The Antares Maelstrom

by Greg Cox

  “Always do, sir.”

  Kirk wasted no time getting underway. Less than ten minutes after receiving the distress signal, the landing party took their places on the transporter platform, fully geared up for the mission. A medkit was slung over McCoy’s shoulder, while phasers had been issued to all concerned, including the three red-shirted security officers Kirk had found waiting for him in the transporter room. Kirk took a moment to brief them on the situation before reminding the entire party of the probable hazards ahead.

  “Chances are we’re beaming into a fight, facing an unknown number of hostiles. We need to be on guard and ready to defend ourselves—and others—from the moment we materialize.”

  Landon patted the phaser on her hip. “I hear you, Captain.”

  “Be careful with your phasers,” Kirk said. “Pergium reacts explosively when struck by energy beams. Hand-to-hand combat is recommended, but if you must use your phasers, confine yourself to short, targeted bursts, preferably at close range. One stray shot could lead to a big bang. Am I understood?”

  “Aye, Captain,” Landon said.

  “Very well, then.” He nodded at Lieutenant John Kyle, who was at the transporter controls. “Energize.”

  “Energizing.”

  The familiar sensation of the transporter effect washed over Kirk, then quickly reversed itself, leaving him somewhere else. Within a heartbeat, the landing party went from the calm, orderly environment of the transporter room to chaos.

  They found themselves atop what appeared to be one of several corrugated steel cargo containers that had been converted into shelters or storehouses. The endangered security team crouched on the roof of the container, aside from Baines, who was out cold or worse, an ugly bruise discoloring his forehead. The furious shouting and fighting Kirk had overheard before suddenly came from all around and sounded much closer. It was twilight, and a damp autumn wind came as a jolt after the controlled climate of the Enterprise.

  “Heads down, sir!” one of Baines’s team shouted. Ensign Lisa Nichols took the landing party’s sudden materialization in stride. “It’s not safe!”

  A crimson beam, sizzling past Kirk’s skull, punctuated her suggestion. He dropped down onto the cold metal roof along with the rest of the landing party. McCoy scurried to check on Baines, his medical scanner already in his hand. Kirk left Bones to his doctoring as he cautiously lifted his head to survey his new surroundings.

  The mining camp occupied a wooded clearing on a mossy slope leading down to a wide gully that looked to be a dried-up riverbed, which was where the actual mining had obviously been taking place. An industrial-sized sonic plow was parked in the gully, where it had apparently been employed to remove successive layers of soil and rock in order to expose a thick vein of pergium buried deeper below the surface; unlike a phaser drill, sonic waves were unlikely to set off a chain reaction. Bins and sledges loaded with unprocessed ore waited to be transported. Floodlights mounted on looming tree trunks illuminated the work site as the sun gradually set in the east. A deep pit had been dug near one end of the trench, perhaps to reach an even deeper ore deposit.

  At the moment, however, any and all mining had given way to the heated battle being waged in and around the excavation site. A few dozen prospectors, divided into Troglytes and native Baldurians, were going at each other with a vengeance, wielding fists, shovels, picks, crowbars, and other implements. Considering the amount of mined pergium out in the open, Kirk was relieved to see that few of the miners were equipped with sidearms, but, remembering the beam that had just missed his head only moments before, he feared an accidental explosion was only a matter of time. A few fallen miners already littered the landscape, but moans and movements suggested that they were only injured, not deceased. He dared to hope that nobody had been killed yet.

  “What’s the story here, Ensign?” he asked Nichols.

  “Nearly as we can tell, Captain, the river marks the border between two claims. The Trogs—as they call themselves, I believe—detected a rich vein of ore beneath the river and started mining it. Some of the locals objected, insisting that the river itself was theirs by tradition.”

  “River?” Kirk asked.

  “The Trogs dammed the river farther upstream and dug a canal to divert it away from the mother lode. Which just caused more hard feelings, with the locals accusing the Trogs of deliberately moving the border to expand their claim.”

  Kirk nodded. “So that’s why they called you in?”

