Firestorm

by L. A. Graf

  Uhura tore her gaze away, forcing herself to meet Takcas's narrow-eyed stare with one just as steady. "And am I a worm, too, kessh Takcas?" she demanded, fighting to keep the softness of shock out of her voice. Arrogance is all these people respect, she reminded herself, but it was hard to be arrogant in front of twenty Klingon disruptors. "The Dohlman Israi owes her life to us. Is this how she thanks people?"

  Takcas shook Mutchler and the geologist choked again, his narrow face pale against the darkness. "Another of this crawling reptile's tricks! We have learned from the Crown Regent how his machines made that earthquake."

  "But we rescued—"

  "All part of your plan to rob us of this planet. The Crown Regent even told us how you would twist Her Glory's words to make our claim invalid—just as we heard you do tonight!"

  Uhura opened her mouth to argue further, but a grunt of pain stopped her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Sulu double over as one of his guards clubbed him for a second time in the stomach. There was a small flurry of motion to the right as Chekov struggled briefly and was subdued.

  This time Uhura didn't have to counterfeit the fury in her voice. "What was that for?"

  "That was for you." Takcas handed his prisoner to Oben and strode toward Uhura, stopping a respectful pace away. "You are a Dohlman, Your Glory, and our Dohlman says we must not touch you or do you any insult. But if you do not come quietly down to the punishment cells with us, we will crush your cohort one by one until their screams reach all the way to your ship."

  "Spock, report."

  Kirk knew that all the lighting and environments on the Enterprise were artificially created, but the bridge still looked different to him in the middle of third-shift night from the way it did during his normal first-shift day. Some of it, he knew, was the faces—people he could recognize in passing, but whose work styles and speeds he didn't know inside and out. The rest of the difference could be attributed to adrenaline, pumped into his bloodstream whenever the intercom awoke him in the middle of the night for any emergency that couldn't be handled without him.

  He took the steps to his command chair quickly, pausing by the arm as his first officer turned to face him.

  "Captain, we are being approached by a fleet of three hundred unidentified vessels. They have not responded to repeated hails, nor have they altered their course."

  He turned the chair and sat. "Are our shields up?"

  Spock nodded once. "Shields were activated when the lead vessel entered firing range, Captain. The fleet has activated its own defense array, but has taken no other hostile action."

  "Hmm." Rakatan's blue-gray profile bisected the viewscreen, hanging against a sprinkle of stars and the flat black circle that was Rakatan's shadowed moon. "Can you get the ships on visual?"

  The pilot glanced down at the helm scanner, then shook her head. "No, sir. They've taken up a fixed position just outside visual scanning range."

  Damn.

  "Captain." Spock's distracted tone told Kirk the Vulcan was bent over his science station. "I may be able to enhance scanner sensitivity by temporarily converting it to make use of the unusually high ultraviolet output of the Ordover system." He lifted his head. "That should give us a higher-frequency signal, but there will be no visual color."

  Kirk would take what he could and be grateful for that. "Give me what you can, Mr. Spock."

  "Aye, Captain."

  "Captain?" The navigator glanced over his shoulder, hands poised above his console. "Shall I maintain standard orbit, sir? It will take us out of sensor range of the fleet in approximately ten minutes."

  Kirk leaned forward to squint at the empty screen. No matter how many years he spent in space, he would never learn to like facing an enemy he couldn't see. "Hold on for now, Lieutenant," he said at last. "Once we've passed over Rakatan's horizon, bring us back on a steep polar loop. I want to be out of their sight for at least five minutes." Maybe they could catch the mice playing if they thought the cat was on the other side of the planet.

  "Mr. Howard?"

  The guard at the security station glanced up. "Aye, sir?"

  "What sort of reading can you get on their weapons?" Dark eyes flicked across scanner readouts. Kirk watched the light on the young ensign's face shift from amber, to green, to amber again. "Most of the ships are single-person close-quarter fighters, sir. They carry light phasers, but no torpedo banks. The lead ship's a lot bigger, though, and carries both." He paused again, leaning to his left to check another screen. "The flagship is just under Soyuz-size, but the ionic output from the power source looks like …" Eyebrows rose, and he shot a startled look at Kirk. "… like a Klingon cruiser, sir."

