Star Trek - Pandora Principle

by Pandora Principle

  She got to her feet, her own tricorder secure, her own communicator in her belt, and started off, guiding the lethal cylinder, ignoring the rumbling land. It shuddered, shifted. Wind blew in her face, and dust stung her eyes, but she kept on walking into the dark. She never saw the crack that opened in the earth behind her, widened, ran its zigzag course along the ground inches from Spock's head. And by the time his communicator began to beep, she was too far away to hear.

  Spock heard. He could open his eyes now, see the communicator in his hand and his arm extending over a fissure that didn't exist a moment ago. He willed his arm to move, fingers to close. Nothing happened. Nothing would for some time; Saavik was always an apt pupil. the fissure deepened into a gulf. Stones and dust poured in with every liquid motion and jolting of the ground. The communicator went on beeping, even when it slipped through his useless fingers, winked once in the starlight, and was gone.

  Far above the planet, imprisoned in Enterprise's tractor beam, the pilot of the Romulan scout watched three moving specks on his scan, fuzzy motes in the beam's interference. He waited out the minutes until they were close enough to read his warning. He'd taken great care not to alert the enemy, but he had not been idle. His small warp drive's generator cables were clipped, its emergency backup manually disabled. The magnetic insulation's only source of power now was the ship's main itself.

  It was time. He looked out at the huge underbelly of the invaders' leviathan, and beyond it to the stars of home. He threw a switch, drew one sweet breath of air, and asked the gods to look well upon his death. Then he saw them smile.

  ". still no answer. Something's wrong, Mr. Scott," said Sulu. "Lock on and beam them up. We'll send Spock down again."

  "Laddie, there's no lockin' onto anythin', not with the planet jumpin' around. Ye don' want 'em back in pieces."

  "Then when you can, sir. Shields stay up till we find them." Sulu signed off, quietly desperate. "Uhura, keep sending. Stay on sensors, Pavel. Maybe the tremors will affect that damping field. Bobby, look sharp. If our friend out there even sneezes-"

  Harper frowned at his screen. "Mr. Sulu, he just cut power!"

  "What?"

  "Yessir, support systems and everything. That ship's dead."

  Suddenly, Sulu got it. "No! He's- KILL THAT TRACTOR-"

  The scout burst in a blinding, actinic flash as the magnetic field between matter and antimatter collapsed in its warp drive. Enterprise's shields absorbed the impact, deflected bombarding gamma rays. But the electromagnetic pulse, already traveling into the void at the speed of light, had passed along the tractor beam through the ship, instead of bouncing off its insulated hull. Circuits fused in nanoseconds, faster than breakers could trip; suppressors overloaded, and megavolts of transient power surged through electrical systems, all the way to the computer's core.

  Boards redlighted. Screens flared, winked down to sickening dots. Lights flickered, dimmed, went out. The main viewer glowed for an instant with incinerating debris tumbling in space, burning to black. Then it went blank.

  ". I hate loose ends!" said Sulu in the dark.

  Chapter Eleven

  IN THE RED WASH of emergency light, status reports filtered to the bridge over crackling inship channels. As backups and secondary systems cut in, monitors came back to life, attempting diagnostic routines. Comm frequencies squealed feedback. Warp drive and weapons systems failed to respond. Viewscreens stayed dark, and sensors were dead. Enterprise was deaf and blind.

  "No visual up here, Mr. Scott." Sulu felt smothered by the claustrophobic blankness. "No short-range on the planet, no scan on those ships. And the computer's gone crazy. Subroutines are running that shouldn't be, and diagnostics read a system clear one minute, malfunctioning the next. We don't know what to believe."

  "None of it, lad!" Scott shouted over the static. "Core damage-memory banks in main an' backup, an' no known' how far it goes. The systems are still there-but we can't get at 'em. Take whatever ye can off line-"

  "We're trying that, but overrides are unreliable. Manual won't always engage. We need those sensors, Mr. Scott."

