by Dayton Ward
“Hello,” he offered cordially.
The Gallamite responded at first with a simple nod as he bent to the process of collecting the dilithium. “Your efforts produce much ore,” he said as he placed some of the larger pieces into one of two collection containers he had brought with him. “Our masters will be pleased.”
Blanching at the reference to the Klingon guards, Garrovick said, perhaps a bit too sharply, “They’re not our masters. All I’m doing is making sure they stay happy and treat us decently. That’s as far as it goes.”
“Amen to that, Commander,” Kawaguchi said from his right, deactivating his own laser drill and wiping the sweat from his face with the back of one gloved hand. “If it keeps them off my back, then I’ll dig a hole all the way to the other side of this planet. Besides, it’s not as if there’s much else to do around here. Beats rotting away in a cell, that’s for sure.”
Garrovick was forced to agree with the sentiment. Without activity to consume their pent-up energy and occupy their minds, he figured he might very well have lost his sanity by now. For that reason, he hated the isolation chambers that Korax had sentenced him and Sydney to just days before. Cut off from all outside stimuli and forced to do nothing except confront the deepest recesses of one’s own mind was an unnerving experience to say the least. Trapped inside his tiny cell, thoughts came tumbling forth unbidden. Hopes, fears, dreams, and nightmares all begged for his attention with gut-wrenching clarity, casting him all over the emotional landscape from unfettered joy to stark terror and everything that lie between. The longest amount of time he had spent in one of the isolation cells was ten days. It hadn’t sounded like such a stretch at first, but that was before time began to slow and stretch into infinity. He hadn’t believed that the experience would be so trying and had come away from the punishment with a harsh respect for the small chambers.
“Stephen! Look out!”
Recognizing the voice as Sydney’s, Garrovick spun around to look for his friend. He turned in time to see another prisoner, a Romulan whom Garrovick recognized as Trel and had heard to be a former military engineer, brandishing his laser drill as though it were a heavy phaser cannon.
And he was pointing it at him.
Fiery red energy spat from the drill and Garrovick felt the heat of the beam as it passed just to his right. He threw himself to the ground and rolled away from the attack, not comprehending how Trel could have missed him at such close range.
It was simple. He wasn’t the target.
A cry of pain erupted from somewhere behind him and Garrovick rolled away to see a Klingon cleaved in half at the waist by the force of the beam. As the guard’s head and torso came away from the lower portion of his body and fell to the ground with a sickly thud, Garrovick’s mind screamed that such an action should be impossible.
The laser drills used by the prison miners were encoded with special programming that prevented the tools from being utilized except as mining implements. If aimed at an organic life-form, even something as small as a rodent foraging for food scraps in the depths of the mine, the drills would not fire. Such measures were prudent, of course, given the number of prisoners working in the mines at any one time compared to the number of guards available to oversee them.
But Trel had overcome these imposed limitations. How? When had he even had the time to try?
The mine erupted into chaos as prisoners dropped their equipment and scrambled for whatever meager concealment they could find. Others, caught out in the open, dropped to the ground and covered their head with their hands.
Garrovick ceased to care about any of that, though, when his eyes fell upon the crumpled form lying slumped against the cavern wall. Kawaguchi.
“Robert!”
The chief had gotten caught in the crossfire as Trel swept the area to hit the Klingon guard he had targeted.
Sprinting across the open space of the mining tunnel, Garrovick knelt over his friend. A ghastly wound desecrated Kawaguchi’s midsection, the drill’s beam having sliced through the man’s coverall garment, skin, muscle tissue, and bone. The sternum had been punctured and Garrovick could see that the liver, a lung, and the heart had been utterly destroyed. Kawaguchi had been dead before he’d fallen to the ground.