  Kirk tightened his hands on the arms of his command chair. "Keep our phasers trained on that flagship, Ensign."

  "Aye-aye, sir!"

  "Spock, any luck with that conversion yet?"

  "Coming on-screen now, Captain."

  Rakatan's horizon line broke and rippled, and all color washed out of the screen like sand sliding between two plates of glass. A ghostly black-and-white image fluttered into focus, barely detailed enough for the viewer to pick out individual vessels from the shifting blur. The flagship stood out most clearly, smooth and sinister as a snake, with sharp, well-tooled edges and the sweeping arc of a warp pylon jutting out to either side. The myriad smaller ships were more primitive, bullet-shaped, their outlines blurred into harsh checkerboard patterns wherever the ultraviolet was absorbed by weld seams and converted into heat. Kirk chewed his thumbnail as he studied the motley armada.

  "The big one looks like it used to be a Klingon heavy frigate," Howard remarked to no one in particular. He sounded hesitant, and a little confused.

  "Yes …" Kirk pulled his gaze away from the viewscreen long enough to reward the ensign with a grim nod. "They've made quite an industry out of retooling their older vessels for sale to non-allied systems. But those smaller ships …" He glanced a question back at Spock, and the Vulcan raised both eyebrows as though surprised the captain had to ask.

  "I believe we are in the presence of the Crown Regent," he said, quite formally. When Kirk only frowned, Spock nodded toward the viewscreen. "Captain, what we are seeing is the Royal Armada of Elas."

  Chapter Twelve

  THE MOUTH OF the dilithium mine yawned before them in the night, indigo black against the dusky cliffs that walled the Elasian mining camp. Uhura only glanced at it briefly while they approached. She was too busy watching her footing on the rough dirt track and trying to keep up with Takcas. The pace set by the cohort leader made her leg muscles hurt and her throat burn with the effort of breathing Rakatan's oxygen-poor air.

  "In here." Takcas stepped aside, gesturing for Uhura to enter the mine before him. The pale amber light of Rakatan's moon sparked reflections from crystal flecks in the carved rock doorway, but no light showed inside. Uhura paused involuntarily on the brink of utter blackness, then remembered what had happened to Sulu when she'd argued with Takcas before. Digging her teeth into her lower lip, she forced herself into the mine.

  The first shock was the temperature. Instead of the dank earthen chill she expected, the air inside the mine was dry and summer-hot. At first, Uhura assumed it was waste heat from the machinery she could hear thumping somewhere below. But when she put out a hand to guide herself into the tunnel, she felt the rock warm her palm like a live beast. Despite the underground darkness, the walls of the mine were hot as sun-baked brick.

  Takcas caught her shoulder when she took another blind step. "No, Your Glory. This way." A hand-lamp flared into life behind her, chasing Uhura's shadow down a short length of entrance tunnel until it fetched up against a solid rock wall. The rest of the cohort followed Takcas as he led her toward that seeming dead end. It wasn't until they were a meter away that Uhura realized the rock wall was just the far side of another, more natural-looking tunnel, which the mine intersected. Takcas ducked into it and turned left, following the downward slope.

  "Hey!" Despite a new
hoarseness, Mutchler's whisper still managed to sound young and excited. "This isn't a mine shaft, it's a lava tube!"

  "Dr. Mutchler, shut—" The sound of a blow interrupted Chekov's curt command. Uhura winced when she heard the geologist's cry of pain, but she didn't try to turn around. Knowing the Elasians, she guessed that any protest on her part would just get more of her landing party hurt.

  "Down here." Takcas's hand-lamp glittered off a thick metal door, set into an equally thick metal bulkhead. He swung it open to reveal another section of snake-shaped corridor, this time lit with sullen yellow lights down the center of the roof. The thumping of machinery grew louder as they stepped in, and the air temperature went from summery to skin-prickling hot.

