“Watch our backs!” Maltz told the younger Klingons, never taking his eyes or his blade off the Andorian. When they reached the rear of the tavern, they could hear the giggling coming from the curtained booths. Gradok dumped the Tiburonian onto the floor and began throwing open the curtains, eliciting many shrieks and much scrambling for clothes.
“Which one?” snarled Maltz, letting his knife make his point for him.
“This one,” said the waiter, pointing to the only booth that had been empty. “There’s a secret panel behind the cushions.”
Suddenly, there was a commotion and a stampede of footsteps coming from the front of the tavern. “Security!” shouted a deep voice. “Nobody move!”
“Help!” screeched the Andorian. With a quick thrust, Maltz made sure it was the last sound he ever made.
Maltz shoved the body headfirst into the emtpy booth and motioned to his comrades. “Hurry—in here! Grab the Tiburonian! Lay down cover fire!”
Gradok picked up the old miner, while Kurton and Burka drew their disruptors and sent scarlet beams streaking across the tavern. The place erupted in screams and chaos, and trapeze artists tumbled out of the air onto the advancing security guards. That gave the two younger Klingons time to duck into the crowded booth with their comrades. They closed the curtain behind them and waited to fire the moment anyone opened it.
Maltz was busy ripping cushions away from the walls. “If that worm was lying, I’ll kill him again!” Finally he uncovered the panel and pressed it without a moment’s hesitation.
At once, the plush booth turned into a carnival ride, swirling around and dumping all of them—four Klingons, a sleeping Tiburonian, and a dead Andorian—down a long chute into the darkness.
A wild howl erupted form Maltz’s throat, but it was silenced with a thud when he and his comrades landed in a sea of soft cushions. Flickering artificial candlelight barely illuminated a circular chamber; pillows covered the floor, and lewd paintings of debauchery covered the dark stone walls. There was a bar, a viewscreen, the chute they had fallen down, and two doorways, but no sign of Captain Brahms or Colin Craycroft. Both doorways led to rustic passageways carved from the black rock and lit by more flickering lights.
“Get up!” Maltz growled at his men. “Kurton, Burka—cover the chute and the doorways. Gradok, hide that body in the cushions.”
The weapons master quickly burrowed through the pillows and cushions to the floor beneath, where he deposited the dead Andorian. Grabbing handfuls of cushions, Gradok wiped the pale-blue blood off his thick chest and his pitted metal sash, then he tossed the stained cushions over the body.
Meanwhile, Maltz went to the viewscreen and pressed buttons until he activated the device. The view on the screen showed the empty trapeze above them, and he pressed more controls until the scene switched to a sweeping view of the central tavern, now lit up. Security officers were clearing out the customers and searching the place, to no avail. They apparently didn’t know about the saloon’s secret passageways.
Maltz hurriedly tapped his combadge. “First officer to the HoS. Come in, Kurok!” There was no answer. “taHqeq! We are too deep inside this infernal rock to contact the ship.”
“We told them to leave at the first sign of trouble,” answered Gradok.
“I hope they are able to leave,” said Maltz. The old Klingon continued to bang on the controls of the viewscreen, cycling through various other sights until he found a plush bedroom with a woman lying prone on the bed. It was difficult to tell, but it looked like Leah Brahms.
“Which way?” he bellowed, now wishing that he had kept the treacherous Andorian at least partially alive. Maltz drew his disruptor and motioned to his younger comrades. “Burka, Kurton—you take the left-hand passage and look for this room ... where they hold the captain. If you find her, try to contact us via communicator, and we will do likewise. If we can’t communicate, try to make your way back to the ship. If that’s impossible, return here. Do not allow yourselves to be captured.”
The two young Klingons nodded in acknowledgment and hurried down the assigned passageway. Maltz motioned to the old Tiburonian, who was snoring peacefully, and Gradok heaved a sigh and picked him up.
