STAR TREK®: NEW EARTH - THIN AIR

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Estimate of how long?”

  “Ten minutes,” Spock said, “or two hours. I do not know, Captain. And we will not be able to take these records to our computer as you suggested to Yanorada. Such a download would take at least five hours.”

  Kirk nodded and glanced around at the small main room of the observation post. It wasn’t big, but it wasn’t that uncomfortable. “Lived-in” described it.

  “Are you going to need help?” Kirk asked.

  “No,” Spock said. “Given enough time, I will find the code. It is clear that Yanorada was not lying when he said he let the computer pick it. Now I must just retrace that step.”

  Kirk glanced at where the Kauld warships were still on the screen. “Well then, I will make sure you have the time.” He flipped open his communication link. “Kirk to Enterprise. One to beam aboard.

  “Good luck, Spock,” Kirk said.

  Spock just nodded his head, and as the transporter beam took Kirk, he heard Spock say, “Luck will have nothing to do with it.”

  With a quick stop to check on Lilian’s condition, which hadn’t changed, he headed for the bridge.

  As the door to the lift slid back, Mr. Sulu turned and said, “Captain, I think you need to take a look at this.” He indicated the big screen.

  It was instantly clear to Kirk what he meant. Eight more Kauld warships had joined the others. It was looking like a pretty good-sized fleet was gathering for the attack, and they still weren’t moving.

  That meant they were waiting for more ships.

  Chapter Eighteen

  TEGAN COULDN’T BELIEVE the improvement in Charles. And the speed of how it had all happened. The other three patients were having the same recovery. They were all weak, tired, but clearly out of danger. Just simply removing them from the area of the olivium ore had been enough.

  Tegan just kept smiling at Charles, helping him drink, giving him a little food, tucking the blanket around him as he dozed off again.

  Dr. Immi had spent the last hour going from one patient to another, talking with them, checking the readings, clearly not letting anything go wrong.

  She moved up beside Tegan and stared at the monitor. “You know, he’s going to sleep for a while now. You might want to get some food for yourself so you can be back here when he awakes.”

  With Dr. Immi’s suggestion, Tegan suddenly realized she was hungry. Very hungry.

  “A sound idea,” Captain Skearbaek said from behind her.

  “Ganging up on me again, I see,” Tegan said, laughing as she stood.

  “Nope,” Dr. Immi said, “just taking care of all of my patients.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Tegan said. “I will take your advice.”

  “And I know just the place to get a good salad and a bowl of thick stew.”

  Tagan looked at the captain, half surprised. “You do?”

  “Sure,” he said, “that’s what’s on the menu in the crew lunchroom tonight.”

  “It’s the only thing,” Dr. Immi said, “if I remember right.”

  “True,” Skaerbaek said, “but it still does sound good to me.”

  “Actually,” Tegan said, “it sounds wonderful to me as well.” And it did. Better than a bowl of stew should sound, that was for sure.

  “Well,” the captain said, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say wonderful until you’ve tasted it.”

  “I’m so hungry, I don’t think I’ll notice one way or another.”

  “Then let’s go,” he said.

  With one quick look at Charles, she walked with the captain out of the emergency area and down the hall. They hadn’t gone ten steps when a voice came over a nearby speaker. “Captain Skaerbaek, priority call coming in from Captain Kirk.”

  Skaerbaek stepped over to a communications panel and punched a button. A screen appeared as he said, “I’ll take it here.”

  Tegan stepped back, but the captain didn’t seem concerned that she might overhear.

  Captain Kirk’s face appeared on the screen. Without greeting, Kirk started in. “I’m giving you a little warning about the situation out here.”

  “I’ve been following it,” Skaerbaek said. “Looks like it might be working into something major.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Kirk said. “The Kauld have sixteen warships now gathering, and they seem to be waiting for more. And we need to protect the asteroid observation station for as long as it takes for Mr. Spock to get the information we need to shut down the nanoassemblers.”

