“Very well,” concluded the regent. “I’m on my way.”
“Can we go?” asked Candra excitedly.
“Sounds like fun!” seconded Farlo.
“No. It’s likely to be very dangerous. Nice to meet you, Seeress Consort. We’ll talk more later.” Regent Karuw rose from her seat and walked briskly toward the door.
After they were gone, Candra gazed at Farlo and whispered in amazement, “That’s why she wanted to talk to you. If they [130] all get themselves killed, and there’s just you—what will happen?”
Farlo scoffed. “You don’t think I’ll end up overseer of Aluwna?”
“I don’t, but she brought it up.” The girl frowned and shook her head. “These are insane times—anything could happen.”
“We’ll go down to the planet on the next trip,” vowed Farlo Fuzwik. “And let’s hope they make it back from this one.”
thirteen
Marla Karuw had lived long enough to see many storms and bouts of bad weather on her native Aluwna, but she never expected to see anything like the tempest currently lashing this part of the planet. Even three of the largest Klingon shuttlecraft were buffeted mercilessly as they tried to land. It didn’t help that there was no flat part of the planet that wasn’t covered with teeming, churning plant life, much of it towering into the air. The sky was a swirling morass of dust, sleet, and purple-orange clouds, and the wind was ferocious, whipping at the new flora like a hurricane. Volcanoes belched ash and fire in the distance, and huge geysers spewed brackish water eighty meters into the air, forcing all three shuttles to circle slowly, looking for a place to set down.
“Ambassador Worf?” called Marla over the roar of the wind crashing against their vessel. “Isn’t there someplace more hospitable to land?”
“We’ve looked, but our sensors haven’t found such a place!” answered the Klingon. He went back to huddling with two young aides, a fellow Klingon and a handsome blond humanoid. Finally Worf said, “Pilot! You may have to blast out a landing pad.”
[132] “Yes, sir,” agreed the veteran Klingon pilot. “Let me inform the other shuttles, so we can concentrate our firepower.”
The shuttlecraft continued to bob in the furious storm, until all three vessels aligned themselves and selected a target. Then they cut loose with disrupters, blasting an overgrown stand of gnarled trees and sending a fireball of sparks and debris swirling into the turbulent sky. With relentless disrupter fire, they finally scorched a huge red welt on the planet’s surface, and the first shuttlecraft set down in a ring of fire. Its landing struts sunk into the smoldering soil, making it appear that the ground was still somewhat liquefied. After the vessels exchanged frantic messages, it was determined that this was as safe as it was going to get. Marla Karuw held her breath and gripped the arms of her chair as their shuttlecraft dropped into the riotous jungle.
With a thud they landed, and the craft tilted to starboard. They fired some thrusters and managed to right themselves before Worf gave the pilot permission to cut the engines. Three heavily armed Klingon security officers took positions at the hatch, planning to be the first ones out. The rest of the party on this shuttle consisted of Worf, his two young aides, plus Marla Karuw and Overseer Tejharet.
The overseer looked ashen with fright from the horrendous sights and rugged landing, and the regent leaned across the aisle to tell him, “You don’t have to get out. I think we can see from here what we face.”
Tejharet stared out the viewport at an incredible jungle of freakish new life. Ferns and evergreenlike plants grew in abundance, unfurling long pistils and colorful red blooms. Misshapen trees towered above them, casting swaying shadows, while fast-growing vines tried to reclaim the earth they had just scorched. Buffeted like a kite in a hurricane, the third shuttlecraft managed to land in the burned-out clearing, and the frantic chat on the com channel died down to a hum.
[133] “I will walk on Aluwna,” vowed the overseer, his voice sounding old and worn.
“Open the hatch!” ordered Worf.
Grunting as he struggled against the fierce wind, a security officer managed to push open the hatch and keep it open long enough for his two fellow guards to stagger out. Wretched odors of ammonia, sulfur, charred vegetation, and rotting decay rolled into the tiny craft, and Marla Karuw nearly gagged. Still she kept her resolve as she lurched to her feet. Tejharet did the same, and they gripped each other’s hands for both physical and moral support. By the time the two Aluwnans reached the hatch, the Klingons had formed a circle of protection around the landing party, while Worf offered a hand to help them.
