In fact, there was something of a smile on Engath's face. And as Vheled approached their position, he noticed that Chorrl had one too, though he hid it better.
A moment later, he saw the reason for their amusement. The only thing up ahead was a large hole in the ground.
But Terrik had gotten a reading of two Klingons here. And if they were nowhere else to be seen …
They had to be in the hole.
If this mission had been someone else's responsibility—If someone else's career had been on the line and not his—Vheled might have thought it humorous himself. As it was, his fury climbed the inside of his throat like a small, vicious predator.
Stiff-necked, he advanced on the pit. Stopped at the edge. And peered down into the darkness within. His eyes were used to the bright sunshine that plagued this place, but he could make out vague forms. Two of them, he decided. And neither seemed to be aware of his presence.
Disgusted, he kicked some dirt into the hole. It made the figures stir, even elicited a curse. They stood up, giving him a better view of their faces.
One was Gidris. And the other Aoras.
"Captain!" cried the first officer, caught off-balance. He seemed to be bleeding from a head wound. "I—I am glad to see you. We were tricked—"
"By whom?" Vheled thundered. "A pack of human children?"
"No," said Aoras, "not children alone. They have a Vulcan with them. It was he who arranged this trap, who—"
The captain's answer was to kick again at the brink of the pit. Dirt rained down on the pair trapped below, silencing Aoras's protest.
"Sons of puris! What is a single Vulcan? What did he do, wrap you in his legendary mind-magic and convince you to leap into this hole?"
"Captain Vheled," cried Gidris, trying to explain, "he wasn't one of the colonists. He wore the uniform of Starfleet!"
Starfleet?
Starfleet!
The thought was like salt rubbed into a wound. If Starfleet was involved, their entire mission was in jeopardy. And it had taken him this long to find that out!
Before he even knew he had drawn it out, Vheled fired his disruptor into the pit. There was a flash of deadly blue light. When the darkness closed down again, the hole was empty. Gidris and his companion were gone.
The captain bit his lip. He couldn't allow his emotions to rule him that way. This wasn't a brawl in some pleasure palace. This was a mission, and he was the one on whom success or failure hinged.
If he wanted to be in command of the situation, he first had to gain command of himself. Taking a deep breath, he put the disruptor away.
Not bothering to use Grael as a go-between, he took out his own communicator and contacted Terrik. The response was prompt.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Forget my initial instructions," Vheled told him. "I'm no longer interested in finding our men. Let them rot. Right now, all I care about is finding the children. And one other—an adult. A Vulcan."
There was a pause on the other end, naturally. Terrik must have been as surprised as the captain himself was. "Immediately," he replied.
Unfortunately, Klingon sensors were not as sophisticated as the Federation kind. It would take Terrik some time to scan for the Vulcan, even knowing his approximate coordinates.
Vheled could wait, however, if that was what it took to do this right.
There was nothing on the forward viewscreen but a pallet of streaming stars—always a pleasant sight but doubly so this time. The Malurian conflict had been one of the thorniest problems Kirk had ever faced; he was glad to have it behind him.
"Estimated time of arrival at Beta Canzandia Three?" he asked Chekov.
"Four days, sixteen hours, and tventy-nine minutes, sair."
The captain smiled to himself, noting how his navigator had rounded off the figure. Spock would have given it to him down to the hundredth of a second, not that it was even vaguely necessary.
It would be good to see Spock again and to hear his comments on what had transpired back at the colony. Knowing the Vulcan, he'd not only tracked down that suspected trouble with the G-7 unit and corrected it but also turned the problem into an advantage. By now the device was probably growing plants that exceeded the performance expected of them.
"Sir?"
Kirk, in his command chair, turned at the sound of Uhura's voice. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
His communications officer looked vaguely troubled. "It's Starbase Twelve," she told him. "They say that there may be something wrong with the Beta Canzandia colony."
The captain could feel the muscles in his jaw tightening, but he stayed outwardly calm. "Details, Lieutenant."
Uhura frowned, relaying the information as she received it. "It seems the colony missed its scheduled check-in transmission. And when the starbase attempted subspace contact"—she bit her lip—"there was no answer."
Kirk swallowed. Carol. And Spock.
And Beta Canzandia wasn't far from Klingon territory—though it didn't have to be the Klingons. It could have been any number of things.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You can inform Starbase Twelve that we're on our way."
Before Uhura could begin to comply, the captain had swiveled around again. "Mr. Sulu, take us up to warp nine."
But even at that speed, it would take them nearly a day to reach the colony. Kirk hoped that whatever the problem was, it could wait.
David was sitting in a shallow defile, munching on the last of the Klingon rations with all the other kids, when they heard the scuffle of footfalls above them. Immediately Spock drew his disruptor pistol and motioned for everyone to get as low as possible.
There were rasping, guttural noises that David had come to recognize as Klingons talking to one another. And then a sharp smack that sounded for all the world like a fist hitting a naked cheek.
Down in the half-light of the defile, David held his breath and looked around. The other children looked scared but also alert. When his eyes met the Vulcan's, he saw an incredible calm there. Calm, even in the face of terrible danger.