  Uhura eyed the smooth rock walls on either side, seeing no signs of gouging or pits for mineral extraction. Wherever the Elasians were finding their dilithium, it wasn't here. The big machine must be some kind of air-cooling unit for the lower levels, she decided as they edged their way past its pounding roar. Otherwise, the miners would have needed environmental suits to work in this kind of heat.

  "Stop." Just past the machinery, Takcas motioned Uhura to one side of the passage. The other side, she could see now, had been dug out in three neat cubical cells, each fitted around the edges with the familiar metal collar of a forcefield generator. The spiderweb of wiring that ran across the rough rock ceiling from the pounding machinery showed where the generators got their power.

  "You go in this one, Dohlman, with the kessh of your cohort." Takcas steered Chekov toward the first and largest cell. Uhura darted a quick look at the security chief, waiting to see his nod of acceptance before she followed him in. The rock-cut room was deep enough that both of them could stand well away from the forcefield, but the ceiling hung so low that even Uhura had to stoop under it. For a male Elasian, the room's dimensions would have been torture.

  "You, underling-pilot, go in here with the dark man." There was a thud as the cohort unceremoniously tossed Murphy into the center cell. Sulu ducked in after him, aiming a quiet but remarkably profane Orion curse at his captors. For his sake, Uhura hoped the Universal Translator hadn't caught it.

  "And you, spineless scientific worm, you go in the smallest cell of all." Another choke from Mutchler preceded a second, louder thump. "Oben, turn on the field power."

  A shimmer of force prismed inside the collared space when the burly older Elasian—still hunched and swollen from Takcas's cruel beating—flipped switches on the thrumming power source. After a moment, the forcefields steadied into their usual invisibility. Takcas pushed Oben unceremoniously away from the field generator to verify its settings himself, his strong-boned face carved with harsh lines in the overhead yellow light.

  "Her Glory the Dohlman has not yet decided what to do to you for attempting to murder her." His lips curled in what looked more like a snarl than a grin. "But never fear. If she takes too long to decide on the method of your execution, you will simply sweat yourselves to death in here."

  Chekov scowled but wisely said nothing while the cohort retraced their steps past the pulsing power generator and back up to the surface, Takcas leaving last of all. From the soft scuffing noises in the next cell, Uhura guessed that Sulu was moving Murphy's unconscious body to a more comfortable position. She stepped as close as she could to the corner without triggering the forcefield.

  "How is Ensign Murphy?"

  "Coming around." Sulu's voice echoed oddly off the flat rock walls, as if it were coming from across the corridor instead of from the next cell.

  Chekov grunted, squirming out of his uniform jacket. Even as Uhura watched, a trickle of sweat carved a path through the dust on his bruised cheek. "Take his jacket off, so he doesn't get too hot," he advised Sulu as he rolled up his own sleeves.

  "Coming down here was not a good idea."

  Uhura paused in opening the flap of her own jacket, startled by the bleak despair in Mutchler's voice. Even the blistering heat couldn't account for it. It was uncomfortable, certainly, but not life-threatening. At least, not yet.

  "We didn't have a lot of choice, Dr. Mutchler." Chekov sat and leaned wearily back against the rock wall. "Trust me, you don't argue with Klingon disruptors."

  Sulu chuckled. "I don't think Dr. Mutchler means coming down to the mine, Chekov. I think he means coming down to the planet."

  "I mean both." A frustrated pounding echoed down the passage. Uhura frowned, knowing the geologist couldn't pace inside his tiny cell. He must have been kicking the wall. "You guys don't want to know what my last argon isotope reading was before those idiots grabbed us."

  Chekov snorted. "You're right, we don't."

  "Yes, we do." Uhura shrugged her jacket off and pillowed it beneath her. "What was it, Dr. Mutchler?"

  "It was—well, let's just say it was higher than any reading I've seen anywhere on Rakatan, much less on Rakatan Mons."

  Uhura frowned. Even through the doubled thickness of her uniform, she could feel heat pouring out from the volcanic rock beneath her. She felt her stomach tighten nervously. "What does that mean? Is the volcano going to erupt?"

  "Not necessarily."