  "Ye'll have full power an' visual soon enough. But sensors-no. The radiation, laddie. I'll need two days just to-"

  "You mean. we can't get them back?"

  "Not by scannin'. We can lock onto a signal. Transporter's shielded. That's not the problem."

  "Then. explain, Mr. Scott. I must be missing something."

  "Those ships comin', Sulu! They're scannin' us by now, an' they'll be comin' fast. That scout sent up a proper flare, just as he meant to do. We won't win a fight, lad. Spock's orders say we'll be headin' out of here." From the tone of his voice, Scott didn't like those orders either.

  Protect mission status; do not engage enemy fire; leave orbit-take Enterprise across the Zone if situation deteriorates. the situation had done that. A bead of sweat ran down Sulu's face. He felt everyone listening at his back. Priorities. Choices.

  "I-I am delaying those orders at present, Mr. Scott. I need this bridge working and whatever firepower you can give me. Send us some help up here. I won't leave without them-not while there's a chance. Sir, you have the right to relieve me."

  "Now why would I be doin' that? We'll find 'em, lad, if we have to send down shuttles. Aye, an' then we'll have a wee bit of explainin' to do."

  "Yes, sir. I sure hope so."

  Saavik balanced on the catwalk that spanned the generator shaft, using all her strength to steady the metal cylinder as another tremor shook the cave. The catwalk shuddered. Dirt and pebbles spilled between steel girders overhead, and behind her the maze of light glowed beneath a hanging cloud of dust. When the tremor subsided she looked down: the greatest possible depth, that's what Spock had said, and this shaft was wide enough. Power cells burned faintly, beyond them blackness without end.

  Her hand inched upward, opened the latch, turned the key, snapped the latch shut. 01:59:59, 01:59:58, 01:59:57. seconds flowed by in the timer's display. The bomb moved at her touch. She guided it out over the catwalk's railing and held it steady, feeling its energy, feeling her own heartbeat. Then she let it go. It drifted slowly through her hands, shining in the light of the power cells past ropes of dust-coated cables and conduits, then beyond them and out of sight.

  She climbed off the catwalk and sank to the ground. Her knees were jelly, but her mind was clear. The fear that Spock might follow her subsided; she conjured an image of him safe on the bridge, willed it to be so, and struggled to her feet. Ahead the chambers loomed like sentinels, but this time no ghosts walked. Past and present were separate now, distinct, as if a veil had lifted from her sight. She saw events as they had been, saw how they had twisted in her dreams: It had never hunted her; It would never hunt again. She relished Its torment, rejoiced that this place would blast to atoms and that her hand dealt its death. She felt elated, invincible. She wasn't going to die-that was only a dream. She was going to win-and only one more thing to do.

  Along the jagged cavern wall, past the silent tombs, she squeezed behind laboratory counters and dead computer banks, as she made her way toward the recesses of the cave. Another tremor struck. Its vibration became a clatter, then a roar, showering dirt and stones. Test chambers swung, creaking on their cables; glass beakers rattled, rolled across the counters, and shattered on the ground. She ducked, clung to the back of a console until the shaking died away. The quakes were getting worse. And this unit she was touching-she recoiled, touched it again.

  Warm. Alive with power. And stored data?. She keyed her tricorder to visual and moved around it. Then she saw. Logical, her mind said, but her soul cried out for blood.

  The food synthesizer was still functioning. Food. Children had fought and killed for it, grew up starving for it-most never grew up at all-while their murderers ate from a machine that could have fed the world. Blood drummed in her ears. She backed away, her mind reeling, and her foot struck something metal.

  The knife lay where she'd flung it, shining on the groun
d. She picked it up, took back the only thing this place had ever given her and moved on, a deadly hunter in the dark.

