“We have our confirmation,” Captain Kirk had said when she’d shown him her results. “The two cities on these two planets were built by people who communicated in the same language. That means there’s a good chance that the inhabitants were members of the same species.” The captain looked at Trinh. “Well done, Ensign,” he told her, a small accolade that nevertheless pleased her greatly.
As the landing party had made their way toward the center of the city, the extent of the destruction increased. They saw larger building foundations, but fewer and fewer structures that had not toppled and burned completely. They ran into large chunks of pavement that had buckled upward, and still other sections that had collapsed into deep, wide holes. Rubble began to clog the thoroughfares over which they passed, and on more than one occasion, they had to backtrack and find another way forward.
Finally, as the sun made a run for the horizon, lengthening their shadows along the ground, the landing party reached the city center. The dimensions of the open space and the cobblestones that lined it seemed identical to those in the square at the heart of the first city. More than that, the two places felt similar to Trinh, as though each had been built by the same people, and as though each had been destroyed by the same enemy. But—
“It’s worse here,” Trinh said into a grim silence she hadn’t realized had risen around the landing party. Along their path through the city, the rap of their heels against the paved streets, the high-pitched wails of their tricorders, and the intermittent conversations had hardly filled the area with noise, but had at least prevented it from lapsing into the haunted quiet that had suddenly appeared. Trinh felt as though her voice, as quietly as she spoke, still desecrated the memories of those who’d died there. Doctor McCoy offered her a sympathetic glance, but neither he nor any of the others said anything.
While moving through the fallen city, Trinh had sensed the widespread nature of the devastation, but standing in the mostly empty square in the city center and peering all around its perimeter, she saw the terrible enormity of the violence that had been wrought there. On the first planet, and also along the rim of the city they’d been exploring, buildings and parts of buildings and segments of the municipal infrastructure still stood. The bones of the dead, she thought. The people had died—had probably been murdered—but some perceptible remnants of their existence remained.
Along the edges of the square that stretched before the landing party, though, almost everything had been flattened. The center of the vanquished city had been crushed, the vast majority of its physical components reduced to ash. In some places, one or two support beams clawed upward, like the hands of drowning men looking for something to grab hold of to save their lives. Beneath the darkening afternoon sky, though, the bulk of the detritus left behind looked more like low-lying sand dunes than the vestiges of a humanoid city.
“It’s Dresden,” said the captain. He stood slightly ahead of the rest of the landing party, gazing out across a place that, not that long ago, had been an active, living city. He didn’t elucidate his comment, and nobody asked him to do so.
Trinh didn’t require an explanation. During the Second World War on Earth, near the conclusion of hostilities, the German city of Dresden had been the target of a carpet-bombing campaign. In a series of air raids made over several days, almost the entire city center had been obliterated. Trinh knew that, after the war, historians had debated the morality of the attack; the cultural importance of Dresden to the Germans, the beauty of its architecture and layout, and the presence of a civilian population contrasted with its use as a communications and rail center, and as a site of munitions manufacture. For Trinh, such questions missed the point. In the end, the wasted landscape that resulted from the massive aerial bombardment of Dresden served her as a powerful symbol of the horror and senselessness of war.
Trinh started to say something about that, but then heard a pair of short tones. The captain immediately reached to the back of his waist, grabbed his communicator, and flipped open its gold metal grille. Trinh clearly heard Commander Spock speak the name Kirk, but then a burst of static covered whatever might have come next. The captain reached up to the device and worked its controls, plainly trying to clear a channel to Enterprise.
As Captain Kirk made adjustments to his communicator and the rest of the landing party looked on, Trinh realized that she heard a new sound, some noise not created by the members of the Enterprise crew tramping through the blighted carcass of the city. She cocked her head to one side, then turned in place as she tried to follow the drone—Is it getting louder?—to its source. She saw awareness of the sound dawn on the others, including the captain, and they all peered around in search of the cause.
When Captain Kirk lifted his gaze skyward, Trinh saw his eyes suddenly widen. She quickly looked around to see what had caused such a reaction. Even as she spotted the blur up among the clouds and registered its rapid approach, Trinh heard the captain issue the last command she would ever heed in Starfleet.
“Run!”
Nine
The vessels appeared on Enterprise’s sensors as though a veil around them had abruptly lifted. A moment earlier, the proximity alert indicator had flashed red at the front of the helm-and-navigation console, causing Sulu to lean left and peer into the scanner on his panel. He’d seen at once that a swarm of ships—he counted half a dozen—had emerged from behind the planet’s large natural satellite, which they had evidently used to obstruct their presence in the system.
“Mister Spock,” he said, “six vessels have just shown up on sensors, from behind the moon.” Sulu studied the profiles of the ships, but did not recognize them, and his display—automatically tied into the ship’s library-computer—provided no identification for them. “Configuration unknown,” he told the first officer. He checked the headings of the vessels, then worked his panel to project their paths. “They appear to be on an intercept course.”
It pleased Sulu to see that the vessels did not measure up to Enterprise physically; each elongated hull had dimensions similar to a single one of the Constitution-class starship’s warp nacelles. He didn’t know if the aliens intended to attack, but they had clearly sought a tactical advantage by keeping themselves hidden until that point; they also clearly possessed an edge in terms of absolute numbers.