“Dammit,” Garrovick whispered as he placed a hand on the chief’s arm. Kawaguchi had been the first Gagarin crew member to die since Ensign Randall Bird, a member of Sydney Elliot’s security detachment and a man Garrovick had barely known, had succumbed to a virulent strain of flu during the second year of their captivity. The first officer had been unable to help Bird, and neither had the prison’s doctor. The Klingon commanding the camp at that time had refused to take any extra steps to help the ailing ensign, and he had died within days. Several other prisoners throughout the compound had also fallen victim to the flu but none of the other Gagarin survivors had contracted it.
The hollow feeling gnawing at the pit of his stomach was one Garrovick had felt on those unwelcome occasions where he had faced the death of a subordinate. It was a pain that never diminished, no matter how many times he confronted it. While he was serving as an ensign aboard the Enterprise, many years earlier, Captain Kirk had told him that such pain should never be forgotten. Instead, it should be redirected, focused, channeled into energy that could be used to make the decisions necessary to protect those who remained.
“Take care of your people,” Kirk had told him. “No matter the cost.”
The words haunted Garrovick as he looked down on the unmoving body of Robert Kawaguchi.
An alarm shrieked in the echoing confines of the cavern. Garrovick knew it meant that reinforcements were already on the way down into the mining cavern. They would be armed this time, having traded their stun batons for disruptors. The Klingons would be anxious to even the score against any rebelling prisoners who had killed their comrades. Tensions would be high, and his priority now was to make sure that neither he nor any of his remaining people fell victim to an overzealous Klingon guard caught up in the excitement.
All around him, prisoners scurried about like animals running from a forest fire as they searched for cover. Except for those who had fallen victim to the laser drill, Garrovick could see no other Klingon guards. What he did see was two other prisoners stooping over the bodies of Klingon guards. As they each bent to retrieve a guard’s fallen stun baton, he recognized that they too were Romulan. It confirmed his suspicion that the attack with the laser drill was not a random act of opportunity. It was a coordinated effort. What were they planning? Escape? The very notion was ludicrous.
Indeed, mining tunnels stretched for kilometers in every direction from the prison compound like a giant web. As the years passed and mining increased, cross-connecting tunnels and air shafts had formed an intricate network that could now only be navigated with the use of a portable positioning scanner carried by each guard. Stories and rumors had circulated over the years of prisoners who had escaped their work details and fled into the depths of the mine, never to be seen alive again. Skeletal remains clothed in a deteriorated prison uniform would sometimes be found as work crews were sent from tunnel to tunnel, serving to keep the tales of failed escape attempts thriving.
Looking around the mining cavern, Garrovick saw where Elliot and Ra Mhvlovi had found concealment behind one of the collection carts. Elliot waved to him, the look on her face telling him to quit standing in the open like an idiot and find some cover.
Good idea.
The two Romulans were moving with deliberate purpose toward Trel, striking out at anyone who got in their way. Judging by the results of their attacks, Garrovick guessed that the batons they wielded had been set to near lethal levels.
Garrovick saw a guard emerge from a side tunnel and recognized him as Moqlah, the guard who had gone out of his way to protect he and Elliot from too harsh a punishment at the hands of Korax earlier in the week. Moqlah had risked the wrath of both the camp commander and Khulr because he believed the imprisonment o
f the Gagarin officers was unjust and dishonorable. The action had earned him a measure of respect from Garrovick and the others.
It was this respect that gave Garrovick cause for alarm as Moqlah attempted to approach the drill-wielding Romulan from the side, his stun baton in hand, held high and poised to attack. Garrovick could see the end of the weapon glowing a bright orange, indicating the baton was set to deliver a potentially lethal strike.
Chapter Twenty-one
“MOQLAH!” Garrovick’s warning came too late as Trel sensed the Klingon guard’s movements. Moqlah realized he’d been caught just as the Romulan swept the drill around to face him.
Fiery red energy belched forth once again and Moqlah dove to his right, barely able to avoid being sliced in half by the drill’s beam. The Klingon still caught a glancing strike, the beam cutting past the heavy material of his uniform tunic and across his back. Moqlah crashed to the ground, writhing in agony.
