by David Mack
Predictably, the first officer hedged. “While I concede the proposal lacks a certain dignity, it has the benefits of being well-targeted, non-lethal, and difficult to detect prior to being triggered.” He traded an uncomfortable look with the captain. “We also found ourselves at a loss for a better idea, and time does currently appear to be a factor.”
“Which leaves one last question,” Chekov said. “Who takes it in to Elara?”
In unison, Spock, Kirk, Scott, Chekov, and no fewer than three nearby security officers all volunteered, then regarded one another with confused apprehension. McCoy took that moment to interject, “It should be me, Jim. I’ll go.”
Spock stepped closer to Kirk and lowered his voice. “I would advise against that, Captain. As noble as Doctor McCoy’s motives may be, his emotional involvement could lead him to make irrational and even dangerous choices at key decision points.”
McCoy suppressed the urge to slap his half-Vulcan shipmate. “Key decision points? I’m volunteering to be a glorified delivery boy! I’m dropping off snacks, water, and a traveling toilet. How many ‘key decision points’ do you really think that entails?”
“If Elara takes you as a second hostage, perhaps more than you expect,” Spock said. His point made, he bowed his head to signal he was standing down from the debate. “Of course, the decision is yours, Captain.”
“So it is.” Kirk was less than happy about that fact. “Bones, you know you’ll have to go in there unarmed, right?”
“I know the risks, Jim. I also know it’s my little girl in there—and that if Elara was holding your son, you’d already be inside.”
The captain nodded. “Then good luck—and be careful.”
They shook hands, then McCoy waited while Scott and the security officers loaded the food, water, and commode onto a small antigrav pallet. Scott handed him the remote control for the floating load-lifter, then bid him farewell with a grim nod.
McCoy set the pallet into motion toward the hospital’s blasted-open main entrance. The rational side of him worried Spock was right—that he might make a foolish mistake when he saw Joanna as a captive. But his paternal instinct knew he had to do this—because if he had left it to anyone else and it went wrong, he would never be able to forgive himself.
Let’s just hope that when this is over, there’s nothing to forgive.
* * *
Slack but unbroken: that was the state of the medical tape binding Joanna’s wrists. When her captor wasn’t looking, she twisted her bonds slowly back and forth. Shifting her ankles to weaken the tape holding them was more difficult to accomplish without being noticed, but she had forced some pliancy into the thick coil of white adhesive above her feet.
Just a little more time and I can break them, she assured herself.
She peeked under her blindfold. It wasn’t easy. It required her to turn her head at an uncomfortable angle and look down past her nose, but it let her keep tabs on Elara, who lurked just inside the open doorway. The Catullan was on alert for any sign of someone drawing near. Her disruptor remained always at the ready, which suggested to Joanna that the other woman expected their predicament to lead to violence. The notion of becoming collateral damage galled Joanna, but she vowed not to go down without a fight.
Joanna pulled her right leg upward until the tape refused to stretch. Then she pushed that leg down and lifted the other. Behind her back, she stressed the tape around her wrists with the sort of patience that enabled wind and rain to wear down mountains. All it would take for her to break free was pressure and time. Pressure she could apply at will. She hoped to have enough time to finish what she had started.
In the corridor a soft electronic chime announced the arrival of a lift car. Someone was coming. Correctly anticipating Elara’s reaction—a quick check of her prisoner before turning to face the newcomer—Joanna ceased her escape efforts and sat still. After Elara turned away, Joanna put her head to the floor so she could steal a better look at whoever was outside.
There was only a single set of footsteps. Whoever it was had come alone.
Elara called out, “Stop! Who are you?”
A man answered. “I have the food, water, and commode you requested.”
The sound of her father’s voice made Joanna freeze and gasp ever so slightly. She wondered if Elara had noticed, but couldn’t dare to sneak a look at her.
The Catullan remained suspicious. “Turn around. Lift your shirt.”