  Skaerbaek nodded. “What can I do?”

  “I want you standing by when the Kauld move,” Kirk said. “I don’t want you jumping into the fight unless it looks as if it’s going against us. Use your judgment on that, Bill.”

  “I will,” Skaerbaek said. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll be there if you need us.”

  “I know you will. Kirk out.”

  At that moment Tegan realized she hadn’t been breathing through the entire conversation.

  The screen went blank and Skaerbaek turned back to Tegan. “Okay, now we can get that food.”

  “And after that, you’re still hungry?” she asked, shocked that he could even think of food. “Aren’t you worried?”

  He laughed. “Of course I’m worried. This ship isn’t designed to fight, even though we can if we need to. But I’ve been in Starfleet for a long time now. If I didn’t eat every time there was an emergency, I’d have starved to death a long time ago.”

  She looked at him, shaking her head. “Captain Bill Skaerbaek, you are an amazing person.”

  “Naw,” he said, taking her arm and heading down the hallway, “just a hungry one.”

  She laughed, and even with the threat of a coming fight with the Kauld, their lunch was good. And she ate a second bowl of the beef-tasting stew right along with the captain.

  Trying to be patient was not something Kirk did easily, and he knew it. But he was doing it, sitting in his command chair, staring at the Kauld ships on the screen when Uhura said, “Captain, it’s Mr. Spock. He would like you to beam over.”

  “Tell him I’m on my way,” Kirk said, jumping up and heading for the lift at almost a run. “Watch those ships closely, Sulu. I want to be back on board the instant they start moving.”

  “Understood,” Sulu said.

  It had been sixty-seven minutes since Spock started his search. Maybe he had found something. With luck he had found the code and they could retreat. Trying to defend a single asteroid against a fleet of attacking ships was going to be next to impossible.

  When the transporter released him inside the asteroid, Kirk stepped toward Spock. “Did you find the code?”

  Spock shook his head. “I did not. And the process may take even longer than I expected.”

  Kirk felt his stomach clamp up. “I’m not sure how long we can hold off those Kauld ships in this area. They are gathering forces.”

  “I understand that, Captain,” Spock said, “which is why I’m suggesting I do a mind-meld with Yanorada.”

  Kirk stared at his science officer, clearly surprised. Over the years Kirk had seen Spock do a number of mind-melds. They were not something Spock did easily. Or lightly.

  “Do you think Yanorada knows of a way to get to the seven-sound code quicker?”

  “From the way he was unconcerned about finding it, I am certain, Captain,” Spock said.

  Kirk looked at his friend and science officer. Mind melds were never easy, and sometimes dangerous. The Kauld were an alien race. There was no telling how a Kauld brain would react to such a trespassing.

  But there were sixty thousand lives at stake on Belle Terre.

  “If you feel it has a decent chance of success,” Kirk said.

  “I do, Captain,” Spock said.

  Kirk nodded and opened his communicator. “Kirk to Enterprise. Have the prisoner Yanorada transported back here at once under guard.”

  “Understood,” Uhura said.

  Spock turned back to the computer and kept working while
Kirk paced back and forth across the small room, waiting.

  Three minutes later Yanorada, flanked by two security guards, appeared.

  “Ah, Captain,” Yanorada said. “Time for another question-and-answer session?”

  “Put him in that chair and bind him in,” Kirk ordered.

  When the guards were finished and stepped back, Spock turned and moved to Yanorada, placing his hands on the side of his face and head.

  “What are you doing?” Yanorada demanded.

  “Just a little question-and-answer,” Kirk said. “The Vulcan way.”

  Yanorada tried to struggle, but the binding held him tight.

  Spock’s head jerked back a few times as if someone were slapping him, but he stayed with it, his hands in place.

  During these mind-melds Kirk always felt out of control, useless. Spock was climbing around in the trash of some alien’s brain. Spock was endangering his own life, his own mind.

