by Diane Carey
Beneath his soles the dry earth drummed with the thudding boots of men fighting all around on the jagged, jutting terrain. He sensed a shift in the attack pattern. Saw nothing, but he knew what he would do in this terrain, with these objectives, and made a bet with himself that the enemy would do it too. The chips were the lives of his men, the pot this planet and its sixty million tribesmen, some of whom had no idea the others existed.
The sky here was unforgiving, cloudless. His opponent twisted sideways and forced the captain's face into the sun, blinding him, and he staggered. The Klingon's shoulder crashed into his cheek. He felt his own teeth cut the inside of his lip, and the sudden warm salty taste of blood filled his mouth. It made him mad.
He spat the blood into the Klingon's glossy bronze face.
The Klingon arched backward and took the captain by both arms. They sawed at each other for a terrible instant before the grip was broken and the captain managed to land a knot of knuckles where they did some good. The Klingon spun and slashed downward with his hard wristband.
The captain raised his own arm to block the blow. Bracing his shoulder for the impact, he took it full force but managed to deflect it to the side and keep his skull from being cracked open, though the force drove him facedown to the ground. He sprawled. His skin shriveled in anticipation of a hit, but luck was with him. The Klingon stumbled.
Bracing his palms on the ground, the captain shoved upward, balling his fists in a single surge into the Klingon's solar plexus. He felt his hands go into the soft organs beneath the Klingon's rib cage, slamming the air out of the big alien's lungs.
The Klingon gagged, staggered, and went down, suffering. The captain scraped to his feet, knotted his rocky right fist, and delivered it like a piledriver into the soft spot at the base of the Klingon's skull. The attacker went down and didn't get up.
One down, two hundred to go.
Chest heaving, he straightened and looked around. Disruptor fire glazed the air and raised a crackle of burning ground cover and scrub brush. Hacking, shouting, and shooting, the Klingon wave was attempting another surge over the grade to the captain's left, their disruptor fire hampered by the rock formations, but creating dangerous shrapnel out of the stone.
He drew a breath and shouted.
"Spread out! Separate!" If his men weren't close together, there was less chance of having them mown down. "Go right! Move! Move, move!"
They swerved and scrambled in the direction he waved, the knuckle of rocks bearded with dry growth that would provide cover long enough for them to take a breath, reorganize. Motion diluted the terror with the twisted passion of combat.
"Take cover!" he shouted.
Not retreat, and they didn't.
Below, on this side of the narrow gravelly ramp leading between two towers of rock, his battered men lined the gully. Their red and gold backs created a necklace of ruby and amber jewels across the bright throat of the ridge as disruptor fire cracked over their heads. Among them were the native Capellans, taller than the humans by a head, and flamboyant with bright blocks of color on their long-sleeved suits and snug hoods that imitated helmets.
Hand-to-hand fighting had broken out in four places that he could see—make that five. Anxious to be in five places at once, he forced himself to keep low. The valley was dotted with solid patches of color—the Starfleet red and gold, the native purple, black, blue, green, and even pink now and then. They looked like giant Ninjas in goon boots and windbreaking capes, with fur stitched across their chests and hanging in long stoles over their shoulders.
He didn't care if the natives wore fishnet stockings as long as they backed up his troops, and they were doing that. He brought his palm-sized communicator to his lips and flipped open the antenna grid.
"Kirk to Enterprise."
The ship didn't answer. Why not? Where were they?
In his mind Jim Kirk saw the giant cruiser looping the planet in orbit, emptied of a third of her crew because he needed them down here, and he gritted his teeth. Why wasn't the bridge crew answering? What was wrong?
At dawn, when he ordered his ship piloted away from the planet, everything had been peace, quiet, mission accomplished. He'd secured mining rights and turned the leaders of this province away from dealing with the oppressive Klingons. Now look.
Unfortunately the Klingons hadn't gone away pouting. They weren't satisfied at having been legitimately edged out. If they couldn't have this planet by trickery or bribery, they would take it by force. They'd come in with the sunrise over this region.