With a worried frown, Maltz leveled his disruptor and led the way down the right-hand corridor. They hadn’t walked far when they heard whining, grinding, and clanging sounds. Ahead of them, it appeared that the corridor widened, but it was hard to tell in the flickering light. Maltz slowed his pace and motioned Gradok against the wall, which was a difficult maneuver for the big Klingon burdened by the unconscious Tiburonian. Cautiously, Maltz made his way toward the rhythmic noises in the distance.
Within a few paces, the corridor expanded into a much larger chamber, with gleaming walls of yellowish crystal, buttressed by shimmering force fields and narrow walkways at different levels. Flashes startled him, and the Klingon dropped into a firing crouch; a moment later, he saw that the flashes were industrial, robot-controlled phasers carving their way through the glittering crystals.
Workers in lightweight environmental suits and hoods manned these weapons and other more primitive tools, like grinders, air-hammers, and saws. Most of them wore green suits, but a few of the bosses wore white. Although the walls appeared to glisten like solid facets, Maltz could see that many of the cuttings were waste. Harried miners had to physically chop and grind the rubble in order to find crystals large enough to be saved. These crystals, about the length of a Klingon’s hand, were carefully placed in pressurized conduits, which whisked them away. Other workers shoveled the debris left by the process into biofilter bins, where the inert black rock disappeared, to leave only dilithium chips. All of these materials were carried away in conduits.
Portable light stands lit the cavern all too brightly, making Maltz nervous. He slipped back into the shadows of the tunnel and motioned Gradok to go back the way they had come. After a moment, Maltz stopped to listen.
“Are you sure where you’re going?” the weapons master asked, dumping the Tiburonian onto the ground.
Maltz shook his head. “Who can tell? Was the captain transported somewhere? There’s a busy mine this way, so we have to backtrack. Pick him up.”
“Why can’t we wake him up?” The brutish Klingon reached into his belt and removed a small capsule, which he broke under the old miner’s nose. At once, the Tiburonian gasped and waved his arms feebly.
Maltz reached down and pulled Krussel to his feet. “You’re all right, be calm. They drugged us in that evil place ... the Pink Slipper.”
“Me? I’ve never been drugged in there before. You must be very important.” Krussel sniffed the air and looked around the rustic passageway. “Where are we?”
“Near a dilithium mine.” Maltz scowled at the bent old miner. “They drugged us, kidnapped our captain, and tried to arrest us.
Since they outnumbered us, we fought until we could make an escape.”
The Tiburonian trembled. “Oh, dear, what have you gotten me into! Don’t you know you’ll be sentenced to the mines? It will take you twenty years to work off your sentence!”
The grin faded from Gradok’s face. “What are you talking about?”
Krussel motioned toward the noise coming from the depths of the artificial cavern. “Listen to them—a lot of them are prisoners leased out to the mines. That’s where you’re going to go! Work makes the time go faster, and you can earn a little money while you’re in. But I don’t want to go back! You made a big mistake ... because Colin Craycroft is the owner of the Pink Slipper. He’s a powerful human around here.”
Maltz grunted in anger. “I’ll kill him later. First we must find the captain. Back to the pillow room.” Pushing the other two ahead of him, the grizzled Klingon stalked down the corridor.
They hadn’t walked far when the Tiburonian froze and held out his hands, his big ears twitching. Maltz almost ran over him, but he was able to catch himself. Then he reached out a long arm to catch Gradok.
�
�What is it?” asked Maltz.
“Voices,” whispered the old miner. “Ahead of us, not the way we came.”
“Stay here.” Maltz motioned both of them to remain while he scouted ahead. It took several moments of stalking through the shadows, but he finally heard the voices, too. They were angry, busy, and officious—security voices. It sounded as if they had found the Andorian’s body, which they could have done with a tricorder. If they had tricorders, they would soon investigate the corridors, too. Maltz hurried back down the corridor.
Into his communicator, he whispered, “Maltz to Kurton. Kurton, respond.” He waited, but there was no answer, which didn’t surprise him. Plunging ahead, he reached Gradok and the Tiburonian. “The authorities are back there. We have to think like humans.”
“Oh, do we try to talk our way out of it?” asked Gradok.
