by Greg Cox
A nocturnal swamp, partially shrouded by a thick canopy of leafy trees and vines, could be glimpsed through the phosphorescent yellow mist. The marsh appeared to be rushing up at them like a Klingon battle cruiser on a collision course. Straining thrusters could only slow the shuttlecraft’s downward acceleration, not reverse it.
“Spock?” McCoy asked anxiously.
“I see it, Doctor. Hold tight. A soft landing is no longer possible.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Thrusters sputtered erratically. Frantic red lights on the control panel warned of a total system failure. Spock briefly regretted that Sulu was not on hand to lend his superlative piloting skills to this crisis. Much depended on how the shuttlecraft handled in the next few moments.
“Brace for impact!” he shouted.
He retained the presence of mind to transmit an emergency distress signal to the Enterprise. The first officer was uncertain whether the signal would be able to get through the pervasive atmospheric interference, but he judged it worth the attempt. Captain Kirk needed to know that the landing party required assistance.
Assuming they survived the landing . . .
Nose down, Galileo crashed through the verdant canopy into the swamp. Splintered branches and tree trunks scraped loudly against the shuttle’s hull. The thrusters labored to soften the impact but were outmatched by the vicious alliance of gravity and sheer momentum that had the plunging shuttlecraft in its grasp. Murky black waters of unknowable depth surged into view, and, banking sharply, Spock steered Galileo into the water, barely missing the nearby shore.
Now if only the water was deep enough . . .
Galileo slammed into the swamp. Even landing in water, the impact was considerable. Only their safety straps kept Spock and McCoy from being flung from their seats. Water splashed against the prow of the shuttlecraft. The cracked port shattered, spraying Spock with jagged shards. He threw up an arm to protect his face. In the general tumult of the crash, he barely registered a sharp pain in his right shoulder. Survival—and duty—took priority.
The shuttle came to an abrupt halt.
Momentarily stunned, Spock lost precious heartbeats before reacting to the crisis. Blinking, he shook his head to clear it as he hastened to take stock of the situation and the personnel under his command, starting with the slumped figure to his right.
“Doctor?”
“Still in one piece,” McCoy said, stirring beside him. He groaned and grimaced in discomfort. “I think.”
“Commander Chekov?” Spock called out, looking back over his shoulder at the rear compartment, which was rapidly filling with smoke from various small electrical fires. His eyes struggled to penetrate the noxious fumes, which assaulted his nose and throat. “Report!”
“No fatalities, sir!” Chekov said, coughing. “Not yet, that is.”
There was no time for further inquiries. Brackish water gushed through the shattered port, flooding the cockpit, as Galileo sank nose first into what appeared to be a substantial lagoon. The weight of the incoming water caused the shuttlecraft to tilt forward even faster, raising the rear of the vessel, where Chekov and the security officers could be heard scrambling from their seats. Coughs and exclamations punctuated the commotion.
“Move it!” Chekov urged his companions hoarsely. “Time to stretch your legs!”
The water was already knee-deep in the cockpit and getting deeper. Between the flood and the smoke, Spock swiftly assessed the situation and issued the only logical command:
“Abandon ship!”
Unbuckling himself, he secured his tricorder and turned to McCoy, who was already shrugging out of the safety straps. The doctor winced as though the rapid movements pained him. Spock knew the feeling. The crash had hardly left him unscathed either.
“Can you walk, Doctor?” Spock asked.
“Just watch me.” McCoy rose from his seat and began to exit the cockpit, only to turn back as though he had forgotten something. “Wait! The medkit!”
The crash had cracked the kit open, spilling its contents into the flooding cockpit. McCoy frantically tried to recover as much of the equipment as he could, tossing hyposprays and medicinal vials back into the kit, but time was not on his side. Within minutes the front of the shuttlecraft would be completely submerged. The water was unpleasantly cool but not freezing. Spock estimated the temperature to be approximately forty degrees Celsius.
“We must go, Doctor,” Spock urged. “There is no time.”