Leaning his communicator hand on his bruised knee, Kirk paused to catch his breath and scan the battlefield. It figured. Just when he got complacent, easy in his place as a spacelanes wagoneer, the universe snapped his axle.
This was nonaligned space, and that was the problem. Having made the treaty, Kirk was obliged to veer back in and protect the Capellans against the insulted Klingons. It was a good thing he was obliged to come in, because he was mad and would've come in anyway.
He had ninety-four men on the ground, plus sixty Capellans from the nearest tribe. Others had been summoned in the night from far-distant tribes, but they wouldn't make it in time. The battle was here and now. The next few minutes would tell.
The line of Starfleet crewmen was jagged because of the terrain of bulging rocks. Above them, in the taller and deeper rocks, native Capellans bombarded the oncoming enemies with stones and sling-pellets. Not deadly, but confusing. Soon the enemy would be funneled into withering fire from the Starfleet hand phasers.
The enemy surge was a litter of silver tunics and black sleeves, dark beards and sweaty bronze complexions, faces furious as if their land were being snatched instead of the other way around.
"Kirk to Enterprise," he said again, then again. With bloody fingers he tried to adjust the gain. "Enterprise, come in. Mr. Scott, come in."
The instrument only crackled back at him. No answer.
He readjusted it for local communication.
"Kirk to Spock. Kirk to Spock …"
Nothing.
He looked up, scanned the bright rocks for the form of his first officer.
There was no other slash of color like Spock in this battlescape. All other Starfleet forces were command or security troops, wearing gold or red tunics. Commander Spock's lone blue shirt stood out. Among the hundreds of Terrans, Capellans, and Klingons, he was the only Vulcan.
He had been the only Vulcan for a long time, the first in Starfleet, and bore his solitude with grace. Kirk watched with appreciation, but also annoyance. Why wasn't Spock pulling out his communicator and answering?
The Dakota-like terrain, baked by midday sun a few shades brighter than Earth's, was hot and dry as baked clay. His men maneuvered in companies of twenty, each under a lieutenant. If he couldn't talk to them, how could they be effective?
The captain slid to one knee, barely realizing his own flash of weakness, and shook the communicator.
"Kirk to Spock, come in!"
Neutralized somehow. He couldn't reach the ship, but also couldn't reach his own men down here. Without communicators, he was back in the 1800s, orchestrating ground assault with hand signals, smoke, and mirrors.
He looked around, picked a huddle of his own troops down the incline, and skidded toward them.
"Jim! Where'd you come from?"
Kirk waved at the dust he'd raised and looked toward the voice.
Ship's surgeon Leonard McCoy's face was almost unrecognizable, his squarish features coated with sand, brown hair caked with sweaty dust until it was the same color as his face. His tunic, the only other blue one on the terrain, wasn't very blue anymore.
"What happened to you?" Kirk asked.
"What d'you mean, what happened to me? Klingons all over the place, Capellans knocking me down left and right, and Spock doing his Wellington imitation in my face!"
"Give me your communicator." Without waiting he snatched the doctor's communicator from his belt and snapped it open. "K
irk to Enterprise."
The empty crackle aggravated him.
"Kirk to Spock. Kirk to anybody."
"What's wrong, sir?" A skinny lieutenant named Bannon sagged back against a rock for a moment's rest and knuckled his dust-reddened eyes.
"Instrument failure. Try yours."
The red-haired lieutenant tried, then looked up guiltily when he failed. "Sir …"
"You too," Kirk said to the three others, all ensigns, huddled in this clutch of rocks.
"How can they all be broken down?" McCoy asked as Kirk tossed him his communicator. He rattled it at his ear.
"They can't."
Lieutenant Bannon rubbed his bruised jaw. "Can't we reach the ship, sir? They could break through the communications trouble from Lieutenant Uhura's console, couldn't they?"
Nettled, Kirk frowned until his face hurt and didn't meet Bannon's questioning eyes. "Probably."