Upon leaping out, Marla’s feet sunk into the charred mire, and she was nearly knocked to the ground by the furious wind. She and Tejharet gripped each other tightly, just trying to keep their balance. Putrid fog and slimy sleet rolled over them in waves, and there were alternating gusts of warm and cold air, as if the weather couldn’t make up its mind. Marla gasped in alarm, because the ground was crawling with wormy, fishy slugs which had somehow survived the disrupter blasts. She tried to avoid stepping on the repulsive creatures, but that was impossible, because the ground was alive with them.
“Tricorder readings inconclusive!” reported the young Klingon to Ambassador Worf. “Maybe this accelerated growth will slow down, but it hasn’t yet. The residual protomatter is creating havoc with the sensors!”
“Sheesh, this is nasty!” shouted the blond humanoid, hefting his disrupter rifle and scanning the swaying treetops, which seemed to be covered with blankets of hanging moss. Beyond the trees was a range of jagged black mountains, most of which were spewing smoke and flame. “What are we looking for?”
“A place to erect our transporter booths,” answered Marla Karuw, trying to keep them focused on the task. The Klingons [134] glanced at one another as if a person would be crazy to want to set foot in this tortured limbo. “You see,” she continued, “the transporters in the satellites can’t direct-beam just anywhere—they have to be targeted and activated by booths on the ground. We can make these enclosures one-way to save power, but they’ve got to be here first.”
“First we set up a base,” countered Worf. He looked with disgust at a vine that tried to curl around his ankle, and he finally smashed it with the butt of his disruptor rifle. Then he shook some slimy creatures off his boot and scowled. “It’s hard to imagine someone set out to create this. Alexander, what about the big life-forms the probes detected?”
The young Klingon studied his handheld device and reported, “They’re all around us—mostly in the trees. But they could be parasitic plants. With this interference, I’m not sure anymore what I’m reading.”
Overseer Tejharet staggered on his feet and gripped Marla’s arm for support. “I need to go back to the shuttlecraft,” he rasped.
“Go ahead,” she said with encouragement. “I’ll let you know if we find anything of interest. Ambassador Worf—what about those shelters?”
“Right,” answered the brawny Klingon. He had twenty security officers under his command, and he ordered half of them to start the process of taking back the planet for humanoid habitation.
They ducked into the largest shuttlecraft and pulled out several prefabricated metal sections, which they started to assemble in the feeble windbreak between the vessels. It was almost humorous to watch the strapping Klingons struggle to make a shelter in this gale, but Marla Karuw couldn’t allow herself even a smile. This was worse than she had ever imagined, and rebuilding would take a lifetime. An immediate concern was food, and she wondered how much of this rampant, swarming plant growth was edible. Or would it eat them before they could eat it?
[135] In due time, the Klingon warriors managed to construct a small geodesic dome, which kept trying to blow away. Only by sinking numerous stakes and poles in the sludge could they even get the structure to stand still, and it wasn’t until several of them carried heavy equipment into the dome that it appeared to be stable. Despite the futility of their efforts, Marla Karuw
was heartened by the sight of the first new building on their ravaged homeworld.
None of the big, brave Klingons looked as if they wanted to leave the scorched clearing and the shelter of their shuttlecraft. Marla had a small receptacle for taking samples, and she knelt down and scooped up a handful of earth, complete with squirming slugs. She put the whole wriggling mass in her sample jar and secured it just inside the hatch of the shuttlecraft. As she did, she caught a glimpse of Tejharet staring numbly out the viewport at the swirling sleet- and mist-shrouded trees. He looked beaten, discouraged, and she knew she would have to be strong for both of them ... for every Aluwnan.
After glancing out the hatchway to make sure the Klingons were occupied, Marla went to the overseer and gently rubbed his shoulder. “Don’t worry, we have a plan to return our beloved planet to normal.”