“Lieutenant Uhura,” Spock said from the command chair, “hailing frequencies. Open a channel—”
Enterprise shuddered, a roar filling the bridge. On his scanner, Sulu saw that all six vessels had leaped forward, closing on the ship in an instant. He could only surmise that they’d engaged their warp drive, despite the danger of doing so across such a relatively short distance and while deep inside the gravity wells of both the planet and the moon. The readings that appeared on his scanner confirmed his supposition.
The ship continued to shake beneath an onslaught that did not relent. From the science station, Chekov announced that the six vessels fired versions of the missiles that the Enterprise crew had encountered at R-775-I—good news, at least in the aliens’ apparent lack of advanced weaponry. Uhura called out that she received no response to her hails. Quiet and calm only seconds earlier, the bridge had grown loud and unsteady.
“Fire phasers,” Spock ordered. “All banks.”
Sulu’s hands moved as if of their own volition, finding the proper controls and working them to enact the first officer’s orders. Over the clamor of the missiles carrying their payloads and detonating against Enterprise’s shields, he heard the squall of the phasers’ operation. In his scanner, he saw a number of the energy blasts finding their marks, but the alien ships pursued twisting, evasive courses, their movements extraordinarily agile. Many of the phaser beams missed their intended targets.
“Two direct hits,” Sulu said. He glanced up at the main screen to see one of the vessels slice across the field of view above the planet. Matte black, the bladelike ship flew a serpentine path, firing missile after missile as it moved. Enterprise continued t
o pitch fiercely beneath the onslaught.
“Fire photon torpedoes,” Spock said above the furor enveloping the bridge.
Enterprise rocked again and again, and Sulu had to set his feet widely against the deck to keep himself in his chair. He operated his console, unleashing a fusillade of the matter-antimatter casings into the battle. In his scanner, he saw one of the alien vessels take a hit, a torpedo detonating against its hull. It lost flight control, appeared to right itself, but then tumbled end over end away from the planet. He reported it to Spock.
“Shields are down to eighty-seven percent,” Chekov called. The measurement seemed low to Sulu, considering the basic nature of the alien weapons. The incessant pounding by the missiles, though, had clearly begun to take its toll on Enterprise’s defensive screens.
“Still no response to hails,” Uhura called out.
“Lieutenant Sulu, fire all weapons at will,” Spock said. “Lieutenant Hadley, coordinate evasive maneuvers with the helm.”
Sitting beside Sulu at the navigation station, Hadley acknowledged the order and immediately operated his controls to bring the ship about. Sulu glanced at the astrogation panel as Enterprise’s new course appeared on it, and then he pressed a button to feed it directly into his scanner readout. Consulting the display once more, he saw the ship drawing a path through the attacking vessels. Sulu activated every phaser bank mounted on the ship, fore, aft, and lateral, then launched a photon torpedo from every tube.
Peering back up at the viewer, the helmsman saw frenetic movement as the five remaining vessels buzzed about Enterprise like flies about a piece of carrion. Each discharged missile after missile in an unceasing hail of aggression. The bright red beams of Starfleet phasers screamed through the void of space, mostly missing the swift, nimble vessels, but occasionally landing on one of the black hulls. White flashes punctuated the combat as Enterprise’s photon torpedoes exploded.
On his scanner, Sulu saw a second vessel disabled and sent tumbling away into space. For a moment, he thought that Enterprise’s weapons had incapacitated a third as well. The vessel arced down and entered the planet’s atmosphere. It flew straight and steady, though, and when Sulu plotted its course, its apparent destination horrified him.
“Mister Spock,” he shouted above the din, “one of the ships is headed for the city.”
Sulu did not hear the first officer push the communications button on the arm of the command chair, but knew that he must have when he said, “Enterprise to Captain Kirk.” Spock paused, then said it again.
“Sir,” Uhura said, “the ships out there are jamming local communications. I doubt our signal’s getting through to the captain.”
“Acknowledged,” Spock said. Sulu heard him stand from the command chair, then felt his presence as the first officer stepped up between the helm and navigation stations. “Lieutenant Hadley,” he said, “set a course directly away from the planet. Lieutenant Sulu—”
“Mister Spock,” Sulu exclaimed, unable to keep his concern in check, “what about the landing party?”
“Lieutenant Sulu,” Spock repeated levelly, “cease fire and prepare to match the velocity of the alien vessels. On my order, accelerate to that speed and follow Lieutenant Hadley’s course.”
Despite his fear for Trinh, Sulu said no more. He worked quickly to follow Spock’s orders. “Course locked in,” he reported. “Ready to match velocity with the aliens.”
“Execute,” Spock said.
Sulu brought Enterprise up to speed as it shot through the remaining three vessels and away. He inspected his scanner, then told Spock that all three ships had turned in pursuit. Sulu could only hope that whatever the first officer had planned would not take more time than they needed to return to the planet and rescue the landing party.
