by Greg Cox
“But, High Ranger,” an anxious Usildar addressed Banev, “she passes beyond our lands, where we dare not follow!”
“And what evil might she awaken if she reaches the lair of the Despoilers?” He shoved the reluctant hunter forward and shook his fists at the others. “After her, all of you, while there is yet a chance to stop her!”
Unwilling to defy their leader, the hunters ventured cautiously after Una, wary of the sticky melons and hidden pitfalls. Spears, rocks, and other missiles hurled past Una, who ducked low and kept her head down to avoid being hit. The last thing she needed was to get winged by another drugged spiky nut. Her eyes scanned the blackened ground before her, watching out for another trap. Her heart pounded in her chest.
“Faster!” Banev shouted. “Don’t let her get away!”
Eight meters ahead, a row of slug-like scarecrows marked the far end of the dead zone, which, despite the Usildar’s efforts, was being slowly invaded by the ugly gray fungi beyond. The wooden effigies called out to Una, offering the possibility of sanctuary. Would the fearful hunters be willing to follow her past the final boundary into the forbidden realm of the Jatohr? Una was anxious to find out, if she could make it out of the zone.
Only a few more meters to go.
Mushrooms crunched beneath her racing feet, releasing a noxious odor. A projectile whistled past her ear, missing her by centimeters. A stone-tipped javelin slammed into one the Jatohr scarecrows, embedding itself deep into the effigy’s chest. Heavy footsteps pounded behind Una, gaining on her. Another missile flew over her head.
“Hurry!” Banev ran after his warriors. “Your families and future may depend on it!”
The border was tantalizingly close, but so were the hunters and their weapons, which were definitely gaining on her. Una dived between the carved effigies, going into a roll before springing back to her feet beyond the boundary. Fruiting gray fungi carpeted the ground, which led to a low rise just up ahead. The pungent growths had also colonized a number of dead trees and logs, which were being slowly consumed by the spreading alien invasion. She was in Jatohr territory now and their pervasive legacy stretched between her and the citadel.
Shouts of fear and frustration erupted behind her. The racing footsteps slowed and fell silent. Peering back over her shoulder, Una observed that, as hoped, the hunters had halted at the edge of the zone, unwilling to go farther.
“What are you waiting for?” Banev railed at them, catching up with the other Usildar. “Keep after her!”
Thunder rumbled from the direction of the citadel, although the morning sky was clear and blue. Una appreciated its timing, while putting more distance between her and the dead zone. Scary noises from the “haunted” fortress might not be enough to discourage her pursuers much longer.
“No!” a female hunter said defiantly. “Let the stranger go to her doom. We will not share her fate.”’
The other Usildar murmured in agreement. “She is as good as dead,” a younger forest dweller insisted. “We will never see her again.”
“Fools! Cowards!” Banev snatched a thorn-studded mace from the grip of a recalcitrant warrior and loped out of the zone, leaving his followers behind. “I will save you despite yourselves!”
He pursued Una across the fungal field. She turned to face him, realizing that, unlike spears or spikes, this confrontation could not be avoided. Banev was determined to shield his people from bygone horrors, albeit at her expense. She had to admire that, along with his undeniable courage in daring to chase her beyond where every other Usildar feared to go. His bravery and dedication would have done a Starfleet captain proud.
Aside from that whole business about burning strangers.
“Listen to me, Banev.” She felt obliged to make one last attempt to reason with him, although she knew in her heart that she was wasting her breath. “Or, better yet, listen to your own people. Just let me go and you’ll never have to worry about me again.”
“I will do nothing but worry,” he countered, “as long as you are free to trespass upon forbidden ground, risking the return of yesterday’s evil and suffering.” Genuine fear, bordering on panic, raised his voice an octave. Desperate green eyes met hers. “Can you not see the danger you so rashly tempt?”
A flicker of doubt undermined her resolve. Perhaps the Jatohr citadel—and the transfer-field generator—was best left alone?