  Chekov shook his head, eyes closing in frustration. "I told you we didn't want to know about the argon levels."

  The thumping noise stopped. "Hey, it's not my fault that I don't know how Rakatan Mons likes to erupt! Some volcanic eruptions are preceded by lots of tectonic activity. Others go up all at once, without any warning at all."

  "And what does that have to do with your atmospheric measurements?" Sulu inquired reasonably.

  Mutchler sighed. "Well, when dilational stress levels rise, microfractures open in the diorite and release trace levels of radiogenic argon from feldspars into the atmosphere."

  Chekov groaned. "Could you repeat that in normal English, please?"

  "We're going to have another big earthquake," the geologist said bluntly. "Probably within the next twenty-seven hours. Conceivably any minute now."

  The mingled sounds of Chekov cursing in Russian and Sulu in Orion completely overwhelmed the hiss of Uhura's indrawn breath. Of the three of them, though, she was the first to recover.

  "Dr. Mutchler, what chance do we have of surviving an earthquake inside this mine?"

  "Some," he admitted. "The fact that the Elasians have incorporated some of the natural lava tubes in the volcano helps. Circular cross sections are always stronger than cubic ones, and given the intrinsic compressibility of andesite—"

  Uhura ruthlessly cut across the geologist's incomprehensible scientific explanation. "Do we have as good a chance down here as we would on the surface?"

  "Probably not."

  The rhythmic drumming of the generator filled the silence that fell between them. After a moment, Chekov sighed and stirred from his sitting position.

  "Well, that leaves us no choice," he said gloomily. "We're going to have to escape."

  Sulu's chuckle was joined, although weakly, by one from Ensign Murphy. Uhura gave Chekov a concerned look. "You don't sound very enthusiastic about it. Is it going to be incredibly hard to do?"

  "No, it's going to be incredibly easy." Chekov squatted next to the forcefield and stuck his arm through it. Instead of the fierce crackle Uhura expected, there was only a sizzle that barely rocked the security chief back on his heels. He grunted, then looked over his shoulder at Uhura. There was more sweat on his face now, and not all of it, she guessed, from the heat.

  "Slip through the field now." Chekov spoke between clenched teeth. "You can get out while I'm drawing off—"

  Uhura dove through the spitting field before he finished speaking, then ran for the power generator. It was easy to guess which way to push the switches, since they were positioned at the lower end of their range already. She glanced at the high end of the scale and suppressed a shiver, seeing how much power the Elasians thought was necessary to confine one of their own males.

  "Good work, you guys." Sulu emerged from his cell first, then turned to hel
p a swaying Murphy to his feet. "How the hell did you break through your field?"

  "We didn't." Chekov scrubbed sweat off his face for a moment, then slowly levered himself to his feet. "Takcas set it on partial power—enough to be painful but not enough to knock both of us out." He waved Uhura off when she would have come to support him, pointing instead to Mutchler, who was trying to extricate himself from the pretzel he'd become inside his tiny cell.

  "How did you know Takcas did that?" Sulu demanded curiously.

  Chekov held out one forearm, bare beneath the rolled-up tunic sleeve. "A full-power field should have made the hair on my arm shiver. This one didn't." He reached back in the cell for his and Uhura's discarded jackets. "Takcas wanted us to escape."

  "Well, that wasn't done out of the goodness of his heart." Uhura hauled Mutchler to his feet with slightly more force than necessary. "Why did he do it?"

  Chekov scowled, handing over her jacket. "If I had to guess, I'd say Takcas isn't so sure that Israi will order us executed. This way, if we're shot trying to escape—"

  "He gets us killed without disobeying his Dohlman's orders," Sulu finished. By now, the helmsman was frowning, too. "So the minute we step past that metal door, we're going to get every cell in our bodies disrupted."

  "That's my guess." With a sigh, Chekov turned back to the forcefield collars around the punishment cells. "We'd better see what kind of weapons we can jury-rig out of these generators. If we can take out some of the guards waiting at the door—"

  "Why do we need to do that?" Mutchler looked up from the cracks he was examining in the ceiling of the lava tube. "Won't it be dangerous?"