• • •
Trinh saw the slender, black object cutting through the sky and assumed that a rocket, like one of those that had attacked them in the R-775 system, had targeted the landing party. Even as Captain Kirk yelled for all of them to run, she wondered what good that could possibly do. They could not outrun a rocket, and even if it did not strike the ground precisely at their location, how could they hope to escape the effects of its nearby detonation?
And yet she ran.
Trinh turned toward the point where the landing party had entered the square from their circuitous path through the city. She took to her heels at once, and saw that her crewmates did so as well. Where can we hide? she wondered, already knowing that they would find no safe haven within the city. Near the center square, none of the buildings—virtually no section, no piece of any building—remained standing. Even if one had, though, it would surely collapse from the concussion wave of an explosion rather than provide any real protection.
As Trinh neared the edge of the square, she saw Captain Kirk looking at Doctor McCoy and pointing, then getting the attention of Ensign Davis and steering him in a slightly different direction. Trinh understood immediately: the captain wanted the members of the landing party to scatter as best they could, to offer multiple targets so that perhaps a single rocket would not kill every Enterprise crew member on the surface.
Trinh veered to her left as she neared the perimeter of the square. Once there, she picked out a narrow opening between heaps of ash and raced into it. The mounds around her blocked the light of the setting sun, throwing her into a trail of shadows. Her boots sent up muffled beats as she ran, telling her that she probably sprinted not on one of the many thoroughfares crisscrossing the city, but on unpaved land that had once lain between two buildings.
As she rushed on, she darted left and right when she could, as though she could somehow confuse the targeting mechanism of the rocket. She thought of how Hikaru had made a similar dash back on the first planet, cutting through the trees on his way to the caves—and she thought of his clever solution. He’d figured that the rocket closing on that location tracked the life signs of Trinh and the other scientists, and so he set his tricorder to simulate such readings, then hurled the device into the canyon.
And it worked.
Trinh stopped, skidding on a mixture of dirt and ash. The sound of footsteps continued for a moment, disconcerting her, and then Lieutenant Stack ran into her from behind. He would have knocked her to the ground had he not taken hold of her by the arms and caught her as she started to fall.
“We need to keep going,” the lieutenant told her.
“I know, I know,” Trinh said around mouthfuls of air. It struck her as peculiar that, even in the midst of literally running for her life, she observed that Lieutenant Stack was not even breathing heavily. As she operated her tricorder to attempt what Hikaru had done, she quickly explained her plan to the lieutenant. When she’d finished, she handed him the device. He took it from her, exchanging it for his own, which she set about programming as well. Lieutenant Stack reared back and threw her tricorder, and when she’d completed preparing his, he tossed that one as well.
“Now, let’s go,” the lieutenant said, tapping Trinh on the elbow as he resumed fleeing the square.
Before Trinh followed, she peered up into the sky, in the direction that she’d seen the rocket. It had grown closer—much closer. She turned and ran.
Trinh had covered less than ten more meters when she heard thunder above her and felt the ground quake. The great roar seemed to pass over her, and then a tremendous explosion split the day. She staggered but somehow stayed on her feet and kept running.
Suddenly, a great wall of ash to her right erupted horizontally, sweeping her up within its mass. She felt her feet leave the ground, and then she wound sideways through the air—except that there was no air. Dry flakes of burned material found their way into her mouth and throat, and she inhaled them into her lungs. She coughed hard, uncontrollably, but when she breathed in, she still could find no air.
She ended up on her back, or at least she thought she did. In the darkness—she could see nothing, and didn’t know whether she’d instinctively closed he
r eyes or she’d been buried alive—she panicked. Trinh tried to wave her arms, but found them pinned above her head. She continued to gasp for air, then frantically began turning her head from side to side as she hacked up the dried remains of the city. Terror consumed her, and she writhed against it.
When nothing happened, when Trinh could not free herself but she did not die, she stilled her movements and tried to gather herself. She found space on the right side of her body, where her head had pushed aside some of the material around her. She thrust her mouth against her shoulder, using her uniform shirt as a sort of filter, respiring against it, her lips pressing tightly enough against the fabric to keep the ashes out. Trinh heard nothing but the sounds she made trying to fill her lungs, and the too-rapid beat of her heart.
I’m buried alive, she thought. The wild alarm she’d felt moments before threatened again, but she fought against it. Trinh struggled to slow her breathing. She smelled the sour tang of her own sweat.
Hikaru, she thought, seeing his face in her mind. He had saved her, not once, but again and again. On R-775-I, he had used his tricorder to direct the rocket away from the cave in which she had taken cover, a trick she had just used a second time to once more avoid—at least temporarily—her own death. Even if she could not free herself, she could at least make the claim that Hikaru had helped her elude death from another rocket’s explosion.
And of course, he had saved her with his love. He had rescued her not from death, but from something perhaps worse: a life not fully lived. She’d had love before and lost it, and it had taken Hikaru and his bright smile and handsome face, his quirky sense of humor, his ridiculous amount of enthusiasm for so very many things—it had taken all that made him the person he was to pull her out of a stagnation that could have lasted for the rest of her life.
Star Trek: TOS: Allegiance in Exile Page 15