“No. We use human subterfuge.” Maltz pointed back down the hallway toward the distant sounds of mining. “I know ... what about those environmental suits the miners wear?”
“They’re actually more like cleanroom suits,” said Krussel, “to keep the crystal from being contaminated.”
“They will disguise us,” said the Klingon. “Where can we get some?”
“Off their backs,” Gradok answered with a shrug.
“Better yet, from the clothing bins or the locker room,” Krussel said, craning his neck to look around the corner. “They should be nearby.”
Maltz leveled a jaundiced eye at the old miner. “Are you going to help us get out of here, or are you going to betray us?”
Krussel snorted. “If I’m in your presence, I’m in as much trouble as you are. We need a diversion.”
Suddenly they heard voices behind them—loud enough for anyone to hear. Maltz reached into his sash and pulled out a tiny chunk of pliable explosive, which he affixed to one of the flickering artificial candles.
“Go ahead of me,” he ordered. “Walk slowly, as if you belong in there. Find suits and disguise yourselves, then look for me. Move.”
Gradok pushed the old Tiburonian down the corridor, while Maltz backed away from the charge he had rigged. He rounded the corner and stopped at the farthest distance he could go and still see the light fixture, then he aimed his disruptor. The moment the guards appeared, he shot the light with a narrow beam. The guards ducked, but it didn’t help them. The explosion blew out a ton of rocks and rumbled through the caverns, filling the passageway with smoke and dust. Lights went out the length of the corridor, plunging it into merciful darkness.
Somehow the explosion ricocheted along the power lines into the main chamber, where several light standards exploded, causing even more panic. There was chaos on the narrow catwalks, and one or two miners fell off their perches as a third of the mine was plunged into darkness. “Cave in! Cave in!” sounded the cries.
Maltz emerged into the larger room to find total confusion, with miners discarding their tools and rushing for the staircases and turbolifts. He didn’t waste time getting a disguise—he hid in the smoke until a miner passed by, then he jumped out and clubbed him with his disruptor. Maltz dragged his unconscious victim into a shadowy corner and ripped the hood off his head.
He emerged a few moments later, looking like all the other panicked miners, except that he carried a Klingon distruptor in his hand. After making sure the security guards were still delayed by the explosion, he crept along the wall, looking for two miners who were not running as fast as the others. He noticed them lurking in the doorway of a small closet—a towering hulk who strained the material of his suit and a bent one who barely filled his out.
He motioned with his disruptor, and they waved back. Soon all three started in the direction of the mad rush. They had to practically carry the old Tiburonian, he was trembling so badly.
“You there!” someone shouted. “If he’s injured, get to the emergency transporter!”
It took a moment for Maltz to realize that the white-suited boss was talking to them, thinking the Tiburonian was wounded and they were assisting him. “Thank you!” he muttered, turning away. Although the hood completely covered his head and the suit his body, the faceplate was transparent.
The figure in white pointed impatiently, and the trio scurried in the indicated direction. They got into a line with other miners waiting to enter a large tube. At first Maltz was worried that they would be whisked away in some kind of pressurized conduit like the crystals; then he saw two wounded miners enter the tube ahead of them and disappear in the swirl of a transporter beam. It was probably a short-range transporter, he decided, which wisely avoided passing through the dilithium-loaded rock.
While they waited, Maltz tried to ignore the alarmed shouts all around them, thinking that the miners weren’t very disciplined. Of course, working underground was conducive to panic, especially when tunnels began mysteriously collapsing and exploding. He had already decided to go down fighting rather than risk being slave labor in this glittering hole.
Nevertheless, he hid his disruptor from view and told Gradok, “Limp. Pretend to be injured.”
Finally they reached the tube, where the operator waved all three of them aboard. With relief, the trio stepped upon the transporter platform, only to have their molecules scrambled and reassembled at an unknown destination.
Still groggy, Leah Brahms was hauled rudely to her feet, and she looked longingly at the soft bed she had just left. Then she realized that she didn’t know where she was. She blinked at the little man in the plaid jacket who had dragged her to her feet; she knew him, but she couldn’t place him. The details of his identity were lost ... somewhere in the cobwebs of her brain.