  And there was nothing Kirk could do except stand there and be patient.

  He hated being patient.

  Finally Spock let go, stepped back, and opened his eyes. For a moment they didn’t seem to focus, and then they did.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Spock?” Kirk asked, stepping toward his first officer. “How do you feel?”

  “I am fine, sir,” Spock said, his voice its normal level, controlled pitch.

  Yanorada was glaring at Spock as if he were the very devil himself.

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  “I did,” Spock said. “He was not lying when he said he did not know the seven-note code. But I was correct in assuming he knew how to get it easily. It will take me one hour and six minutes to get the seven-note code from the computer.”

  “You had no right to crawl into my mind!” Yanorada shouted.

  “It is not a place I would ever wish to visit again,” Spock said, staring at Yanorada until the Kauld looked away.

  “Get him back to the brig,” Kirk ordered.

  After the guards and Yanorada were gone, Kirk turned to Spock. “Was it as bad as it seemed?”

  “Captain,” Spock said, coldly, “would you like to climb into the head, the thoughts, the desires, of a being who takes pleasure and pride in the mass murder of other beings?”

  Kirk could only stare at his friend in shock for a moment before Spock turned without a word and went back to work.

  Chapter Nineteen

  PARDONNET HAD stepped out of his office to get a breath of fresh air and stretch his legs. At that moment four transports carrying families all landed on the desert at almost exactly the same time. Two hundred people an hour were pouring into the canyon city, with thousands more yet to go.

  Plus in orbit the first Conestoga was now full, and the second within hours of being full. The entire population of the Belle Terre colony would soon be in three locations: the two transports in orbit and the canyon city. It had been an impossible task, but somehow they had managed it.

  Pardonnet turned and looked out over the desert to the east. In the fading light of early evening he thought he could see the advancing edge of the wave of siliconic gel, but of course he couldn’t. It was still a good fifty miles away and his scientists told him it wouldn’t arrive at the canyon city until the middle of the night. When the wave rolled in, it would trigger the polymers in the desert soil created by the nanoassemblers, and more siliconic gel would be created from the very soil around them. The first night the siliconic gel would cover the city to a level of fifty feet deep; then, over the next week, the thickness over the city would increase to just over five miles.

  There would be no beating the siliconic gel if it got to that stage. Just surviving it. The creation of the siliconic gel was a never-ending process, with all the soil on the planet as fuel, unless those nanoassemblers could be shut down. If the machines creating it could be stopped, then the siliconic gel could be broken down and the planet reclaimed. But as long as the soil was filled with the tiny monsters that created the siliconic gel polymers, and made more of themselves as well, there would be no saving this planet.

  He had been so busy that he hadn’t been able to think about what would happen if those tiny machines couldn’t be shut off. Where would the colony go?

  And, more important, how? Feeding sixty thousand people and moving them was no easy task, even when there were years of preparation. Doing it on short rations and without preparation was going to be nearly impossible.

  He shook the thought away and, with one more glance over the horizon in the direction of the coming wave of siliconic gel, went back into his office. There was still a lot of work to do to make sure his people were safe for the moment. After that, he would have time to think about the next step.

  What would be the next home of this colony, and how would they get there?

  If there was going to be another home. They had to survive this, and decide to continue on, before that even became a concern.

  Kirk sat beside Lilian Coates’s bed in the Enterprise sickbay and held her hand. With him there McCoy had taken a break to go change clothes. He would be back in a moment.

  Lilian’s hand was limp and almost cold. The monitors over her head showed her vital signs low and seemingly stable. But they had been that way for hours and hours now. And that wasn’t a good sign.

  Kirk stared at her hand and thought about the evenings they had spent together, simply enjoying each other’s company reading and talking. Those evenings had been wonderful for him. She and Reynold had given him a taste of something he’d never really had outside his crew and friends: a family life.

  They had both known it was going to end, which is why they had both, without talking about it, decided to take the relationship no farther. He was going to leave with his ship and that was inevitable.