Spock put a finger to his lips. He didn't want anybody to say anything, not even a whisper, in case the Klingons didn't know yet what they'd come upon.
Was it possible their luck had finally run out? Or would the invaders find nothing amiss and keep on going? Then one of the cliffs that made up the defile exploded in a flash of sudden, blue force. As Spock and the children ducked, the fragments of dirt and rock pelted them, covering them with a fine, red silt.
"Come out, Federation scum! Come out, or I will destroy your hole—and you along with it!"
David felt his pulse racing. He could see the expressions on his friends' faces, and they were no longer just a little scared. They were a lot scared.
For their sake, David tried to set an example. He tried to be as cool and unemotional as Spock was, no matter how agitated he was deep down inside.
He wondered how many of the invades were up there. If it was only two or three, there was a chance the Vulcan might be able to surprise them with his disruptor.
No—they had to know he had a weapon. Otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to fire from a distance. They just would have leaned in and trained their disruptors on them. And how would they know about the disuptor unless they'd come across one of the traps and freed the Klingons within? David bit his lip. Maybe they'd found more than one of the traps. Maybe they'd found—
Without warning, the cliff wall erupted again in a gout of blue chaos. This time there was more rock and less dirt, and it hurt where it hit them.
"You. think you can play a game with me?" roared their tormentor. "You think you can outwit, me as you outwitted the fools who pursued you earlier?"
There was raucous laughter—not from just two or three but from what sounded like a large group. It was cut short.
Down in the defile, David's heart was pounding against his ribs. They were outnumbered, and probably all of their enemies had weapons like the one that was eating away at their hiding place.
&n
bsp; But as frightened as he was, as hopeless as the situation seemed to be, he refused to give in to the Klingons. He knew that after all he and his friends had done to the marauders, they wouldn't be allowed to live even if they surrendered.
If he stayed where he was, though, if he didn't move or cry out, he didn't think the others would give themselves up either. And that might give Spock a chance to somehow get them out of this.
He'd no sooner thought that than the Vulcan began firing his disruptor—but not at the Klingons. He trained it at the wall of the defile.
At first David couldn't figure out what Spock was doing. Then, as the weapon bored its way into the earth, he began to see the Vulcan's plan. He was making a tunnel. An escape tunnel. And maybe he had more in mind than just escape, David realized. If Spock could come up behind the Klingons and surprise them …
A moment later, the Vulcan's head and shoulders followed his disruptor beam into the narrow passage he'd created. Another moment, and he was gone altogether.
No sooner had he disappeared than the Klingon above them resumed his barrage. Blue light blazed, gouging a huge hole in their protecting wall.
"Last warning!" called the marauder. "Your last chance to save your worthless lives!"
Though David could no longer see him, Spock was digging furiously. But he needed time to get to a position from which he could help them.
Again, the wall of the defile was savaged by the Klingon's disruptor beam. And again. Half-buried in dirt and debris, stinging from the force with which it was propelled at him, David gritted his teeth.
The other kids were like red-dirt creatures that had burrowed to the surface. With Spock gone, they looked at him for guidance.
And he wasn't about to back down. The Vulcan had to have all the time they could buy him.
Come on, Spock! Come on!
But as David braced himself for the next blast, the sky suddenly rained Klingons. Before he could scramble away, or even try, he was grabbed by a pair of large, powerful hands and thrown roughly over the brink of the defile.
Then another Klingon grabbed him by the front of his jacket and picked him up off the ground. David found himself staring into the eyes that looked like two chips of obsidian. Beneath them, a mouth full of sharpened teeth grinned crookedly.
"Finally," the invader snarled, in a voice like two rocks being ground together. "The little puris who've been leading us on such a merry chase."
Consumed with a hatred that matched his fear, David struggled. He kicked at the Klingon; punched at him, but his thick, leathery body armor seemed to keep him from harm. The grin widened.
And then another of the brutes bellowed, as if in pain. "The Vulcan! Terrik confirmed that there was a Vulcan!"
Abruptly, the grin on the face of David's captor vanished. Hugging the boy to him with crushing force, he trained his weapon on the defile.
"Find him!" cried the one who'd first noticed Spock's absence—obviously their leader. "Find him or I promise you, you will not live to see the homeworld!"
The Klingons still in the defile clawed furiously through the red earth and shattered rock, but to no avail. One even used his disruptor, despite the risk to his fellow invaders.
"He's not here!" one of them cried finally.
"Fools! He must be there! Can he have disappeared into thin air?"
It was then that David saw it—a tiny upheaval of red earth, shot through with scattered, pinprick beams of blue light not ten meters from the place where they'd been hiding. He looked around quickly. No one else seemed to have noticed—not the Klingons, not even the other children.
He turned the other way and resumed his struggles, desperately trying to distract their captors. "Let me go!" he yelled. "Take your hands off me!"
David's efforts only made the Klingon hold him that much tighter. But they served their purpose, he saw, as he stole a glance at the upheaval. The blue light was gone, but he could make out Spock's hands now, overturning slabs of dirt to clear a path to the surface.
What's more, the Vulcan was working quickly. In another couple of seconds, he might raise himself to the point where he could fire on the Klingons.