That’s what Eljor would have wanted.
But then she remembered Tim and Martinez and Griffin and Le May and Cambias being “removed” right before her eyes, banished to another reality for eighteen long years, and her jaw set in determination. She’d vowed never to forget them and she wasn’t about to do so now, not when she was finally so close to bringing them home.
“It’s worth the risk,” she said. “Trust me.”
“Never! Not when my people’s future is at stake!”
Raising his thorny mace high, he charged at her. His simian arms gave him a longer reach, but she doubted that he had ever faced a foe like her. The mace came swinging down at her, but she expertly sidestepped the attack so that his own momentum carried him past her. Not wanting to employ lethal force, Una flipped her hatchet around and smacked him in the head with the flat of the blade. The blow dropped the fear-crazed Ranger as effectively as a phaser set on stun. She nudged him with the toe of her boot to make certain that he was out cold. She felt a twinge of sincere regret.
“Forgive me,” she said to the unconscious Usildar. “I understand that you only wanted to protect your people. But there are people depending on me too.”
And they had been waiting for far too long.
* * *
Past the next rise, the ground sloped down to the shore of the algae-encrusted gray lake. If anything, the alien pond scum looked even thicker and more entrenched than Una remembered, while the rank odor was positively oppressive. Gas pockets beneath the surface bubbled and burst, releasing more foulness into the air. Curious, she unslung her tricorder and tested the air quality. She noted with concern an increase in nitrogen levels in the atmosphere. A negative side effect of the algae’s growth, she wondered, or part of a deliberate, long-term attempt to reshape the planet’s environment to suit the Jatohr? Recalling the other damage the Newcomers had inflicted on Usilde, she suspected the latter. If this went on, she realized, the Usildar would be unable to breathe their own air within a generation or two. All of their efforts to reclaim their planet would be in vain.
One more thing to worry about . . .
Across the lake, the slick, nacreous walls of the citadel appeared just as steep and impenetrable as before. The sun shone down on the island fortress, reminding Una that she had lost an entire night to her travails with the Usildar, costing her a significant portion of her head start on the Enterprise. If Kirk was indeed still on her trail, he’d be catching up to her any time now, if he hadn’t already reached this system.
Una switched off her communicator, just to be safe. She didn’t want the Enterprise locking onto her before she was ready.
And I need to get to that generator before Kirk can interfere.
Contemplating the deep, fetid waters between her and the citadel, and whatever predators might still be lurking beneath the surface, she regretted that her original plan to commandeer an abandoned Jatohr pod had not worked out. She would have to improvise instead, taking advantage of the materials at hand.
Fortunately, she’d already devised a plan.
Pieces of driftwood, coated with algae, could be found upon the beach. With the aid of the stolen hatchet, she lashed them together with vines to form a crude but usable raft. It wouldn’t win any yachting contests, and wasn’t as convenient as the inflatable life raft stowed away on the Shimizu, but it might serve to get her across the lake to the citadel, where the towering walls of the fortress required another creative solution.
Una shrugged off her pack and
opened it. Tucked inside, along with the Key and some basic survival gear, was an intact purple melon she’d claimed back at the clearing when she first made her escape. Her plan was to crack it open when she reached the base of the wall and apply a measured quantity of the adhesive sap to her hands and boots so that she could scale the sheer walls as easily as a Suliban—as long as she moved quickly enough to avoid ending up stuck to the side of the wall like a barnacle.
It was a risky plan, but she couldn’t think of a better one.
Granted, even if she did succeed in making it past the walls and using the Key to bring back Tim and the others, they would still have to make their way back to the Shimizu in order to escape the planet. But she figured that there had to be a working pod or two left in the city, and that, with whatever was left of the landing party at her side, they could deal with the Usildar long enough to reclaim her ship.
Assuming that there was still anybody left to rescue.
But she was getting ahead of herself. First she needed to get to the citadel. Any future challenges could wait.