He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Normal? The air is breathable, if you can stand the smell, but our people aren’t Klingons or pioneers. They can’t carve a civilization out of this madness. Look at those trees—they’re growing right before my eyes! This is not Aluwna ... this is some cursed abomination!”
Marla took a deep breath and fought the temptation to slap the overseer. “This is our home,” she replied evenly. “If it were just you and me and a few hundred people on the royal yachts, we could go anywhere and resettle. But it’s not just us. The satellites are already going back into orbit, and we owe it to those eight million people to free them. We owe it to all those who died to reclaim our world. Beside, the Klingons are helping [136] us, and maybe we can get more Federation help, now that the immediate threat has ended.”
“Federation help?” rasped Tejharet, laughing disdainfully. “It’s their technology that ravaged our planet and turned it into a wasteland. And you expect them to save us?”
“No,” answered Marla Karuw gravely, “I expect to use them until we can stand on our own. We dare not tell them how we plan to terraform the planet.”
Before the regent could say more, the hatch opened again, and a foul-smelling wind swirled inside the cabin. Ambassador Worf entered, shaking the snow off his hair and shoulders, and he was followed by the young blond man he called Jeremy, who sat at the pilot’s console.
“Overseer ... Regent,” he began, “we need to contact our ships and blast out a bigger clearing for our base. We’re getting overrun out there by the plant growth. Do you have any objections to this course of action?”
“No,” answered Karuw. “Clear as much area as you can.”
Diffidently, Tejharet waved his approval.
At the console, Jeremy reported, “I’ve sent coordinates to the Doghjey and the Ya’Vang to clear an area the size of three hectares. We can coordinate the bombardment from here.”
“Is it all right if we return to our ship?” asked the regent. “We’ve still got all those satellites to oversee.”
Worf nodded. “Yes. Remain here, and I’ll send a pilot to take you.” He nodded to the young man, and the two of them staggered back outside, braving the ferocious elements.
“Blast the whole planet,” muttered Overseer Tejharet.
“Maybe they will,” answered Marla Karuw, her jaw clenched tightly. She picked up the sample jar that contained the charred, mutated soil of their homeworld, plus some very unwelcome new inhabitants. “They’ll do what they can, but it’s up to us to save our world.”
* * *
[137] Alexander Rozhenko covered his ears as explosions ripped through the riotous jungle one kilometer away, sending great plumes of smoke and plant debris swirling into the atmosphere. From space, the Klingon task force continued to pound the selected spot with disruptor beams, obliterating the profuse vegetation and no doubt making massive craters. Their destructive fire almost rivaled that of the great volcanoes in the distance. It’s not going to be pretty ground, but at least it will be bare ground, thought the young Klingon, with all the roots, seeds, and spores totally obliterated. That’s what they needed—a campsite free of the encroaching underbrush and towering trees.
Alexander wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or just the contrast with the massive explosions, but the weather seemed to have calmed somewhat since their arrival two hours ago. The domed shelters they had hurriedly erected were now staying put, and the snow flurries and freezing sleet had abated, although the fog was worsened by the bombardment. Fortunately, Klingons were handy with bat’leths and other bladed weapons, and the warriors were hacking away at the rampant brush on the outskirts of Base One, trying to keep it clear until the new campsite was ready.
Although Aluwna was a dangerous, wildly primitive place, it held a certain attraction for the young warrior. When the pressures of living as a Klingon among humans had grown too intense for him, he had often escaped to the wilderness areas of Earth. There he could be alone to think, surrounded by nature, which never cared about his race or circumstances. This world reminded Alexander of those simple times, when life boiled down to finding food and shelter. Still, he had never seen plants grow like this, curling upward right before his eyes.
The Genesis Wave was a cowardly, spiteful weapon that killed without discrimination or compunction, but one had to respect any force that could unleash this kind of power. He could now understand why the Klingons of an earlier generation had coveted the Genesis weapon and had almost gone to [138] war with the Federation to obtain it. Alexander could also understand why the Federation had gone to such great lengths to protect its secret, even if all their precautions had ultimately failed.