“I’m not armed,” he said. “I didn’t bring anything except what you asked for.”
Joanna resumed her fight to break her bonds as the conversation continued.
“You’re no security officer,” Elara said. “What are you?”
“I’m a doctor. If it’s all right, I’d like to make sure neither of you is hurt.”
“We’re fine. Leave the supplies and go.”
The tape on Joanna’s wrists tore. One good pull and her hands would be free. But even through the blindfold she sensed Elara was watching her—or was that just paranoia? Still, she paused her efforts while her father pleaded with Elara.
“I just want to know that she’s all right.”
Elara grew angry. “I gave Kirk proof of life ten minutes ago. I’m not doing it again.”
“Please, just let me see her. It’s not that much to ask.”
“Hang on—who is she to you? Do you two know each—?” Realization dawned upon Elara. “She’s your daughter! That’s it, isn’t it!”
No more waiting. Joanna broke the tape on her wrists with a final jerk.
“Trade me for her,” her father begged. “Let her go! She’s just a child.” His pleading covered the soft rip of Joanna severing the tape on her feet. “I’m a Starfleet officer, a much more valuable hostage. Take me and let the girl go free.”
“I don’t think so.”
Joanna could hear the sneer behind Elara’s words.
She pulled off her blindfold and leaped at the Catullan without a word of warning.
The rest happened so fast that Joanna barely registered any of it. Her fist connected with Elara’s face, then she grabbed the woman’s wrist as the disruptor in that hand went off. They tumbled through the lockup’s open doorway, into the corridor. Noise and light, smoke and the reek of scorched tile. Elara elbowed Joanna in the throat. As Joanna staggered from the blow she tore the weapon from Elara’s grasp but couldn’t hold it. It clattered to the floor and bounced out of reach. Then Elara’s foot struck Joanna’s jaw and launched her backward.
Her father grabbed Elara, but the Catullan threw her head back and smashed it into his face. He let go of her and stumbled, his eyes watering and blood spilling from his nose. Elara drew a stiletto from under her kitchen uniform jacket and lunged toward him.
Joanna saw the disruptor and dived for it. Her hand closed on it, and she rolled with her arm outstretched. Acting on instinct, she aimed down the length of her arm and fired.
The crimson beam struck at the speed of thought and slammed into Elara’s chest.
Only when the knife fell from Elara’s hand did Joanna cease firing.
The Catullan’s eyes went blank, and she pitched face-first to the floor.
Joanna’s father stumbled toward her. She struggled to her feet and met him in a tearful embrace. He peppered the side of her face with grateful kisses of relief. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, are you?”
He regarded her with amazement. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“There’s a Krav Maga class in the rec center on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
A hearty laugh shook his entire body as he held her close again. “I want to yell at you, but you just saved my life.”
She sleeved away some of the blood on his upper lip. “Let’s not keep score.”
“Deal.” He let go of Joanna and kneeled beside Elara. He pressed hi
s fingers to the fallen woman’s throat, then with his free hand pulled out his communicator. “McCoy to Captain Kirk.”
“Go ahead, Bones.”
“Bit of a snafu up here, Jim. The good news is, the suspect’s down.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“I think she might be dead.”
Joanna stared in disbelief at the weapon in her hand, then handed it to her father. “Dad, how can she be dead? It’s only set for stun.”
“Stand by, Jim.” He closed his communicator, examined Elara’s disruptor, then cocked one eyebrow. “That’s odd. Did she inject any drugs from the lockup? Maybe as a precaution against sedatives being snuck in?”
“She was mixing something before you contacted her,” Joanna said. “Hang on—the vials she pulled must still be in the trash.” She went to the lockup, dug through its refuse bin, and returned to her father with several half-drained medication vials. “Are these what killed her?”
His keen eyes perused the various labels, then his expression brightened with the ghost of a devilish smirk. “No, but that’s what she wants us to think.” He flipped open his communicator. “Jim, cancel that call to the morgue—and have security prep a spot in the brig.”