“Wake up!” he said urgently, shaking her by the shoulders. “We have to get out of here! The tunnel alarm has been set off.”
Leah mumbled something in agreement, but instead she dove back onto the soft bed, curling up with a silky sheet. “No!” shouted Craycroft. “Oh, to hell with you. What do I care if you get arrested? I’ll beat you to Lomar.”
Suddenly Leah was left alone ... nobody tugging on her arm, nobody yelling in her ear. Still she could hear the Klaxons and sirens at an indistinct distance, and she knew waking up in a strange bedroom was never good. The guy who had been shaking her was no good either—that stood to reason.
Despite all attempts to go back to sleep, her analytical mind took over, and Leah Brahms slowly accepted the notion that she should be awake and coherent. At least for a while. In her condition, she wanted to reserve the right to go back to sleep.
She rolled over and tried to find the floor with her feet. Oh, this is bad, she realized. Whatever landed me in this state ... in this place ... had better be worth it. There were lewd paintings on the walls, and the room was decorated with mountains of lacy pillows and billowing curtains. The curtains hid only small air vents, not windows. Despite its posh accessories, the bedroom had the feeling of being homemade, like a spare room in someone’s basement. Maybe it was the lack of windows that gave it such an eerie quality—it was definitely a hideaway.
The bed lay between two doors at opposite ends of the room; they were solid metal, and both were ajar. Brahms had her choice of exits ... or of not leaving at all ... but a vague feeling of urgency propelled her to her feet. She knew she couldn’t wait around to answer questions. Swaying unsteadily on her feet, she closed her eyes; when she did, gnarled, grizzled faces floated in her mind’s eye.
The Klingons! My crew. A rush of memories came flooding back, giving her such a headache that she slumped back onto the bed. That was when she heard loud voices and hurried footsteps near the door to her right.
Flashes of light slashed into the metal door, ripping it apart in a hail of sparks. Two figures collapsed against the metal debris and tumbled into the room. To her horror, Leah witnessed the final seconds of life for the young Klingons, Kurton and Burka. They died in a conflagration of crisscrossing beams, and their bodies disappeared in a sizzling red haze.
Leah had no time to do anything
but hurriedly pull the covers around her and cower in the bed. Phaser rifles leveled for action, a detail of four security guards burst into the bedroom. They instantly focused their attention and their weapons on her, and she pulled the covers up to her chin.
“Out of the bed!” ordered the one with the most stripes on his sleeve. He pointed his weapon at her head. “Hands up!”
“I am naked!” she pleaded, letting them see only her face. Luckily, Leah had long ago mastered the innocent-but-sexy gamine look, and she had no problem mustering real tears after seeing two of her crew killed. “The awful things they did to me ... the animals! You wouldn’t believe—”
The hardened guards looked sympathetic but still wary, and she added, “There were two more Klingons! They went out the other door. If you hurry, you can catch them!”
The ensign looked back at a subordinate, who was carrying a padd. “That’s the report,” she said. “Four Klingons.”
Leah felt for the small hand phaser she kept on her belt. It had been part of her tool kit ever since Gradok had cornered her in the bowels of the ship. She forgot where in her travels she had picked up the phaser, and she hoped it was set on stun.
Doubt left the leader’s eyes, and he barked, “Squad, continue pursuit! Keep alert, and use your tricorders. Lady, when we leave, you get dressed and wait here for us. We have questions for you.”
Leah relaxed and gave him a warm smile. “Thank you, sir. I look forward to seeing you again ... soon.”
He flashed her a quick grin, then signaled. “Move out!”
Seconds later, the security detail was gone, passing through an unfamiliar door that led to parts unknown. At least they were unknown to Leah. She assumed they were still on Protus, but that was all she knew—although she had a strong feeling that she shouldn’t wait around to be questioned. She hoped she hadn’t inadvertently sent them after Maltz and Gradok, wherever they were.
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book Two Page 15
