading their data onto lightweight cubes so they could leave even their tricorders behind; weapons officers and security guards deactivating the gear they were leaving behind; McCoy and Wright exchanging curt medical comments as they operated in what had been the camp’s mess tent. The photon light flare that had led him through the moonlit jumble of the karst plateau to the base camp had been switched off moments after they’d landed, to preserve power for McCoy’s emergency surgery. The internal clock that most pilots developed told Sulu it wouldn’t be long now until dawn.
Uhura apparently felt the same way. “If Dr. McCoy’s not finished operating by the time the sun’s up ...” she began suddenly, then trailed off as if she was still deciding exactly how to end that statement.
Sulu smiled at her in the darkness. After the months they’d spent working together on the main bridge crew, he already knew what she was thinking. “I can take a quick trip aloft to look for the captain,” he finished for her.
“But only if McCoy’s not ready to go,” Uhura warned him. As the group’s commanding officer, she had reluctantly decided that Sulu’s first priority after sunrise was to evacuate the wounded and exhausted members of Survey Team Three, and bring down a fresh crew of security guards to conduct a more effective search for the captain. She had impressed Sulu both by ignoring the howls of protest this brought from her junior officers, and never disclosing how painful he knew the decision to delay searching for Kirk must have been for her. But with the hours to sunrise running out fast and no sign [201] that the emergency surgery in the mess tent was close to being finished, he’d been hoping Uhura would allow him to conduct at least a quick and limited search. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one with that thought.
“Sir.” There was a pause, as if young Ensign Chekov had to gather up his courage to add anything to that monosyllable. “Sir, if Mr. Sulu takes the shuttle up, couldn’t we climb one of the karst mounds near here and watch him? In case he spots the captain right away?”
“ ‘We?’ ” Uhura gave him a stern look. “Mr. Chekov, Dr. McCoy’s medical scan showed enough microscopic scarring in your lungs to prove that you practically drowned when you fell down that waterfall—”
“—but he also said I hadn’t suffered any permanent damage, sir,” Chekov said stubbornly. “And, sir, Crewman Smith and I are the ones who tracked the captain out of that sinkhole. We know which
direction to look for him.”
As justifications went, it was pretty feeble, but even Tlaoli’s dim moonlight was enough to show them the shadows of guilt and remorse that looked out of the younger man’s eyes. Sulu knew how he would feel, if he had been the undeserving survivor of that alien force field. He cleared his throat to catch Uhura’s attention.
“If that photon flare managed to draw the captain in close to us last night, Smith and Chekov might not have to travel very far to find him,” Sulu said. That wasn’t a very strong argument, either, but the speaking look of gratitude he got from the ensign made him add, “There’s no point in me spotting him from the air if we don’t actually go get him.”
[202] “True,” said Uhura, frowning. “But we don’t have any way to communicate with the shuttle. If you spot the captain, how will you let Mr. Chekov know?”
“Double-dip,” Sulu said. He could see the first tinge of sunrise bleeding into Tlaoli’s western sky now. “The energy fluxes down here bump me around a lot, but they never throw me the same way twice. If Mr. Chekov sees the shuttle rise and descend two times over some part of the karstland, he’ll know I saw Captain Kirk there.”
“And we’ll only go to get him if it looks like he’s within an hour’s walking distance,” Chekov promised recklessly. “Otherwise, sir, we’ll mark his location and come right back to camp.”
Uhura sighed. “I know I shouldn’t let you two convince me, but ...” She glanced over her shoulder at the creeping light of dawn. “Lieutenant Sulu, go get the shuttle ready. Mr. Chekov, take Smith and Tomlinson, and climb up the nearest karst mound. And I don’t want anyone to fall. That’s an order!”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Chekov answered with such youthful and serious sincerity that Sulu couldn’t help exchanging smiles with Uhura before he turned away and headed for the shuttle.