  “Actually, it was the Trogs who called the authorities, when the locals started interfering with their mining operations.” Nichols gave Kirk an apologetic look. “We tried to calm everybody down, but . . . things bubbled over anyway. Sorry, Captain.”

  “No need to apologize, Ensign. I’m sure you did your best.” He briefly wondered which side had thrown the first punch, then decided it didn’t really matter at this point. “What happened to Baines?”

  “We took a position on top of this shelter, to claim the high ground, but the lieutenant got nailed by a rock thrown by one of the rioters. Lost his communicator too.”

  “Yes, we heard that.” Kirk assumed it had fallen to the ground below. He glanced over at the unconscious officer. “How is he, Bones?”

  “Took a nasty blow to the head all right,” McCoy reported. “No fractures, but a definite concussion.” He flipped open his communicator. “One to beam up. Transmitting precise coordinates now. Alert sickbay to expect a patient.”

  Baines’s inert form dissolved into sparkling golden energy before vanishing altogether. The characteristic whine of the transporter was all but lost in the noise coming from the fight. Kirk was confident that the injured man would soon be in good hands.

  But what about the rest of them?

  Kirk noticed the lack of uniformed Baldurian personnel, either up on the roof with the Starfleet personnel or caught up in the fracas below.

  “Where are the local security forces? Why aren’t they handling this?”

  “They’re no-shows, sir.” Nichols sounded distinctly aggrieved. “We kept expecting them to show up and reinforce us, and even tried hailing them for backup, but . . . no response. We were on our own, Captain, with no help from the local police.”

  Kirk scowled. He’d have to look into that later. “You getting all this, Landon?”

  The yeoman was stretched out on the rooftop, recording the scene below with her tricorder. “Affirmative, sir.”

  “What are your orders, sir?” Nichols asked.

  Good question, Kirk thought. He was tempted to beam Nichols and the others to safety, letting the prospectors work out their differences on their own, but their mission here was to help keep the peace. He wasn’t about to abdicate that responsibility the first time things got messy. Retreat was a last resort.

  And talking was always the first way to go.

  “Give me your communicator, Ensign.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nichols handed her communicator over to Kirk, who dialed its audio output up to maximum. Holding it out before him while speaking into his own communicator, he rose to his feet and used Nichols’s device to amplify his voice like a loudspeaker.

  “THIS IS CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK OF THE U.S.S. ENTERPRISE. PUT DOWN YOUR FISTS AND WEAPONS AND CEASE HOSTILITIES IMMEDIATELY. LET’S WORK THIS OUT WITHOUT VIOLENCE!”

  His words fell on deaf ears, ignored by the warring prospectors, aside from a single, red-faced Baldurian who drew a vintage laser pistol from his belt and fired wildly at Kirk.

  “Who invited you here anyway?”

  The crimson bolt missed Kirk by a meter, but he ducked down regardless, just in case the angry miner’s aim improved.

  “I think they’re past talking to, Jim,” McCoy said.

  Kirk was inclined to agree. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”

  The doctor viewed the violence with obvious distaste. He shook his head in reproach. “Talk about a sorry spectacle. Have they lost their damn minds? Looks to me like there
’s enough pergium to go around.”

  “Careful, Bones,” Kirk said, “you’re starting to sound like Spock.”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  Kirk pondered his next move. Even with the addition of the landing party, the Starfleet contingent was significantly outnumbered and on unfamiliar terrain. He could beam down even more reinforcements, but that might just add fuel to the fire. He needed to defuse this donnybrook, not escalate it.

  “Captain! Look over there!”

  Landon called Kirk’s attention to a specific altercation taking place several meters away. A Troglyte was loading a small bin of pergium onto a floating antigrav sledge, much to the outrage of the hot-headed Baldurian who had taken a shot at Kirk.

  “Don’t even think about making off with that ore, you offworld claim jumper! That belongs to us!”

  He fired recklessly at the Troglyte, who threw herself out of the line of fire, tumbling down the slope away from the floating sledge, which was struck by the crimson bolt instead—with immediate results.