  Far back beyond the rows of chambers the cave branched into catacombs. In one of them a black-robed figure sat in a high carved chair. His back was toward her. His hand held a wine cup and rested on the chair's arm. The only light came from a fire flickering in a ring of stones, and a peculiar scent filled the air. Saavik crept closer, fingers twitching on her knife, her free hand flexing at her side. She wanted to kill him more than she ever wanted anything in life-but slowly. Oh, so slowly.

  "Get up!" Her voice bounced back from the walls. He didn't move, gave no sign he even heard. "I said get up! You bastard, you deserve to die!" Her knife rose, driven by some will of its own. Think, Saavik, think. and firelight danced along its blade. Think of what he knows! Think of the lives at stake!. and something stayed her hand. Shaking with the effort she forced it down, longing for the kill, telling herself that somehow she had won. An unsatisfying triumph, but a kind of winning all the same. "Live a while longer, bastard," she hissed, "and come with me! There will be a trial! Justice! I will tell them everything! And everyone will know what happened here! GET UP, DAMN YOU-"

  The cave began to shudder. The fire flared in bright tongues of flame shooting to the ceiling. She struck the chair in fury, and the wine cup fell, smashed against the floor with a rising odor of bitter almonds-and something else, pungent, familiar-

  Saavik threw herself at the grate, plunged knife and hands into the fire, scattering coals, ashes, melted squares of plastic that were once computer tapes-knowledge that disintegrated into sparks before her eyes.

  She whirled cursing, dragged him from the chair. Her fingers dug into his throat. The hood fell back from his scarred unseeing face, and the scent of bitter almonds clung about his cloak.

  Cyanide.

  No pulse beat beneath her hand. He hung limp and lifeless, cheating her even in death. Cheating Spock. Cheating everyone.

  Saavik's screams echoed through Hellguard's rumbling caverns, damning him to eternity and beyond. The bones in his neck snapped like twigs. The knife flashed, the madness took her mind. when it faded, she saw what she had done. And she was not ashamed. She drove the knife into his heart, left it there, where it belonged. Then she hurled the body on the fire. Flames caught quickly, turned the cloak into a blazing shroud, crackled as they ate his flesh and bone. And Saavik wept with rage because he couldn't feel it. She wept for justice lost and knowledge gone in easy deaths of poison and fire-and because she was to blame. Out there among the dead she had warned him, given him time to-

  Time. She'd forgotten about the time. She ran for open air. How long had it been since she began the countdown? Mistakes, she cursed, her heart pounding, I am making mistakes, and Hellguard is winning.

  It began again as she reached the cavern: at first silence, chambers swaying on their cables, dust shifting in the air, then a rumble like approaching thunder. Steel girders groaned as the mountain cracked and shivered. Sections of the roof collapsed in rains of rock and dust. She fought her way between the rows of chambers, colliding with them when they swung into her path, and saw the shadow of the catwalk loom against the weapons' glow. She ran for it, past it, onward to the light, and overhead the mountain roared. Girders screamed and twisted, snapped apart. One crashed down across the generator shaft, slicing the catwalk in two. A tidal wave of dust went rolling through the cave.

  Saavik ran, ran for her life, thought and motion slowed to the tortured tempo of a dream. Her heart thudded, bursting in her chest. Lungs labored, breathing dust. Icy sweat poured down her face, burned when it seeped into her eyes, and made her cold, so very, very cold. Walls of boxes higher than her head shook and rattled, and all the world was dusty light, deadly corridors of light, colors that only came. the dream! she thought, panic stabbing at her mind. Something about the dream, something I forgot! Mistakes, too many mistakes.

  She left the maze behind, reached the turning for the tunnel-and the ground opened up in front of her. She jumped, fell sprawling on the other side, then regained her feet, coughing, choking on the dust. She gasped for air-and looked back.

  The walls of light were toppling. Boxes dislodged, shattered on the ground. And the cave was turning dark, because everywhere their lights were going out. Saavik ran. Up the twisting, narrow tunnel, until the light was swallowed up and she saw nothing more at all. She felt the blasting dust, the stinging spray of flying rock as tunnel walls caved in behind her-but it was only in her dreams that she could run so freely in the deep and roaring dark.