That young Russian would make a reliable crewmate one of these days, the pilot thought as he climbed into the cockpit. Once he lost his rookie nervousness, and got a rudimentary sense of humor, he might even be good enough to end up serving on the bridge.
Chekov didn’t envy Lieutenant Sulu the piloting feat he’d volunteered to perform.
[203] “Was that a dip?” Tomlinson asked anxiously. Squinting into the rising sun, he rose up on tiptoe as though the additional centimeters would improve his view.
His own eyes still locked on the shuttle, Chekov shook his head. “No, sir. He’s only jockeying for altitude.” Even as Chekov spoke, the shuttle executed an elegant swoop along the slope of one towerlike hill, then rode her own velocity a half-kilometer higher in the parchment-yellow sky.
As part of Starfleet Academy’s major in Astrogation and Piloting, Chekov had taken a short course in shuttle piloting. The portly craft at their disposal had been old, ill-used models no longer safe for extra-atmospheric flights, and most of the students in the program had secretly suspected they weren’t all that noble for local usage, either. The morning winds that swept San Francisco Bay had tossed the clumsy ships about like soccer balls, more than once threatening to deposit one atop Mt. Tarn or crash them all into Alcatraz. At the time, the flights had been a little bit scary, but also challenging and fun. Chekov often imagined that this must be what it felt like to ride a starship through an ion storm, or weather the conflicting gravity wells of a trinary star.
Now, as he watched Lieutenant Sulu coax a decidedly unaerodynamic craft to stay aloft with hardly any sensors or flight controls to speak of, Chekov understood why no one else on the Enterprise had much hope of becoming chief helmsman anytime soon.
“I hope when he does finally see the captain, it’s closer to our hilltop than that one.” Yuki Smith trooped [204] up to join them, as good-natured as always despite the rugged climb. As strong as she was when it came to lifting and hauling, she apparently couldn’t climb the nearly vertical karst terrain quite as easily as Tomlinson and Chekov. “That’s more than an hour away, isn’t it?” She seemed to direct the question toward Chekov, if only by virtue of being tight against his shoulder when she asked it. “And if we can’t walk there in an hour, we’re not allowed to go. Right?”
Chekov tried not to let the worry churning in his stomach sour his tone. “Once we start walking, it won’t matter how far away it is. It’s not like the ship can stop us by beaming us up or anything.” He remembered Sanner’s grim promise in the cave passage. We’re not leaving anybody down here.
The shuttle banked to widen her sweep, and Chekov turned a slow circle so as not to let the ship out of his sight. He nearly bumped into Tomlinson when the weapons officer made no corresponding move. He smiled down at Chekov, but didn’t step aside.
“If I were you, Ensign, I’d be careful who I let hear me talk like that.” The lieutenant’s demeanor was just as friendly and relaxed as it had always been, yet Chekov heard the edge of something more serious than casual conversation. “At best, ignoring Lieutenant Uhura’s orders is willful disobedience. At worst, it could be considered mutiny.”
Chekov understood how Tomlinson meant it—not as a warning, but as a bit of fraternal advice from someone with more years on a starship to a woefully inexperienced comrade. And he was even fairly certain that [205] Tomlinson understood that he’d said what he did out of loyalty to Kirk, not defiance of Lieutenant Uhura. But neither realization kept the blood from his face or the mortification from his voice. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.” He forced himself to add, a little stiffly, “Thank you, sir,” because the tiny part of him that wasn’t writhing in humiliation truly did appreciate what Tomlinson had tried to do.
Still smiling, Tomlinson gave him a clap on the shoulder as though they’d only been discussing some unlucky sporting event. “Lighten up,” he suggested. “You’re gonna be out here a long time.”
At first, Chekov had assumed Tomlinson meant out in space, on a starship, serving Starfleet—all of which Chekov did hope to be doing for quite some time yet. But later he wondered if the lieutenant hadn’t experienced some sort of unexpected psychic insight, and instead had meant they would all be trapped on Tlaoli for days or weeks or years to come. It was the sort of thing that started to occur to one when unimaginable disasters followed on each other fast enough.