He had fought in the Dominion War, but that had been a fight against a recognizable foe with clearly defined objectives. What is the point of this invasion? Alexander wondered to himself as the disruptors emblazoned the twilit sky. To terraform a planet that was already livable—that made no sense. Where were the invaders who could make use of such a wretched, overgrown wilderness? Wouldn’t it have made some sense to at least leave some buildings and infrastructure standing? Worriedly, he scanned the sky, almost expecting the unknown conquerors to arrive at any moment.
Then he heard a shout, which wrenched him out of his uneasy thoughts. One of the guards at the edge of the clearing drew a hand disrupter and began firing into the brush, while shouting something incomprehensible. Alexander’s Klingonese wasn’t perfect, so maybe he misunderstood the panicked guard. He jumped to his feet and jogged toward the spot, as did his father and foster brother, Jeremy, who had been setting up scanners in one of the shelters. All three of them reached the area at the same time, and Alexander saw nothing that warranted such a reaction—just the twisting vines that constantly tried to reclaim this patch of mutant dirt.
“Cease fire!” barked Worf. “Put your weapon away.”
“But ... there! I saw it ... right there!” stammered the officer, who looked like a grizzled veteran.
“What did you see?” demanded Worf.
Other Klingons were poking around the spot, and one of them jumped back in alarm. “Creatures!” he shouted.
They used their bat’leths and knives to slash at the underbrush, revealing a nest of grotesque man-sized slugs. The horrendous creatures were the color of mottled gruel, and they were flopping and squirming like fish suddenly plucked from the [139] water. For mouths, they seemed to have circles ringed with tiny teeth, like lamprey Alexander had seen on Earth. Slimy feelers lined their misshapen bodies, and it was hard to count the number of eyes they had. But they definitely knew they were under attack, as they writhed and twisted through the teeming vines and underbrush.
“Capture one!” ordered Worf, shouting over the distant disrupter blasts.
Klingon warriors, who weren’t usually so squeamish, gawked at their commander with distaste. “Couldn’t we just kill them?” asked one.
“Capture one, and kill the rest,” ordered Worf pragmatically. “These may be the life-forms that have registered on our sensors.”
That made sense, thought Alexander, and if so, it meant that these ugly organisms might b
e the invaders they expected to discover.
Alexander took a pair of heavy gloves from his pack and put them on. “Come on, Jeremy, let’s show them how to do it. Are we not sons of Worf from the House of Martok?”
His blond brother grinned at him and pulled out his own pair of studded gloves. “Yes, we are,” he answered proudly.
The two of them reached into the squirming, twisting mass of slime and grabbed the fattest specimen. The thing felt like one entire slab of muscle as it writhed out of their grasp, and they had to wade farther into the morass. Their comrades hacked at the vines, thorn plants, and giant slugs to keep them at bay, while the two boys finally wrestled the big specimen out of the nest and onto bare ground. It snapped and twisted and lunged at them, but they were laughing as they tied cords around its head and tail, gradually reducing it into a lumpen slab of ooze.
“Well done,” said Worf with a laugh. “I wonder if these things are good eating?”
“I bet it would be good with a little drawn garlic butter,” suggested Jeremy with a smile.
[140] “That’s not what I saw,” muttered the old warrior who had started this ruckus.
“What did you see?” asked Jeremy.
“Rrrgh!” He snarled defensively at the human, turned on his heel, and strode away.
In the next moment, the bombardment ended, and the landing party stopped to listen to the relative silence. The wind was still howling, and massive tree branches draped with moss rustled ominously; plus geysers continued to spew their foul contents into the darkening sky, adding to the reek of the sulfurous fog.
“Take that thing to shuttlecraft five,” ordered Worf. “We are sending men back to the ship for supplies, and they might as well take the beast with them.”
“Yes, Father,” replied Alexander, and he grabbed one arm of the cord and Jeremy grabbed the other. They dragged the slimy thing over the charred dirt and tossed it unceremoniously into the small vessel. Alexander was glad they wouldn’t have to be riding in the shuttle with the beast, because it was beginning to stink.
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book Four - Genesis Force Page 13