  A deafening explosion shook the camp. The shockwave struck the shelter Kirk and the others were perched on, toppling it from its moorings and onto its side, spilling the Starfleet crew members onto the damp, spongy ground below—and into the thick of the fray. His ears ringing, Kirk scrambled to his feet in time to see a snarling miner charging at him, swinging a shovel at Kirk’s head.

  That’s it, he thought. I’m all out of patience.

  He ducked beneath the shovel and retaliated with a kidney punch that sent the other man staggering backward. Kirk wrested the shovel from the miner’s grip and rammed its handle into the man’s chest, knocking him flat on his back. He started to look around to check on the others, when a burly Troglyte grabbed him from behind, pinning Kirk’s arms to his sides.

  “Let me go!” Kirk protested. “You called us, remember?”

  “Like that did any good!”

  At this point, Kirk realized, neither side was thinking straight. He smashed the back of his head into the Trog’s nose, causing the prospector to cry out in pain. The shock loosened the Trog’s grip enough for Kirk to elbow him in the gut . . . hard. The Trog let go of Kirk, who spun around and smacked the flat of the shovel into the side of the miner’s head, dropping him. Surprisingly, the Trog tried to get back up again, but a karate chop to the man’s neck put him down for the count.

  Not as elegant as a nerve pinch, Kirk thought, but I’m only human . . .

  “Are you all right, Captain?”

  Kirk turned to see Landon heading toward him. A snarling Troglyte lunged at her from behind. His fists were locked together above his head.

  “Landon!” Kirk shouted. “Watch out!”

  A deft judo move flipped the Troglyte over Landon’s shoulder and onto his back in front of her. Before he could figure out what had happened to him, she drew her phaser and stunned him at point-blank range. He went limp at her feet.

  “You were saying, Captain?” she said with a smirk.

  “Never mind, Yeoman. Carry on.”

  Kirk recalled that Chekov had briefly dated Landon for a time. Lucky Chekov, he thought before taking in the damage from the explosion. A smoking crater was surrounded by strewn rubble, while another shelter was badly dented by the blast. Kirk counted themselves fortunate that only one small bin of pergium had been set off. Suppose an energy beam had hit the mother lode instead?

  “You all right, Jim? Landon?”

  McCoy staggered toward them, limping, while Nichols and the other security officers took up defensive positions around the captain, grappling with the out-of-control prospectors, who were lashing out at every stranger in sight. A miner broke through the guards’ rank, only to run into a flying kick from Kirk. The soles of the captain’s boots struck the miner squarely in the chest, bowling him over. Another close-up burst from Landon’s phaser stunned the man senseless. Kirk climbed to his feet.

  “Nothing broken, Doctor,” he said, “although I’m not sure we’re doing much good—”

  The roar of a heavy-duty engine drowned out Kirk’s words, competing with the general cacophony of the battle. The noise drew his gaze to the sonic plow, which was no longer sitting idle in the gully. With a Baldurian miner in the driver’s seat, the powered-up machine started up the slope toward what was left of the Troglyte mining camp, no doubt intent on demolishing it. A cone-shaped sonic agitator, designed to break up packed dirt and rock, was mounted above a wide steel scraper blade durable enough to move large quantities of earth. A suction funnel sprayed any excess soil and gravel off to one side like an old-fashioned snowblower. Industrial-strength treads carried the hijacked plow up the hill, tearing apart the mossy slope in the process. Panicked combatants dashed out of its path. Crimson beams scorched the surface of the steel blade as a few miners risked firing at the plow. A frantic prospector scrambled up the trunk of a nearby tree, a move that struck Kirk as strategically unsound.

  Unless . . . ?

  Kirk spotted another tree rising along the plow’s path, a floodlight mounted among its upper branches. Metallic rungs had been secured to the tree trunk to provide easier access to the lights. If it stayed on its present course, the rogue plow would pass by the tree momentarily.

  “Cover me!” he ordered.