“Acknowledged. They’re on their way up. Kirk out.”
Joanna was baffled as her father put away his communicator. “Wait—she’s alive?”
“Yup, and due for one hell of a headache when she wakes up—on the Enterprise.”
Twenty
Always in motion. That was what Una saw most clearly about the Jatohr’s city on the sea. Everywhere she looked, something was moving. The airspace above its organically rounded megastructures was perpetually choked with fast-moving transports; its promenades were busy with the massive sentient gastropods. Every plaza stood packed with bulbous vessels that harbored other, smaller craft, giving Una the impression she was looking at an attack fleet.
She moved from one concealed space to another, with Shimizu and Martinez at her back. The city’s strangely organic shapes exhibited a tendency to be separated by irregular gaps where the curves of one structure intersected those of another. The three Starfleet officers made use of those hidden spaces—though it sometimes meant crawling on all fours—to move unseen from the city’s periphery almost to its core and their objective: the Jatohr’s headquarters.
At an open patch between two vaguely conch-shaped towers, Una held up a hand to halt her companions. “Sentry globe. Back.” They retreated deeper into the shadows of cover.
A prismatic spill of light danced over the ground beyond their shelter as an eerie atonal keening resounded into a haunting chorus with itself. Within the city, these were the telltale signs of a sentry globe passing close overhead. A half dozen or so of the radiant spheres—similar to the automated sentry devices she had seen the Jatohr use on Usilde many years earlier—circled the megalopolis on a fairly regular schedule. Because of what Shimizu and Martinez had told her about those unlucky enough to be intercepted by the spheres in the past, Una had made avoiding the automated guardians a mission priority.
Darkness returned, along with blessed silence.
“Okay,” Una said. “Let’s go.” She crawled out first and led the way.
The trio stole forward, vigilant for any sign of the Jatohr or their sentries. Hunched over, they scurried along a narrow ledge that circled the great onion-shaped dome of what Martinez had said was the Jatohr’s headquarters. Far below, in a vast common at the heart of the city, stood an armada of asymmetrical vessels attended by legions of armed and armored Jatohr.
“They look ready for business,” Shimizu said, careful to keep his voice down.
Martinez eyed the alien attack force with fear and hatred. “Look at them all. If they ever break through to our universe—”
“That’s what we’re here to prevent,” Una said. She hoped the reminder would keep her friends focused on the mission rather than on the odds against its success. Ahead of her, their narrow ledge was intersected by a vertical groove that narrowed as it traveled up the curving slope of the dome to its apex. At the intersection, it was just thin enough that she could reach either side without fully extending her arms, and angled sufficiently away from a vertical drop that she could hope to shift herself inside it without immediately going into free fall.
Prudence compelled her to wick the sweat from her palms with her uniform tunic before she began her ascent. A nervous look back at Martinez and Shimizu netted her two in return. “Are you men ready for this?”
“No,” Shimizu said.
Martinez looked stricken. “Not even remotely.”
“Good. If you’d said yes, I’d have declared you mentally unfit to continue.”
Shimizu frowned. “I knew it had to be a trick question.”
Una knew the transition into the vertical channel would be the most perilous phase. Rather than dwell on it, she committed to it, in one smooth leap, arms apart, feet following.
She landed with her back in the groove, then slipped several centimeters before her palms and boot soles found traction on the dome’s nacreous surface. Her muscles ached and her limbs trembled at the strain of supporting her weight while pressing outward against the groove’s walls to keep from plummeting—a technique one of her mountaineering instructors at the Academy had called chimneying. With effort, she shifted one extremity at a time and started her long climb toward the dome’s distant, flattened apex.
There was no point looking down to gauge Martinez’s and Shimizu’s success at the transition or their progress in the climb. They would either stick or fall, complete the ascent or slip down the groove to certain death. Watching them would have no effect on their performance, so Una kept her mind trained on her own predicament.