  Now the twists and turns were unfamiliar, darkness absolute and all sense of direction gone. She pushed on, one hand fending off a wall of jagged stone, the other outstretched to feel her way. The ground rose steeply, the wall curved deep-this was it, the last turning. There would be fresh air blowing through the entrance to the cave. Any second now, air and sky and-

  A wall that wasn't there before. A wall of solid earth and rock. She groped in all directions, pounded with her fists, clawed at stone and dirt with her bare hands. Skin tore from her fingers. Blood ran hot, sticky down her arms. The mountain heaved and thundered, and a pouring river of loosened rock knocked her off her feet. There was nowhere left to go. Terror swept over her, a wave of cold despair. And as Hellguard's dust burned her throat and lack of air dimmed her mind, Saavik remembered what she'd forgotten about that dream, the thing that drained her will away, turned her heart to ice: It always won. It always got her in the end. Because she couldn't run forever, and this place was a trap. With no way out.

  She was going to die.

  Spock didn't see the flare of light or shower of burning debris in orbit overhead. As the tremor subsided and dust began to clear, he saw only his immediate predicament. The patch of ground where he lay was now an island, one of many in a sea of new-formed chasms. Landslides crashed and thundered in their depths; dust rose and churned inside their walls. The mountain and its rocky outcropping that masked the entrance to the cave towered in the distance across a canyon five hundred feet wide. It was beyond reach, and so was Saavik.

  She lived-he sensed that; perhaps she reached the cave.

  But unless the quake disturbed that damping field, her communicator was useless, and sensors couldn't find her there.

  Sensors hadn't found him. They should have by now. During lulls between the tremors, Scott should have tracked his life reading, beamed him back to ascertain his status. Scott hadn't, which meant he couldn't, which meant something had gone wrong on board. And there was absolutely nothing Spock could do about it.

  Sensation returned slowly to his arm and fingers. He pushed back from the precipice, even as its edge gave way. The ground around him crumbled, but his tricorder hung safely on his neck. If only Saavik had taken such care with his communicator! He doubted that she planned her ill-considered deed. But he should have seen it coming, should have sent her back at once, tears and grief and all. Their mindlink had held hidden costs-as did all emotional indulgence-and this was not a price he would have paid. Which was always the trouble with trading something for something.

  Through the haze of dust a red dawn was rising in the sky, and its coming light revealed a land laid waste. Nothing at all remained to show that people ever lived on this obscenity the Romulans had called a world. Whatever the Empire believed, the colony here had not failed; it was never meant to succeed.

  Spock wasn't sure why he watched the mountain, but that was where he sent his thoughts: Saavik, when I get you home-

  The ground heaved again, a long, sustained temblor that sent more boulders toppling down the mountain, crashing in the canyon below. The rocky prominence cracked and fell away, exposing the cave's entrance-but only for a moment. Slides of loose stone flowed down the mountainside, and when the dust settled, the cave was no longer there. Saavik would not be coming home.

  Live, Saavik, he thought, against all reason. Live.

  . Live! The word rang in her mind,
but the air was gone, and the voices she heard. Live, Saavik. couldn't help her now. Look up, Little Cat. but there were no stars in here. No matter how dark and terrible the night, remember. she did, she remembered everything from the very moment she was born. But the darkness was dragging her down, and the dust was choking her, cheating her, killing-Look up, Little Cat! She tried-Remember to look up-she tried again, pushing death away. Look up! And see the-

  Light.

  A tiny point of light shining far above her head. She reached for it, grasped and clawed. Dusty sunlight shafted in, and air. The mountain shuddered. Debris poured inward, widening the hole. Saavik climbed the mound of sliding rock, sucked air into her throat, then looked out into the blinding light where howling winds were blowing the dust away. No ground remained beneath the entrance to the cave. Her escape route was a landslide spilling into an abyss. And across its yawning gulf-