It took only seconds for Garrovick to reach the fallen guard, the unmistakable stench of burned flesh assaulting his nostrils for a second time as he knelt to inspect the Klingon’s wound. The laser drill had burned through Moqlah’s uniform and had scorched skin and muscle all the way down to the bones of his rib cage.
His face clouded in pain, Moqlah managed to croak out a weak question. “What . . . what are you doing, human?”
“Repaying a favor,” Garrovick replied as he tore part of his own coverall sleeve loose. Turning the fabric inside out, he hoped it was clean enough to be used as a field-expedient bandage. It was still better than allowing the open wound to remain exposed to contamination in the dust-riddled cavern.
As he applied the makeshift dressing, Garrovick heard footsteps in front of him just before the sound of the laser drill firing came again. Red energy and dirt exploded from the ground in front of him and he fell back, bringing his hands up to protect his face.
When he looked up again, it was to see Trel standing perhaps fifteen meters away, the muzzle of the drill aimed directly at him. The other two Romulans had joined him, still carrying the stun batons they had liberated from owners who would never need them again.
Garrovick recognized one of the newcomers as the one he and his companions had nicknamed “Scarface,” due to the prominent crisscross of puckered flesh highlighting his forehead and cheekbones. He was one of several prisoners the Gagarin survivors had learned to keep an eye on, due to his propensity for picking fights with other inmates and his professed dislike of humans.
As for the second Romulan, Garrovick knew his face but not his name. Still, there was no mistaking the malevolent grin creasing the prisoner’s mouth.
Trel regarded Garrovick for a moment, his dark eyes offering no insight into what he might be thinking. Garrovick became aware of the fact that he was silently counting the seconds that passed as the two men faced off. Was his mind checking off the final moments of his life?
Instead of killing Garrovick, the Romulan turned his attention to Moqlah, who was still a limp, disjointed heap on the ground and who Garrovick saw was beginning to display the initial symptoms of shock.
“The Klingon dog still lives,” Trel said. The muzzle of the laser drill moved to aim at Moqlah.
Moqlah sneered back, his expression defiant despite the pain that Garrovick knew must be racking his body. “I have your pathetic aim to thank for that,” he hissed through his agony, the tone of his voice deliberately antagonizing. “Perhaps you should find an old blind woman to teach you to shoot with more accuracy.”
Anger clouded Trel’s face, the first real emotion Garrovick had seen him display, and he knew at that moment that there was no way Moqlah would be allowed to live.
He wasn’t holding out much hope for himself, either.
From this distance, he could see where an access panel on the side of the drill had been opened. There were scorch marks along the edges of the panel door, giving credence to Garrovick’s theory that Trel had used his engineering expertise to somehow circumvent the mining tool’s safety overrides. The work looked to be crude, but there could be no arguing its effectiveness.
“Kill them,” Scarface said. “We are wasting time here. The Klingons will return any moment, in greater numbers and with more powerful weapons.”
Of course. The cavern extended far underground in this area, where it led to the vast array of tunnels boring through the rock of this godforsaken planet. Garrovick suspected they would use the drill to remove their ankle bracelets and the transceivers embedded in them. He knew, based on what he’d overheard from guards in the past, that the heavy concentration of dilithium and other mineral ores interfered with tricorder and sensor scans. Only the high-frequency comm signal emitted by the bracelet locators proved effective at penetrating the planet’s surface. Once the bracelets were removed, the Romulans would be able to disappear into the network of mining tunnels.
“Yes, we must go,” the third Romulan added. “They can still track us until we dispose of the homing devices.”
Trel nodded. “You are correct.” He regarded Moqlah once more, a cruel smile forming on his lips. “In case you are wondering, Klingon, I will indeed enjoy watching you die.”