One hand at a time. Then the opposite foot. Lift and set. Lift and set.
If I have timed this correctly, we should be able to summit the dome and have ninety seconds to find an ingress point before the next sentry globe passes this building.
The climb was slow and arduous. Unable to see above and behind herself, Una trusted her senses of orientation and gravity to tell her when she was close enough to the top of the dome to risk turning over to continue the ascent on all fours. Gazing out at an unnervingly dark seascape, she found herself curious at the absence of wind buffeting her and the others. At this altitude she expected at least mild turbulence, but the air was as calm as the sea had been. Before she could speculate about this new peculiarity of the alternate universe, she realized she was lying nearly flat on top of the dome, so she relaxed her handholds. Stable at that angle, she turned over and clambered forward onto the structure’s level rooftop.
Shimizu and Martinez joined her roughly one minute apart. As the two men caught their breath, Una studied the entranceway in the center of the rooftop. It was sealed with an irislike portal similar to those the Jatohr had used for doors inside the citadel on Usilde.
“Does either of you know how to open this?”
Alarmed, Shimizu said, “We thought you knew.”
Martinez thumped the side of his fist against the doorway’s contracted iris. “Bet you wish you’d held on to your phaser now, eh, Number One?” He corrected himself: “Sorry—Captain.”
“I’m not sure we could shoot through it even if we wanted to. Not without bringing the city down on our heads. Look for anything that might be a control mechanism.”
The trio split up and pawed at the glassy-smooth surfaces around the doorway. Shimizu looked skeptical. “Wouldn’t the door be locked?”
A shrug from Martinez. “Why would it be? Who expects someone to come in through the roof? And it’s not as if the Jatohr are used to thinking in terms of internal security.”
“True,” Una said. “The Jatohr aren’t even used to sharing a universe with other intelligent life-forms. The concept of a locking door—” The portal dilate
d open, interrupting her thought.
Shimizu smiled and pointed at a grouping of five colored dots on the surface of the raised dome housing the portal. “Found it. Touch the bottom three dots at once and ‘open sesame.’ ”
“Good work, Tim.” Una led them inside, eager to get off the roof before the next pass of the sentry globes. “Move quickly, but tread lightly.”
The curving passageway was roughly oval in shape, with a flattened bottom. Every surface Una could see was composed of the same pearlescent substance that was ubiquitous in the Jatohr city. As she, Shimizu, and Martinez followed the corridor, Una got the impression it sloped downward in a gradual spiral. Then it let out onto a platform surrounded by a vast expanse of shadowy open space. She halted at the end of the passage and signaled Martinez and Shimizu to hang back while she scouted the path ahead.
Outside, the platform appeared to be deserted. A deep humming of great machines filled the cavernous interior of the dome, which Una realized was hollow. In the darkness, distant lights of many colors flickered, pale and spectral. “Okay,” she whispered over her shoulder. “Stay with me.” They advanced onto the circular platform, which vibrated under Una’s feet.
The trio reached the edge of the platform and peered over it.
Beneath their stationary top platform rotated a succession of ever-wider platforms, which were evenly spaced along the vertical axis of the building’s core pillar. It was a design Una had seen before: it was a much larger version of the tower inside the citadel on Usilde.
This one was also far more densely populated. Clusters of Jatohr moved about on the lower levels, their origins and destinations as inscrutable to Una as their objectives. Just like their kin whom Una had seen on Usilde, the ones toiling below were enormous gastropods. Their bodies were mostly armored in synthetic, opalescent shells, but their undersides were bare to facilitate their sole means of locomotion: a single great rubbery foot that propelled them slowly by means of muscular undulations. Protruding from each Jatohr’s upper body was a pair of limbs sheathed in metallic coils and terminating in clasping extremities. To Una, a Jatohr’s most disturbing feature was its bare, glistening head crowned with six pairs of sensory tentacles.