“But my supplies—”
“Are not worth drowning for.” Spock took hold of McCoy and half guided, half shoved the other man out of the cockpit toward the rear of the shuttlecraft. By now, the port hatchway was partially underwater as well, so, splashing through the surging liquid, they made their way up a steep incline, their boots slipping and sliding on the tilting floor. Through the acrid haze, Spock spotted Chekov and the others at the aft hatchway up ahead. Smoke billowed from an overhead storage compartment, while scattered supplies were being washed away by the flood. A fallen mess kit sank beneath the rising tide, which at least helped to extinguish any potential blazes. A loose playing card drifted past Spock’s shin. It was a queen of spades.
“Stand by!” Chekov manually activated the emergency release lever, and the hatchway blew open explosively, letting out some of the choking smoke. He beckoned urgently. “Up and out, everybody!”
Holding on to the edge of the hatchway to keep from slipping backward into the flood, Chekov hustled the other three security officers—Fisher, Yost, and Darwa—out of the shuttlecraft while waiting for Spock and McCoy to catch up with him. Damp air and yellow mist invaded the compartment, mingling with the departing smoke. Leaning toward them, Chekov held out his free hand to help pull McCoy the rest of the way up.
“This way up, Doctor. Swiftly, please.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” McCoy grumbled, but he did not refuse the hand up. He clutched the battered medkit under one arm. “I know enough to leave a sinking ship.”
He stumbled out of the shuttlecraft into the waiting lagoon. Spock heard him splash down into the water, accompanied by a fountain of salty spray.
The Vulcan accepted Chekov’s assistance as well. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that the water was rising to fill the passenger compartment, the weight of it dragging the shuttle down so that Galileo was practically at a ninety-degree angle to the upset surface of the lagoon. Turning his gaze forward once more, he peered out the hatchway.
“After you, Mister Chekov.” He held up a hand to fend off any heroic protests. “That’s an order, Commander.”
Chekov nodded and jumped from the hatchway into the water. Spock took a moment to ensure that his tricorder was still securely strapped to his shoulder before quitting the shuttle as well, just as Galileo slipped entirely beneath the roiling water, vanishing from sight. For Spock, it was less a matter of jumping into the lagoon than merely letting Galileo drop away without him. The undertow of the departing shuttlecraft tugged at him, but Spock had no desire to follow it to the bottom of the lagoon. His responsibilities lay elsewhere.
Alien waters enveloped him. Paddling to stay afloat, he surveyed their surroundings. Through the dimly glowing mist, he spied a muddy bank several meters away, beyond which lay a forbidding expanse of exotic trees, bushes, vines, moss, and fungi. The vegetation was unique to the planet, naturally, but seemed comparable to the mangroves, ferns, and other plant life frequently found in terrestrial wetlands. Fog and shadows filled the gaps between the overgrown foliage, along with worrying flickers of movement. That some of the shadows seemed to shift did not bode well. Probes had reported no sentient life in the system, but that did not preclude fauna as well as flora. Inexplicable squawks and screeches came from somewhere deeper in the overgrown swampland, accompanied by the buzz and drone of insects. Who knew what varieties
of wildlife might inhabit this biome?
Hardly the most inviting of settings, Spock thought, but, as Captain Kirk might say, any port in a storm. “Swim for the shore,” he ordered, perhaps unnecessarily.
“Now there’s a heck of an idea,” McCoy said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I’m sure you would have, Doctor. Eventually.”
The members of the landing party kicked and splashed and eventually waded toward land. Just for a moment, Spock was reminded of an equally watery evacuation not too long before, when he and various others had been forced to abandon a captured Klingon bird of prey as it sank beneath San Francisco Bay, immediately after their voyage home from the twentieth century. But that had been a joyous, even jubilant, occasion marked by the success of their mission to save Earth from an enigmatic alien probe.
This plunge into chill waters was far from a cause for celebration.
Pulling himself up onto the shore, he looked back at the lagoon, whose dark surface was once more flat and untroubled. No trace of Galileo remained.