Smith caught their attention with an excited whoop. “I think he’s found him!” She jumped up and down a few times, pointing out toward Sulu’s shuttle as it cinched around in an ever tightening turn. “Just above that little forest, or stones, or whatever,” she rushed on. “I think he dipped!”
Chekov and Tomlinson hurried to flank her at the edge of their knoll. Some distance ahead, still blanketed in shadow from another of the steep hills and blurred by the heavy mist, a broken landscape of some kind of [206] complex shapes lay across the ground like pieces of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle that no one had been able to finish. Chekov understood Smith’s confusion. He couldn’t tell, either, what made up the irregular structures, or even how far away they were. He was willing to guess, however, that it was under an hour’s quick hike.
The shuttle’s nose dipped downward once, twice, directly over the center of the broken landscape. Smith whooped again, and they all three flailed their arms to let Sulu know they’d seen his signal. The energetic signaling felt both silly and invigorating. Kirk wasn’t lost. He was on the planet, only a brisk walk away. Everything was going to be all right after all. Chekov caught himself laughing along with Smith as they started down the slope toward Sulu’s signal.
None of them actually saw the shuttle go down. Chekov saw it bank away to the south in a loop that took it far behind them, heading back toward the base camp, he assumed, to let Uhura know that the rescue party was on its way to retrieve the captain. It had occurred to him to wonder if Sulu would be able to return with the others if it turned out the captain needed something like medical assistance from Dr. McCoy, if he could actually put the shuttle down in the terrain toward which they were headed or if they’d have to somehow drag Kirk free of it before counting on any outside help. H
e turned to voice this concern to Tomlinson just in time to glimpse a strange, brilliant flash of light explode like a halo beyond a row of ragged dark hills. Then a clap like thunder rolled over them and echoed away, passing back and [207] forth across the valleys until it seemed like it would never die.
After a very long moment, Tomlinson was the only one to recover his voice enough to speak. “Oh, God, what now?”
Chekov knew the answer with a sick certainty that frightened him. “I think we just lost the shuttle.”
Chapter Eleven
IN ANY OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, Uhura thought somberly, Tlaoli’s karstlands would have been beautiful. In one direction, huge monoliths of limestone rose from a mist whose drifting movement gave them the illusion of advancing like waves on a storm-beaten sea. At their feet, the mist had cleared away enough to reveal a rocky gray plateau so broken by crevasses and solution cracks that it resembled a maze, or a jigsaw puzzle scattered on a gigantic scale. Beyond that, an army of smaller rock formations marched off toward the horizon, so hunched and gnarled with erosion that they looked like petrified versions of the weather-beaten trees living in their shadows. Feathery plumes of mist crowned the largest tree-fringed hollows, marking places where the caverns below blew cold, damp breath up into the morning air [209] through sinkholes and solution pipes. It was the kind of landscape that could have taken your breath away.
If you hadn’t already been hammered into numbness by repeated blows of shock, disbelief, and despair.
“The last time we saw him was just over that little ridge, the one that looks like a row of teeth.” Tomlinson took a careful step forward on the slick stone of their karst mound and pointed the direction out to Uhura. She turned to look that way, measuring the distance with the part of her brain that remained coldly alert and functional despite this latest disaster.
Uhura’s first, almost hysterical, impulse had been to deny it, to refuse to believe Chekov when he’d come back to the base camp with the news that the shuttle had gone down. Oddly enough, it had been the stifled edge of fear in the young ensign’s voice, the desperate look in his own dark eyes, that had steadied her enough to thrust that impulse aside and acknowledge reality. Sulu had admitted that he was flying the shuttle on a razor-thin safety margin, with unreliable instruments and unpredictable changes in altitude caused by Tlaoli’s strange power fluxes. It shouldn’t really have come as a surprise that he had crashed, but once again Uhura had let herself be lulled into a treacherous sense of hope.