“Is this really necessary?” Garrovick snapped. “He can’t stop you from escaping, and he can’t hurt you. What purpose does it serve for you to kill him?”
Smiling, Trel indicated the mining cavern with a wave of his hand. “Consider it sufficient restitution for my having to endure existence under Klingon rule.” Locking eyes with Garrovick, he added. “Besides, why do you care so much for the life of a Klingon when you should be concerned with whether or not you will continue to live?”
Garrovick had long ago accepted that he might die in this place, either as the victim of an accident or what might appear to be an accident at the hands of unscrupulous guards such as Khulr. He’d come to accept it, just as he’d come to believe that those who loved him back home had given him up for dead long ago.
But now, for the first time, he felt the cold hand of mortality reaching out to envelop him in its grasp. He was going to die, here and now, not at the hands of nature or the guards, but as an exercise in amusement. Impotent rage boiled in him at the thought. There was no way he could get to his feet or even roll out of the line of fire. He was too close, and the weapon too powerful.
Garrovick looked down at Moqlah. Either the Klingon refused to respond to the Romulan, or he had fallen far enough into shock that he simply no longer cared.
“Goodbye, human,” Trel said as he brought the muzzle of the drill up to point at Garrovick’s head. Garrovick imagined he could hear the muscles in the Romulan’s finger tightening as he pressed the weapon’s firing stud.
Then, all around him, the world exploded.
A hellstorm erupted in the cavern and Garrovick could feel an almost electrical sensation playing across his exposed skin as savage red energy beams sliced through the air. He threw himself across the prone form of Moqlah, who by now had fallen so far into shock that he was oblivious of the explosive firefight raging all around him.
Having answered the alarm siren still sounding throughout the cavern, the Klingons had managed to work their way this far into the tunnel system without being detected by the Romulans. Looking up, Garrovick saw Trel, Scarface, and the other Romulan caught in a vicious, merciless crossfire as Klingons fired on them from several directions. Time seemed to slow down as the unrelenting barrage of disruptor fire dissected the three rebels.
And as quickly as it had begun, the nerve-shattering attack was over, the entire sequence taking only a handful of seconds from start to finish and leaving Garrovick to stare in open-mouthed shock at the remains of the Romulans.
There wasn’t much to see.
Pulling himself back into a kneeling position, Garrovick saw Sydney and Ra Mhvlovi emerging from behind the collection cart they had been using for cover. Neither of them had been injured in the crossfire. Both officers had their hands held up and away from their bodies t
o show they were unarmed as Klingon guards began to pour from side tunnels and passageways into the main cavern.
The siren ceased its wailing as Garrovick noticed Korax leading one group of guards from the main tunnel. The camp commander was pointing with both hands, sending subordinates in all directions as the Klingons began to reassert control of the situation. The Gagarin first officer then noticed that Korax, along with a small cadre of guards, was marching at a rapid pace toward him.
Garrovick rose at Korax’s approach, the Klingon’s face unreadable as he stopped in front of the prisoner. The human expected some type of angered reaction at the uprising that had disrupted mining production as well as having killed a number of his soldiers and prisoners.
Instead, he turned to face the group of four Klingons who had accompanied him.
“Take Moqlah to the surgeon.” As the guards moved to comply with his orders, Korax returned his attention to Garrovick, studying the human as if mentally weighing the events of the last few minutes.
“You came to his assistance,” he finally said, indicating Moqlah with a nod of his head as the injured guard was carried away. “Your companions, also, with their distraction tactics. You invited certain death upon yourselves for a Klingon. Why?”
Garrovick replied, “Call it self-preservation, Commander. I didn’t want to have your guards coming in here with weapons blazing, cutting down everything and everyone in their way looking for who started this mess.”
Korax shook his head. “I know humans better than that. You all have this insatiable need to help others, even if they are your enemy and regardless of the circumstance. I hope you realize that it is a weakness which will be your undoing one day.”