And beaming back to the Enterprise was not an option.
We are stranded, Spock deduced. And cut off from the ship.
Survival was now the order of the day.
* * *
“Sit still and let me treat you, Spock. You’re wounded, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Soaking wet and none too happy about it, McCoy tried to get Spock’s attention as the stranded landing party regrouped on what barely qualified as dry land. A muddy hummock, rising above scattered pools, puddles, and shallow streams, was only a slight improvement over the lagoon that had swallowed Galileo. The air was damp and thin and reeked of mold, rotting vegetation, and a few other odors McCoy was in no hurry to identify. Tiny, gnatlike insects buzzed incessantly. An overcast sky, scarcely visible through the overhanging greenery, made it difficult to distinguish day from night. What feeble light there was mostly came from the shimmering fog, which drifted through the fetid swamp like so many will-o’-the-wisps, or else hung low over the ground, swirling around the doctor’s ankles. His boots sloshed as he hurried after Spock.
“I’m serious, Spock. You need to let me look at that.”
A jagged piece of transparent aluminum, nearly three centimeters in width, was lodged in Spock’s right shoulder. What looked to be dark green blood—it was difficult to tell in the faint lighting—streamed from the wound, indicating that the shard had hit a vein, not an artery; Vulcan arterial blood was generally a brighter shade of green and would have been spurting, not streaming. McCoy thanked their lucky stars that the fragment had not struck Spock another half centimeter to the left. The Vulcan glanced down at the injury, as though indeed noticing it for the first time.
“Never mind me,” he said brusquely. “Please attend to the others first.”
“Not a chance.” McCoy couldn’t blame Spock for having other things on his mind, but that wound demanded immediate attention. “We can’t have you losing any more of that coppery green stuff you call blood. It’s not as though we have a ready donor on hand to transfuse you.”
Spock grudgingly conceded the point. “For once, your logic is irrefutable, Doctor.” He sat, with obvious reluctance, on a fallen log that was practically upholstered in moist moss and fungi. The soggy timber sagged beneath his weight. Disturbed creepy-crawlies scurried away. “You may proceed.”
“’Bout time you saw it my way.” McCoy wrapped some soaked dressings around his own hand to protect it from sharp edges, then took hold of the shard jutting from Spock’s shoulder while bracing his other hand against his patient’s left shoulder. “This is going to hurt,” he warned. “Ordinarily, I’d give you something for the pain first, but most of my analgesics went down with the ship.”
“Do not trouble yourself, Doctor. Any physical discomfort is the least of my concerns at present.”
McCoy could believe it. Even as he yanked the shard from Spock’s shoulder, eliciting nothing more than a grimace from his patient, the doctor remained all too conscious of the larger crisis unfolding around him. Chekov’s security team was busy staking out a perimeter, phasers at the ready, while Chekov had his communicator out and was trying again to make contact with the Enterprise; unfortunately, it seemed the damn fog was getting in the way.
“Chekov to Enterprise,” the Russian said, sounding understandably frustrated. Like McCoy, he had shed his waterlogged field jacket, but the clothing underneath was just as soaked and streaked with mud. He held the communicator up to his lips. “Repeat: Chekov to Enterprise. Please respond.”
McCoy tossed the bloody shard aside and helped Spock out of his own soaked jacket so that he could get at the actual injury. He guided Spock’s other hand to the hurt shoulder. “Keep pressure on the wound while I see if I can scrounge up some sort of antibiotic to stave off infection.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Spock said, complying. He nodded at Chekov and the others. “A medical report on the party, please.”
“Battered and bruised but still in working order,” McCoy said, having already done triage on the entire landing party. A hypospray hissed as he injected Spock with an all-purpose sterilizing serum that had somehow survived the crash; McCoy didn’t want to think about what sort of alien germs might have been swimming around in that lagoon. “Some sore ribs, a touch of whiplash, minor lacerations and pulled muscles, and I’m moving a little stiffly, thanks for asking. Nothing life-threatening, however, although I wish I hadn’t lost half my supplies in the crash.” He shuddered at the memory of their so-called landing. “That could have been a lot worse. We’re lucky to be alive.”