  She was going to stay and raise her son and help Belle Terre survive. That, too, had seemed inevitable to them. But now Kirk wasn’t so sure.

  Dr. McCoy wasn’t so sure, either. She should have started to respond by now, come out of the coma, at least start the process of coming back. She hadn’t.

  And when Kirk had asked McCoy why, the doctor had only said, “She might not be coming back to us, Jim.”

  But Kirk wasn’t ready to face that. Lilian was strong. She was a fighter.

  She’d come back.

  He heard McCoy come into the other room, so he laid her hand gently back on the bed and smoothed out the sheet. “I’ll be back shortly,” he said to her.

  She did not respond.

  The monitors above her head remained steady.

  He stood and squared his shoulders. He had a fight to win and a colony to save. He had work to do that she would want him to do without thinking of her. Without a look back, he strode from the room.

  Getting the image of her lying there out of his mind took a lot longer.

  “Status?” Kirk asked as he strode onto the bridge. Everyone but Spock was in their positions, ready.

  “Thirty-six Kauld ships of different sizes and shapes are now in position, sir,” Sulu said. “Still no movement.”

  Kirk glanced around. No one else had anything to say, so he moved down to his chair and punched the communication link on the arm. “Mr. Spock, how are you doing?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes remaining, Captain,” Spock said.

  “Good. Kirk out.”

  He didn’t want to bother Spock any more than he absolutely had to. The minute they had that seven-sound code, they would be retreating to Belle Terre. Defending the planet was going to be a lot easier than protecting one tiny rock in space. If the Kaulds would just give them the twenty-seven minutes, it would be very nice of them.

  He doubted they would. It just never worked that way.

  “Capt’n,” Scott said, “I have an idea ya just might like.”

  Kirk glanced at his chief engineer. “Go ahead, Scotty.”

  “Them big, empty Conestogas,” Scott said. “They just might be able to help us some.”

>   “Explain,” Kirk said.

  “Well, we ain’t goin’ ta be repairin’ all of them, that’s fer sure. And they all have good engines. Why not turn one into a flyin’ bomb?”

  Kirk stared at his chief engineer for a moment, trying without success to understand what he was getting at. “Explain.”

  “We load one with a bunch of the olivium ore from an ore ship in orbit, then rig her to blow at our command.”

  “And fly her into the middle of the oncoming Kauld fleet,” Kirk said, now understanding what Scotty was suggesting.

  “Should slow ’em down a mite,” Scotty said. “And the olivium would also set off them big mule engines, adding a wee bit to the explosion.”

  “Level the odds a little,” Kirk said, smiling. “I like the sounds of that. How long will it take you to rig it up?”

  “The ore and the ships could be here in ten minutes,” Scotty said. “I’ll build a detonator while they’re on the way. Two, maybe three minutes after that.”

  “I’ll get them started here,” Kirk said. “You get it ready.”

  Without another word Scotty headed off the bridge.

  Kirk turned to Uhura. “Get a loaded ore freighter headed out this way. On the double. I want it here in three minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Uhura said, turning to work.

  Now the problem was: Who could he get to fly one of the empty mule ships out here? And do it within minutes. Who was in position and knew the ships?

  He spent the next fifteen seconds thinking before the answer finally came to him.

  Captain Branch stared at the screen with complete shock. Captain Kirk had just contacted him and asked him to do something that was so outlandish, he couldn’t even fathom it. “You want me to do what?”

  Kirk frowned. “Captain, the survival of Belle Terre may depend on you doing this. I need you to take a few men, beam to one of the empty mule ships, and get it out here to me within the next ten minutes. Do you have a problem with that?”

  Kirk’s intense eyes bored right into him. Branch had never had any trouble with Kirk in the past, and liked the man overall. But this request was just downright crazy. But with the looks of all those Kauld ships gathering out there to attack, something crazy was needed.