One of the ensigns glanced at Bannon, then asked, "Does that mean they're in trouble up there? They can't come after us?"
"Don't worry," McCoy supplied, sparing Kirk having to answer. "Mr. Scott's a no-guff man. He'd step over anybody's line. I wouldn't get in his way. If the Klingons do, it's their own bad luck."
Kirk looked out between two knuckles of rock at the Starfleet company nearest to the ramp. "That's Lieutenant Doyle's group. Phasers up … they're looking for a target. Awfully quiet down there all of a sudden …"
"Maybe the Klingons are retreating," McCoy suggested with hope in his blue eyes.
"Not likely." Kirk leaned forward with both hands on the rocks. "The local Klingon commander's in trouble. He lost his mining deal with this planet when we showed up. If he goes back a loser, his career's in the dumper."
"Jim, keep your head down! They can take aim on you from up there!"
Dropping only a couple of inches in response, Kirk glanced up, up, up to the highest crags, where Klingon lookouts had taken position.
Below that, Lieutenant Doyle's bright blond hair shone in the hot sun, but he was behind cover, huddled with about fifteen other Starfleeters and a handful of Capellans. Kirk saw the lieutenant's arm move as he gestured weapons up.
A dozen hand phasers came nose up, then leveled and took aim.
"He sees something we can't see." Kirk made silent bets with himself about what Doyle saw. "They're taking aim … I see the Klingons."
"Where?"
"Over the top of the incline."
"How many?"
"Not enough for a dozen phasers, that's for sure. And they're not charging. They're moving back and forth up there, trying to get attention."
"You think it's a trap, sir?" Bannon asked.
"I think it's something. Trick of some kind … Doyle's being enticed to fire. I need communications!"
"I'll go, sir!" Bannon thrust to his full height, almost as tall as the native Capellans but about half as thick.
McCoy grabbed him and forced him back down, out of the line of fire from the upper rocks. "Down, boy!"
Bannon's red hair was plastered across his pale forehead and he seemed exhausted, but there was determination in his eyes. He was willing to go.
"All right, go," Kirk said. "But keep low. Don't get any closer than you absolutely have to. I don't want all my people bunched up."
"Aye, sir!" The young officer took his own phaser in his hand and scraped away on the slanted slabs.
Klingon activity on the top of the incline was increasing. Still no advancement, just more figures moving this way and that, taking potshots with disruptors at the hidden Starfleet forces. Rocks splattered and splintered with every miss, but they kept shooting, even without clear targets.
Bannon made a red and black streak of color as he moved across the lower landscape, picking his way toward Doyle's company. Slow going. As Kirk watched he felt bad about the terrain. Down on the plain the ground was nearly level. Large groups could move more freely, attack more openly, but there would be death by the hundreds. Here, the ground was ungiving, stony, and damned, but there was cover.
Before Bannon came within earshot, Kirk saw Doyle's men stretching out their phaser arms. In his mind he heard the order—Ready … aim …
"Not yet," he uttered, feeling the sweaty tension of McCoy at his side. "Not yet—"
Ducking blue disruptor shots from above, Bannon was moving slowly, but he was nearly there.
Fire!
A globular burst of red-pink phaser fire launched from the huddled Starfleet group and struck out at the incline. The up there Klingons ducked out of sight. Not one was hit.
Instead, an answer came from overhead—a gulp of bright bluish energy sprayed from the cloudless sky and landed squarely on Doyle's men as if a giant flyswatter had just come down. The sheer whine of sound drove Kirk, McCoy, and the three ensigns plunging for the ground, cuffing their ears.
Kirk forced himself up instantly and looked down into the valley.
The bodies of his crewmen and several tribesmen streaked the dusty flats. Two hundred yards short of his goal, Bannon lay knocked flat. Fury roiled in Kirk's chest. He'd been outthought by the enemy.
"What the blazes was that?" McCoy gasped, peering at the sky, then back down at the draped bodies.
"Some sort of response to the phasers," Kirk muttered.
"From where? A ship?"
"Maybe a shuttlecraft."