“Vulcans do not believe in luck,” Spock said.
“So I’ve been told.” McCoy recalled the explosion that had brought the shuttlecraft down in the first place. His ears were still ringing from the blast. “What in Sam Hill happened up there anyway? Were we struck by lightning, or what?”
Spock shook his head. “Nothing so prosaic, Doctor. Ordinary lightning would not have collapsed our shields or ignited an explosion of that magnitude. Starfleet shuttlecrafts are, as a rule, built to withstand most atmospheric disturbances.”
“I would certainly hope so.” McCoy was no engineer, so he took Spock’s word for it. Certainly they’d flown through some rough skies before without ending up in the drink. He remembered a particularly nerve-racking flight above a chain of erupting fusion volcanoes on Kaskadia IV, which had nonetheless ended with Galileo touching down safely at the Federation science station that was studying the planet’s unique geology. “Then what was that? It felt like a photon torpedo going off all around us.”
“The data is inconclusive, but I believe that some volatile compound or energy in the planet’s atmosphere reacted explosively to our shields, triggering the disaster.”
McCoy blinked in surprise. “You mean our own shields set off the blast? Is that even possible?”
“I would not have thought so, yet here we are.” Spock expounded on his theory, perhaps to distract himself from McCoy’s efforts to clean out the wound before bandaging it. “Further testing and analysis, under more controlled conditions, is needed to confirm the hypothesis, but, upon reflection, such scenarios are not without precedent. It is well documented that certain gases and minerals are incompatible with transporter beams, while dilithium crystals can be affected adversely by specific frequencies of electromagnetic radiation—”
“If you say so.” McCoy was not particularly interested in the technical details. Lacking a protoplaser to seal Spock’s wound or even a spray-on dermal patch, he resorted to bandaging it with a strip of (relatively) clean fabric sliced from the inner lining of his discarded jacket. “I suppose it’s not unlike mixing medications as well as applying them to different humanoid species, each with their own peculiar metabolisms and body chemistries. Sometimes a bad reaction can blow up in your face.”
“An apt analogy, D
octor.” Spock inspected McCoy’s handiwork and moved his shoulder experimentally. “Clearly, this planet’s ubiquitous mist bears closer examination.” Wincing slightly, he retrieved his weatherproof tricorder and began to scan a drifting patch of fog. He peered intently at its readings. “Intriguing. I’m detecting an unusual form of quantified plasma that defies ready classification. The atmosphere appears to contain large quantities of discrete, free-floating, plasmoid structures with an improbably skewed energy-to-matter ratio. It’s possible that this proliferation of airborne plasmoids is generated by the intersection of the planet’s magnetic fields with certain wavelengths of solar radiation, catalyzed by the presence of unique compounds in the atmosphere; the combination is not dissimilar to the forces that were found to generate ball lightning on Earth and sand-fire storms on Vulcan, but on a much more severe scale.” Pure scientific curiosity was evident in his voice. “A pity that we cannot study the phenomena under less dire conditions.”
McCoy barely understood half of that. He cared less about the fog’s composition than how the heck they were going to get out of it. He glanced up at the overhanging branches as though attempting to spot the Enterprise high in orbit above the planet. The ship—and sickbay—seemed very far away.
“Jim’s bound to launch a rescue mission anytime,” he said hopefully, “even if we can’t make contact with the ship.”
“In time, Doctor, but perhaps not immediately. We anticipated that the landing party might be out of touch with the Enterprise for the duration of the mission. I transmitted a distress signal moments before the crash, but I cannot guarantee that the captain received it.”
McCoy clung to the idea that help would be on the way eventually. “Still, when we don’t return in a decent amount of time, Jim will realize that something went awry and—”
A horrifying possibility struck him with the force of a disruptor blast. “Spock, what if the rescue mission makes the same mistake we did and raises their shields up there in the clouds?”
