Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike
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shipmate's death personally. Sometimes too personally
for his own well-being, McCoy felt.
In order to be a physician he had long ago learned to
reconcile his bone-deep desire to preserve life and the
quality thereof with the analytical callousness every
doctor needed at times like this.
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FIRST STRIKE
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 appear-
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ance 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 halfa word, halfa 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
cleanefts. 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
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FIRST STRIKE
entrance way 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.
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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.
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FIRST STRIKE
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.
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
,nethods 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..."
Fu ries.
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.
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"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, Spock 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
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FIRST STRIKE
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."
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Diane Carey
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,
'le" He
"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.
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FIRST STRIKE
"Oh, Mr. Spock..." Uhura's lovely dark face, usua
lly
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. 'Verge' could be 'vergobretos' or 'bretan,' which
was a tribal chief. A captain of sorts, sir. The 'Danarms'
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.
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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