"Let me go!" David cried, with renewed intensity. And finally landed a solid blow to his captor's mouth.
The Klingon spat out a curse and thrust the boy away from him. Seeing his chance, David pulled the brute's hand to him and bit it. The next thing he knew, he was lying face up on the ground, stunned but free. The Klingon was holding his hand in pain and glaring down at him.
As he lunged for the boy, David spun away, narrowly avoiding his antagonist's grasp. Then he scampered in the opposite direction from the site of Spock's emergence, sliding and stumbling on the uneven terrain, blood thumping in his ears.
"After him," someone roared. "And quickly, or your hide will be forfeit!"
The words had barely left the Klingon's mouth before David felt a weight descend on his ankles, pinning them together. Though he put out his hands to break his fall, he hit the ground with breathtaking impact.
Rumbling a curse, his captor snatched him up and struck him. "Insolent slug! Try that again and I'll hobble you for good!"
David's face stung from the blow. His ankles hurt, too. But he didn't care. Because past the assembled Klingons and their captives, he could see Spock pulling himself out of the ground. As he watched, the Vulcan freed himself up to his armpits, then his waist.
But just when he thought Spock was going to pull it off, to get the drop on their antagonists, he heard a child's voice cry out: "Mr. Spock!"
The Klingons whirled, albeit in different directions. But at least a few of them whirled in the right direction—and trained their disruptors on the dirtencrusted Vulcan. One of them held Garcia in front of him.
"Go ahead," he told Spock. "Try it and the whelp will die first."
The Vulcan frowned. He had no choice. He'd lost the element of surprise.
Slowly, reluctantly, he laid his disruptor down on the ground in front of him. A moment later, one of the Klingons came by to pick it up, and as he straightened, he backhanded Spock across the face.
"That," said the invader, leering, "is for wasting my time." Turning, he signaled to a couple of the other Klingons. "Drag him out of there. There are questions that still need answering."
Chapter Nineteen
SPOCK DIDN'T RESIST as he was torn rudely from the tunnel and sent sprawling into the children's midst. Two more Klingons pulled him to his feet and made him face the leather-bound giant in command.
"You have stolen the device called G-Seven," the Klingon spat. His eyes were inches from the Vulcan's. "I want it."
Spock met the invader's scrutiny and returned it. He could have lied and said he knew nothing about the unit. But he was a Vulcan; lying did not come easily to him.
Besides, it was patently obvious that either he or one of the children had taken the G-7 mechanism. And he was far better suited to enduring the Klingon's brand of questioning than the children were.
"Well?" pressed his inquisitor.
The Starfleet officer remained silent, though he knew it would not endear him to the Klingon.
The invader's eyes flashed black fire. Taking Spock's face in his gauntleted hand, he squeezed. The contact was unpleasant, even humiliating, but the Vulcan endured it.
Then, suddenly, the Klingon whipped his head to one side, releasing it. "You will never tell," he decided. "Torture would be wasted on you—though I may engage in it anyway, purely for my entertainment, when time is not a consideration."
He turned, seeking something. Finally, his eyes alighted on David.
"A human, on the other hand, may not be quite so reticent," the Klingon rumbled. "Especially such a small human." He gestured, and the blond boy was brought to him.
Even at close quarters, David didn't flinch. He did his best to look the Klingon in the eye.
The invader had chosen poorly, Spock reflected. Of all the children he had at his disposal, the blond
boy would be the least likely to tell him anything.
Or perhaps I am misjudging the Klingon's intent, he thought. Perhaps this was all a show based on the belief that Spock would break down rather than see David tortured.
Nor would the Vulcan have hesitated to give away the whereabouts of the G-7 unit if he thought it would ensure David's safety. However, Klingons were not known for their merciful natures … nor for their short memories. Having been thwarted this long, they would have their revenge, even if their demands for the device were met.
"Where is the terraforming unit?" the Klingon asked.
David would not have said even if he knew. His attitude was positively Vulcan.
Spock regretted that the children were involved in this. He had tried to send them deeper into the hills. He had tried to put their safety before his own. But they had made the choice to stay with him and to help. They were faced now with the fruits of their decision.
"Where is the mechanism?" the Klingon snarled.
David glanced at Spock and remained silent.
But the boy's link to the Starfleet officer did not go unnoticed. The Klingon's ebony eyes glittered beneath the ridge of his brow.
"It seems," he observed, "this child draws his courage from the Vulcan. Well, that resource can be stripped from him easily enough."
He turned to a couple of Klingons whose hands were not full with the other human children. With a jerk of his shaggy head, he indicated a nearby outcropping, of red rock.
"Take him around to the other side," he commanded. "Then we will see how much of his foolishness is his own."
Spock watched, prevented from intervening by the half-dozen disruptors aimed at him, as the Klingons grabbed the boy and brought him around to the far side of the outcropping.
The wind was cold as it swept through the hills, making even the sun seem to shiver. Vheled looked at the boy.
And David looked back with defiance in his eyes. An almost Klingon sort of defiance, despite the fact that he was in the grip of two brawny warriors. Despite even the disruptor in the Klingon captain's hand. Vheled smiled inwardly.
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