  Dashing across the ravaged clearing, he clambered up the side of the tree and out onto a (hopefully) sturdy branch, where he crouched, waiting for the plow to come closer. The tree was not directly in the path of the destructive sonic wave projected by the agitator, but even the outer ripples were enough to shake loose the floodlight so that it crashed to the ground many meters below. Vibrations threatened to dislodge Kirk, who hung on to the branch for dear life until the open cab of the plow was directly beneath him. Letting go, he dropped onto the startled miner in the driver’s seat, who yelped in surprise. Kirk flung the man from the cab and seized control of the plow.

  His first instinct was to shut down the machine before it could do any more damage, but perhaps there was some way he could use the plow to cool down the feuding prospectors, many of whom were still fighting riotously in the contested gully? The problem echoed in his brain.

  Cool them down?

  He smirked as an idea occurred to him.

  The controls for the plow were admirably user-friendly. Kirk took advantage of this to make a swift U-turn and steer the machine back down into the dried-up riverbed, where he headed upstream as fast as the heavy industrial device could manage. A few moments of experimentation taught him how to raise the blade so that it wasn’t scraping the ground before him, thereby increasing the plow’s speed by a significant degree. Within minutes he came within sight of the dam, an impressive structure that the Troglytes had economically fashioned from the materials at hand: logs and rocks, mostly, with a bit of thermoconcrete mortar.

  Can’t fault them for their industry, Kirk thought.

  He drove the plow straight toward the dam, while dialing the sonic agitator up to its maximum setting. Intense vibrations buffeted the structure, pulverizing the packed lumber and stone. The smaller pieces shook loose first, but then the larger components began to crumble as well, setting off a slew of miniature avalanches. Logs turned into splinters. Heavy stones and mortar were reduced to gravel. Water spurted through newly formed gaps in the dam.

  Yes, Kirk thought. It’s working!

  The closer the plow got to the dam, the more the agitator dismantled it. Kirk kept up the sonic barrage until he was certain that the dam was on the brink of collapse. At the last moment, just as the plow was about to smash into the disintegrating dam, Kirk steered it hard to the right, lumbering up and out of the increasingly muddy gully onto a rocky bank. Jets of cold mountain water sprayed Kirk as he drove away from the dam, which came apart with the sound of cracking logs, tumbling stone, and a rushing river.

  Kirk switched off the agitator and looked back over his shoulder. Foaming water, no longer diverted from its accustomed course, flooded th
e gully on its way downstream toward the mining site. He flipped open his communicator.

  “Kirk to landing party! There’s a flood on your way!”

  * * *

  “Let me through,” McCoy barked. “Can’t you see? I’m a doctor, not a prospector!”

  He limped across the ravaged slope overlooking the mine, where the plow’s rampage had left a trail of torn-up earth, causing him to wonder just what had become of Kirk anyway. He’d twisted his ankle after having been thrown from the roof of the cargo container, but he ignored the pain as best he could. Trying to attend to the injured, McCoy dodged angry miners, who didn’t seem to care whose skull they wanted to crack anymore. Landon and Nichols did their best to run interference for him, while trying to avoid becoming casualties in their own right. The remaining Starfleet personnel were busy trying to break up fights and defend themselves at the same time.

  “Where’s the captain?” Landon delivered a high kick to a female Troglyte’s jaw. “Where’s he gone?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Yeoman.”

  McCoy felt like a combat medic, trying to treat wounded men and women under less than ideal conditions. An anguished groan drew him to a fallen miner lying not far from the crater left behind by the explosion. Kneeling down beside the man, McCoy recognized the troublemaker who had taken a shot at Kirk and later set off that bin of pergium in the first place. A bad burn on his left side suggested that he had been too close to his own accidental handiwork. McCoy dosed the scorched miner with a general anesthetic before using a spray applicator to apply a topical compound to the burnt areas. The compound, which contained both a coagulant and an antibiotic, would prevent any bleeding or infection until the man could be treated at a proper sickbay or planet-bound clinic.

  “Just hang on,” McCoy said. “We’ll get you fixed up soon.”

  An electronic chirp stepped on his bedside manner. He heard Landon’s communicator chirp too. He plucked his communicator from his belt.

  “McCoy here.”

  The captain’s voice came over the device: