Invasion! First Strike

by Diane Carey

  He placed the cool, rubbery hands of one of the Starfleet boys on the corpse's chest and covered him. That was ten done. Time for a break.

  He looked up, and found himself gazing at the … whatever that poor individual was. It lay stark white and uncovered, headless and horrible on its bench. He'd been unable to go near it since the others left, timid about breaking any more taboos before the captain and the other captain decided what they wanted to do with it.

  Yet it tugged at him. It was here, and though dead still under his care. He found himself reticent to ignore it. They all begged a few moments' final attention, and he ached to give.

  A sound in the outer ward shook him hard and he fought to control himself. His nerves were on edge. Silly.

  "Mr. Spock, if that's you getting up, I'll have your stripes," he called.

  He wiped his hands, scooped up the medical tricorder he was using, and strode out of the morgue, gladly leaving behind the chilly room for the time being. After all, nobody in there was in any particular rush.

  And he hungered now for a conversation, even a little lashing back and forth with Spock. He was in the mood for a semijovial insult, and didn't particularly care in which direction the barbs flew. Barbs could make him feel alive and he needed that.

  The sight he met as he stepped out into the outer offices was not Spock leaning on a doorjamb proclaiming that he was perfectly well, thank you, but instead the elongated and cloud-woven form of Garamanus.

  McCoy froze, drew a breath, then bolted back on a heel before he caught the edge of a desk and stopped himself. He chided himself for not being used to aliens by now, but these aliens …

  Behind Garamanus was another of the horned beings, and behind that one was a tall bony creature with expanding membranes at rest between its arms and thighs. Probably some form of perspiration control, or mating consideration. Certainly locked in the appearance of otherworldliness, though, in the truest and most supernatural sense of the word.

  He tried to be clinical as he gazed at the creatures crowding his door, blocking his way.

  "May I help you?" he asked.

  They said nothing, but moved a few steps into the room, so the doorway no longer cramped them.

  "Oh," he murmured after a few seconds, "have you come for the remains? I haven't touched the body … I didn't want to make any more mistakes or insult you further in any way … if you'll come with me, I'll help you prepare the body."

  Perhaps that was just another mistake. They probably wanted nothing to do with him, wanted him as far away from their dead as they could push him.

  Scarcely had his hand left his side to gesture toward the morgue than the two beings behind Garamanus disappeared …

  No, they hadn't disappeared, but had simply moved so fast that he didn't see, for they were on top of him.

  He choked out half a word, half a cry for help or sense, but there would be none of either, and they had him. The horned being embraced him from behind in a grip like sculpture, and the being with the membranes raised its long thin arms. One of the membranes dropped over McCoy's head and formed itself to his face and shoulders as fitting as a fishnet. His lips pressed into the rubbery membrane, he felt it compress into the hollows of his eyes, bend his eyelashes, and cut off his breathing. He could see nothing now but the milky membrane and the outline of Garamanus moving toward him.

  One feeble kick was the only motion of protest McCoy could manage as he was lifted clear of the floor and tipped sideways like a rolled rug on its way to the cleaner's. Balance went to the wind. They were carrying him—they were taking him away. They were kidnapping him.

  They had to carry him through the main sickbay entranceway in order to get out. Spock would be able to see from the other ward. Spock would call for help.

  He heard the swish of the door panel, but there was no call from Spock, no demand that these brigands let the doctor go.

  What had they done to Spock?

  As he waited for common sense to descend, for them to come to their right minds and unroll him and apologize, McCoy's last conscious thought was of the hard pain caused by the medical tricorder as it gouged against his chest.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "SPOCK. SPOCK, say something."

  "McCoy …"

  "I think he's only stunned somehow, sir," Nurse Christine Chapel said as she and Kirk knelt beside Spock, whose narrow form lay sprawled on the deck a few steps from his bed. "That's what I'm getting on these readings. I've given him a muscle relaxant and a nerve stimulant. He should come around in a minute."

  "With his nerves and muscles arguing, no doubt."

  "No doubt. Sir," Chapel added, glancing up at the monitors and fingerpad desks set up at Spock's bedside, "Mr. Spock had a stack of computer files here … they're all missing. He might've had them put away, but there hasn't been anyone in here to do that except me, and I didn't do it. Do you think whoever did this could've taken them too?"

  Kirk kept a grip on Spock's arm, but was careful not to push or pull, despite the urge to put his first officer back on the bed which had been doing him so much good. But he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

  He was glad he had left Zennor on the bridge. Glad for now, at least. "Is it safe to move him?"

  The nurse gave him a floorside medical nod. "I'm checking, sir."

  "McCoy …"

  "What about his other injuries?" Kirk asked the nurse. "Has his recuperation been compromised in any way?"

  "I don't think so," the nurse said, her voice rough with concern. "They knocked him off the bed, but the antigravs held on to him long enough that he had a relatively soft landing. He might have some bruises."

  "Spock." Kirk fixed a gaze on the narrow inkdrop eyes and demanded of the Vulcan that he meet the stimulant halfway and bring those thoughts out into the open. "We know they took McCoy. Who did it? Did you see?"

  He knew, and the suspicion was a cold metal ball in his stomach. Garamanus.

  Lying on his back, his knees supported by a pillow hastily shoved under there to assist blood flow, Spock blinked and struggled for consciousness. He looked like a man coming out of phaser stun.

  Might be exactly that. Zennor's technology packed a punch, but there were explanations for that. Otherwise, their power consumption and energy ratios weren't all that unfamiliar. There was no notable reason their methods of stun would be much different either.

  Unless they had some kind of Vulcan neck pinch of their own, which was a possibility too.

  Spock fixed his eyes on Kirk and anchored there. He caught Kirk's arm and used it for leverage as he tried to raise his head.

  His voice was a scratch.

  "It was … the Furies …"

  Furies.

  What was that supposed to mean? Had Spock made up a word? No, that didn't make sense. It also had never happened before. Spock wasn't a making-up kind of man.

  "Well?"

  Kirk pressed up against the side of the diagnostic bed until the edge cut into his legs.

  Nurse Chapel watched the readout panel, nodded, then sighed. "Much better now. Let's have a little more of the magic bullet—"

  She checked her hypo, then pressed it to the hollow of Spock's shoulder and made it hiss.

  Tense with effort, Spock suddenly relaxed and was finally able to quiet the interior struggle and look at Kirk with lucid eyes.

  "Pardon me, Captain. . . ." He seemed greatly relieved to be able to make the connection between the complex racing of his mind and the articulation of his voice. "How did they get off the ship with the doctor?"

  "They stunned the technician manning it the same way they did you. You're on to something, Spock. What is it? You said 'Furies.' What's that mean?"

  "I was still dazed, sir."

  "But you said it. What does it mean?"

  Spock's expression told Kirk that whatever had been discovered was probably not scientific.

  "A myth?" the captain pushed. "Some of that material McCoy found? You said you were
going to follow that thread. Come, Spock, it's critical."

  "Yes, of course … I was studying early civilizations in our quadrant and their mythological bases for fact.

  Kirk gritted his teeth, then said, "And you found …"

  "I found a striking, in fact quite disturbing, similarity between Zennor's people and a clutch of mythological figures called the Furies." His body tightening with strain, Speck reached for the fingerpads, then paused. "The files—did you take them, Captain?"

  "No. The people who attacked you took them."

  Spock's brows drew tight. "Why would they have taken my files?"

  Kirk felt his hands go cold again. "They knew we were doing research into the past, to try to identify them. And they know you're the science officer. I told Zennor we were looking through our historical data, searching for correlations. He probably told Garamanus. I doubt he suspected Garamanus would do anything like this. What difference does it make? You didn't find anything conclusive, did you?"

  Genuine alarm burst out of Spock's controlled expression, long enough for Kirk to get the gravity of the theft. "Captain … this is dangerous."

  "What is? Can you show me?"

  "Let me call it up."

  The access to the fantastic log of information was eerily silent for long seconds, then came to life suddenly, as if pleased to show off what it had found.

  Above, three of the screens popped full of pictures of horrendous fantasy beings, Medusa-types with snakes for hair and flamelike wings, nappy green skin, and pointed teeth.

  Kirk hadn't paid attention to this stuff since he was ten years old. Fantasy. He was instantly ill at ease. Numbers, flight plans, light-years—he could deal with the concrete. But not this.

  "The Furies," Spock said, "are images from Greco-Roman mythology. They were beings, generally portrayed as female, who pursued and punished crimes that had gone unavenged. Quite unpleasant. Ultimately they were associated with demonic behavior, but always with the element of reprisal."

  "Reprisal … chasing down the 'conquerors' and kicking them out."

  Spock moved his brows. "It certainly could be taken that way. The element of banishment or uncleanliness is deeply rooted in our cultures, Captain, and particularly in Earth culture. We would be quite remiss in our research if we failed to recognize the surprising similarity between these beings and images like the Furies, and witches and goblins as manifested in our own histories. These are images of which we are inherently afraid."

  Lips cracking as he pressed them flat, Kirk asked, "Mr. Spock, are you trying to tell me that these people are witches?"

  Pliantly Spock's dark eyes left the screens and moved to Kirk. "There are not true witches in the colloquial manifestation. I am saying they are archetypes. General representations, or they look like general representations found easily in our cultures."

  "So Bones was right."

  "Yes, the doctor was right. These people now have my files, and they will see themselves all over our culture, or at least things like themselves, and they may take those similarities as some form of gospel. And they'll also see that we are inherently frightened of them. They have built a civilization of very small clues, and thus will take these pictures quite seriously."

  "If you're kicked out of your homeland," Kirk said, "any little bits you have left become valuable." He picked up the crescent etching from the table beside Spock and looked at it, feeling as if half the galaxy were about to bump up against the other half with himself in the middle. He put his other hand on the edge of Spock's bed as if to connect himself to the ship physically. "If all you have is your beliefs, you cling all the more tightly to them."

  "Yes," the Vulcan said. "And—"

  "Captain?"

  Uhura. They hadn't even heard the gush of the corridor panel.

  "In here," Kirk called.

  "Sir?" She was there, but couldn't see them from the other side of the two diagnostic beds.

  "On the deck," Kirk added.

  "Oh, my!" She came plunging around the foot of Spock's bed, arms loaded with computer cartridges. "Sir! Mr. Spock, what happened?"

  She knelt quickly beside Nurse Chapel.

  "Just a friendly attack," Chapel reported sandily.

  "Oh, Mr. Spock …" Uhura's lovely dark face, usually the essence of reserve, now became animated with concern.

  "Don't worry," Chapel said. "He's in the best of hands."

  Aware of her attention, which had proven in the past much less curable than a bad spinal injury, Spock looked past her to Uhura. "You have a report, Lieutenant?"

  "Oh, yes, yes," the communications specialist said. She held up one of the cartridges. "Dr. McCoy's lead on old druid culture turned up a half-dozen matches right away. 'Vergo' could be 'vergobretos' or 'bretan,' which was a tribal chief. A captain of sorts, sir. The 'Dananns' were the priests, or those with special gifts."

  "Those are too close for comfort," Kirk commented as he snatched another pillow from the bed and handed it to Chapel, who carefully put it under Spock's head so he would be more comfortable while she stabilized him.

  "It certainly made me shiver," she agreed. "And I was bothered by the ship's name, so I tracked that in old Gaelic. It's not 'Wrath' as in 'anger.' It's 'Rath' without a 'w.' It's an Old English derivative of the word 'rathe,' meaning 'early.'"

  "Early …"

  "Yes, and it's also an ancient Irish word meaning 'earthwork' or 'hill.' I would say the most accurate translation would be 'fortress.'"

  "An early fortress." With a thoughtful frown, Kirk looked at Spock. "A scout ship?"

  "It fits," Spock confirmed as he lay there on the deck with Chapel working over him.

  "This makes a big problem for us," Kirk said. "If they're anchored in their myths, then they're willing to act upon them. If their myth tells them to find their home space, and they want it back, that means they're prepared to take it back."

  Spock tilted his head. "Meaning?"

  "Meaning you don't send just one ship for that. Zennor's not telling me something and I think I know what it is. I think there might be a fleet waiting for instruction from him. Him … or Garamanus."

  "We have no proof of that."

  "I can't afford to wait for proof. I have to act on my instincts. Now Garamanus has those files and he can show them to whoever sent them here."

  "You believe they are communicating with someone on the other side of their portal somehow?"

  "What good would it be if they couldn't?"

  "Very little … Zennor says he cannot go back."

  "That's what he says."

  Silence dropped between them for a few moments, long enough for them to hear the emptiness of sickbay, the passive twitter of the diagnostic panel above Spock, the whisper of some machine in the lab that had been left on to do whatever it was doing, the mournful presence of that sliced-up poppet beyond that door over there.

  "I am sorry, Captain."

  Kirk looked up. "For what?"

  Spock's face was cast in regret and he didn't mind showing it. "I know you have forged a kind of synthesis with Captain Zennor … a friendship."

  Bitter, Kirk gazed at the deck. How often had this happened to him in his life? To find synthesis, to have commonality, to make friends with someone, only to have that friendship blistered and ultimately sundered by some outside consideration. Competitors at Starfleet Academy, at Starfleet itself, in space, where his drive for the win had also driven a stake into the heart of any chance for amicable feelings when all was over.

  And in deep space, there had been flat-out enemies he wished he could've known better.

  But when the smoke cleared, he always stood alone. Some fences damned mending, and certainly climbing. He'd had to turn away time after time, leaving animosity where he had wished to have comradeship.

  That was why, he realized in this moment particularly, he cherished and so unflinchingly defended and protected both Spock and McCoy. They had stood with him and never given in to the differences
between themselves and him, as so many others had.

  Differences. Differences.

  Damned differences.

  Suddenly he was mad again. "The friendship's about to be tested."

  "How so?"

  "I'll tell you how. I'm beaming over to that ship and get our doctor back. And while I'm there I'm going to see exactly what it is that we're up against."

  He punched the nearest comm. "Kirk to bridge. Put Captain Zennor on."

  The blade in his voice evidently came across for all it was worth, because Nordstrom didn't respond.

  Very quietly, Spock asked, "Are you going to tell him, Captain?"

  "I don't know. I promised I'd help him. . . ."

  The Vulcan's face was limned with concern. "That could be most imprudent."

  "I know."

  "This is Zennor."

  "We have a problem. Your Dana and others have attacked my first officer and kidnapped my doctor."

  "Garamanus … kidnapped your McCoy?"

  "He did and I'm not taking it well"

  "I must go to my ship immediately."

  "I'm going with you, and I'm bringing a Security team."

  "They will be killed instantly. You must come with me alone, if you insist upon coming. We can only go there one time. I will give you the modulation to drop the block of your transporter beam, but as soon as we go, they will change it again. But we must go immediately. It is your McCoy's only chance."

  Chapter Sixteen

  "VERY DANGEROUS for you to be here now. If there is reaction, I cannot protect you."

  "I'll take my chances. Where's my chief surgeon?"

  "Come with me. Prepare yourself."

  Not very reassuring, as phrases went.

  The tour through Zennor's ship was skin-chilling. Like wandering through a cave behind a suddenly agile bat. Zennor, who had moved with such cautious reserve down the broad, bright, open corridors of the Enterprise, now skirted down shoulder-wide passages coated with dark velvety moss and overhung with some kind of web.

  Kirk stumbled several times until his eyes adjusted, then stumbled a little less, but the deck was nearly invisible in the dimness. He felt he was stepping foot by foot through the chambers of a hornet's nest. Somehow they had beamed directly into these veins and now were moving through them.