"Let me go down there!" the doctor asked. "I can treat those men."
"You stay put." Kirk heard the anger in his voice and valiantly tried to keep it from lopping over from his own self-recriminations and onto McCoy. He didn't bother pointing out that those men were probably beyond treatment.
"Captain!"
The familiar baritone call caught him fast and he turned and headed toward it.
"Here!" he called. "Spock, over here!"
From among the whey-colored rocks, First Officer Spock kept low but hurried to them, carrying a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. He'd holstered his own phaser, and that meant something.
"Did you see the flash?" the Vulcan asked without amenity. "Disruptor backwash came from the sky."
Kirk nodded. "What do you think it is? A ship?"
Spock shook his head, squinting. "Too low. More likely a satellite keyed to Starfleet phaser energy. You will recall that Klingon disruptor fire did not set it off."
"Could it be affecting our communicators?"
"I have no facts to corroborate that, but the theoretical conclusion bears some logic." Spock's dark eyes scanned Kirk's blood-splattered gold shirt. He was assessing his captain for injuries, but he said nothing about it. He too was breathing hard, despite this hot weather's being more natural for him than shipboard climate.
Kirk looked up, scanning the sky. "If Scotty could get in close with the ship, he could knock any orbiter out with one shot."
"We must assume he is occupied." The Vulcan's words were laced with portent. He offered nothing more specific, but there was concern in his dust-grooved expression.
"We're on our own. McCoy, corral those three ensigns. We're going to need runners to communicate with the field positions."
"Yes, sir," McCoy responded, with fear clutching his sudden sense of purpose. At least he didn't argue.
"All right, if that's the way it is," Kirk huffed to his first officer as they watched they doctor pick his way back to the grotto. "They neutralize our weapons, then I want theirs."
Spock nodded, scanning the enemy lines. They hung together in silence for a few seconds, and Kirk listened to the sound of his own heart pound in his ears.
His left middle finger was hurting. Probably a sliver. Felt like it might be under the fingernail. He glanced down, but didn't see anything through the dirt plastered to his fingers, and thought the sight of their captain picking at a fingernail might not do his crew any good.
He shook his head. Out of all the bruises and cuts, a sliver was distracting him. Battle could be a fun-house mirror sometimes.
As the ground cover crac
kled behind him he spun around and almost lashed out, but Spock pressed him back somehow, subtly, only raising one arm a little. Kirk glared at what had startled him—McCoy and the three ensigns slipping into the cover of the rock with them.
Steadying himself, he tilted a silent thanks to Spock and motioned the others toward him, then gestured them to huddle.
Crouching behind the big flat slab, Kirk looked at his men one by one. "We think the Klingons have deployed a satellite or shuttle that blankets the immediate area with destructive power when it detects Federation phaser fire. Your job is to get to our commanding officers and relay information. Standing order is phasers down, indigenous weapons only. Consider the phasers neutralized. Draw the enemy into hand fighting if possible. It'll give us a more equal chance than letting them have wide berth. New goal—capture Klingon disruptors."
"Sir, I don't see how we can fight disruptors without phasers," Ensign Dunton said, a gaunt scrapper with a gap between his front teeth.
"Phasers can target thousands in open ground," Spock said calmly, "but at close proximity, it may not be any better than a sword or knife, Ensign."
"It's awful," Dunton uttered, glancing out at the collapsed forms of his shipmates. "They shouldn't have to die in the dirt like that."
"We're here to knock the Klingons back," Kirk said firmly. "That's the bet all spacefarers make. Our lives might come down to this."
He saw in their faces that they suddenly understood something they'd never thought of before—that this might be the real fate they'd signed up for. No stars nor bright nebulae, but the dust of some distant alien planet between blood-crusted teeth, and the taste of foreign soil on a dying breath.
Beside Dunton, Ensign Fulciero looked up at him like a kid on Santa's knee who was hoping for the right answer. "All we gotta do is hold them off from the villages long enough for the battle in space to be won, right, sir?"