Dragging the makeshift raft to the water’s edge, she shoved off from the shore. The ubiquitous algae made the driftwood slick and slimy to the touch, but she overcame her disgust to climb aboard the rickety craft and, kneeling atop it, paddle toward the citadel. A single wooden oar propelled her forward, while memories of the monstrous cephalopod she’d glimpsed years before kept her on alert for any sign of movement beneath the scummy surface of the lake. She had no reason to expect that the lake creatures had vanished with the Jatohr, so she could only hope that any submerged beasts did not recognize her as prey or smell the blood from the various small cuts and scrapes she’d picked up during the chase through the woods. For once, her eidetic memory worked against her. She could all too vividly remember the beast’s baleful yellow eyes, snapping beak, and clawed tentacles.
Remind me to bring an extra phaser next time.
Paddling rapidly, she made it two-thirds of the way across the lake before her fears were borne out. Ripples in the algae hinted at the presence of a sizable something swimming just beneath the surface, circling her warily as though uncertain of her nature. She oared faster, but the strenuous activity only seemed to draw the unseen creature in closer, so she paused and raised the oar defensively. Her tricorder remained slung over her shoulder, but she didn’t need to scan for life-forms to know that she was in trouble. She shifted her grip on the oar, getting ready to use it as a weapon. She didn’t want to harm the creature, but then again, it probably didn’t belong on this planet.
Greedy arms, lined with suckers, burst through the lake scum to grab at her. Hooked claws jutted from the suckers, making them all the more dangerous. She swung at the arms with the oar, desperate to keep the vicious suckers from latching onto her. Wood smacked loudly against wet, glistening tentacles that whipped about like loose cables in zero gravity.
Something thumped forcefully against the bottom of the raft, upsetting it and nearly tossing Una overboard. A tentacle whipped over her head, and she swung at another arm with the oar. She found herself envying the creature’s multiple limbs; she could have used a few extra arms herself at the moment.
Not to mention that phaser.
The monster surged up from below, capsizing the raft and spilling Una into the lake. She swallowed a mouthful of scum and water before spitting the rest out and swimming madly away. Looking back, she saw the raft being torn apart by eight furious arms. The squid’s huge, bulbous head broke the surface and a vicious black beak, the size of old-fashioned starship grapplers, bit down on the floating oar, snapping it in two. A malevolent yellow eye swiveled in Una’s direction.
It had spotted her.
Kicking and splashing, she swam toward the citadel, but its smooth walls offered her no ready way up and out of the water. Frantic fingers searched for a handhold but found no purchase. The sap-filled melon she’d hoped to employ was still stuck in her backpack, along with her other supplies, yet she doubted that the predatory cephalopod would give her a chance to get glued up. Bobbing in the water, dog-paddling to stay afloat, she turned away from the wall to see the alien squid jetting toward her. She drew the hatchet from her belt, determined to sell her life dearly, but having little confidence that such primitive tactics would suffice to keep her alive much longer. All indications were that her belated quest for redemption was about to end in the belly of the beast.
Sorry, Tim. I almost made it.
But Illyrians did not surrender. She would go down fighting if she had to.
“Number One!”
Spock’s voice called out to her from above. Turning her gaze upward, away from the oncoming creature, she spied Kirk and Spock peering down at her from atop the wall. Kirk fired his phaser and a crimson beam shot past overhead to strike the monster, whose tentacles convulsed violently before the entire creature sank back to the murky depths, disappearing from view. Una wasn’t sure if the beast had been stunned or simply repelled and, frankly, she didn’t much care as long as it was no longer intent on making a meal of her. She was more concerned with what Kirk and Spock were doing here—and what this meant for her mission.
“Hold on, Captain,” Kirk hollered down to her. “Help is on the way.”
Spock hurled a Starfleet-issue emergency ladder down to her. She grabbed onto the lower rungs and hastily clambered out of the water. Spock utilized his superior Vulcan strength to assist her ascent by pulling the ladder up and away from the lake below. Given the length of the irate cephalopod’s tentacles, Una didn’t entirely relax until she was well out of the creature’s reach. Soggy and breathless, she let Kirk help her over the lip of the wall and onto an elevated walkway overlooking the sprawling complex below. Her tricorder remained slung over her shoulder, having survived her unplanned dip into the lake. She leaned against the parapet to catch her breath.
“Welcome back to the citadel,” Kirk greeted her. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Twenty
“My apologies, gentlemen. I fear you find me not at my best.”
Despite nearly being eaten by a monster squid, Captain Una quickly regained her customary cool poise and assurance. She was in a bedraggled state, having clearly been through the wars since Kirk last laid eyes on her. She was soggy and dirty and beaten-up and, all in all, very far from her usual immaculate self, but you wouldn’t know that from her crisp, professional attitude. Kirk had to admire her aplomb, if not her recent actions.
“Well, this is hardly a formal occasion,” he remarked, “so I suppose we can make allowances.”
Meeting atop the outer walls of a deserted alien outpost was indeed very different from a reception aboard the Enterprise. Kirk reflected ruefully on how badly matters had deteriorated since that pleasant social occasion only a day or so ago. Una regarded her rescuers warily. Tension hung thick in the air, along with a sour, unpleasant aroma that reminded Kirk of the noisome mushroom caves of Tennek VI.
“My thanks for your timely intervention,” Una said. “May I ask how this came about?”
“It was not difficult to deduce your ultimate destination,” Spock explained. He drew up the rescue ladder, which the Enterprise had beamed down only moments before in response to an urgent request from the landing party. “We simply transported down to the citadel to intercept you . . . although I gather you encountered some delays en route.”
“You could say that,” she said wryly. “A pity I lacked the option of beaming directly onto these walls as well. The disadvantages of not arriving via a Constitution-class starship.”
“We were actually somewhat surprised to discover that we’d gotten here first,” Kirk added. “Good thing all that ruckus on the mainland attracted our attention, so we were on the lookout when you ran into your multi-armed admirer down there.” The levity left his voice as he confronted the renegade captain. “Seems like you’ve stirred up no end of trouble on
this crusade of yours.”
She didn’t deny it. “Unavoidable, I’m afraid.”
“That’s for Starfleet Command to decide.” Kirk held out his hand. “I’ll take that Key back now, if you please.”
She opened her mouth as though to protest, but apparently thought better of it. Her shrewd eyes darted from the phaser in Kirk’s other hand to the one holstered at Spock’s hip. Una appeared to be unarmed. Kirk wondered what had become of her own sidearm.
“You do seem to have me at a disadvantage.” She grudgingly removed her sodden backpack and extracted the Key. Frowning, she handed it over to Kirk, who tucked it into his belt. “There you go, Captain. Back in your custody once more.”
“And none too soon,” Kirk said sternly. “You’ve led us a merry chase, Captain, and placed my ship—and the upcoming Organian peace talks—in jeopardy, but this ends now. You’re coming with us, back to the Enterprise.”
Holstering his weapon, he flipped open his communicator. “Kirk to—”
“Kirk, wait!” Una protested, desperation cracking her stoic façade. “Let me finish what I started.” She gestured toward the lofty tower rising up from citadel’s central hub. “We’re practically at the finish line. You can’t expect me to turn back now, when I’m so close to completing my mission.”
“To rescue those crew members you lost here?” Kirk asked. “By using the Key to reactivate the transfer-field generator?”
“Of course,” she replied. “What else?”
The citadel’s central tower loomed above them, only about fifty meters away. A walkway running across one of the fortress’s radiating spokes connected the wall they were standing on to the tower. Water, most likely pumped up from the lake below, filled the gaps between the spokes. The ubiquitous gray algae rippled atop wedge-shaped pools.
