Star Trek: The Original Series: The Shocks of Adversity (4 page)

Kirk stopped just short of the transporter room doors, turned, and put his hands out
on McCoy’s shoulders. “Bones. If I didn’t have both Spock and Scotty telling me that
this would be safe—safer than piloting a shuttlecraft through a nystromite-heavy atmosphere—I
wouldn’t be doing it. Now,” he said, clapping his palms on the doctor’s upper arms,
“stop being such a mother hen.”

“Fine,” McCoy said unhappily, and then added, as Kirk turned away and rejoined Spock,
“Good luck.”

The captain smiled back over his shoulder as he entered the transporter room, where
the rest of the landing party had already gathered. Two members of the ship’s science
section, Lieutenant Jean O’Reilly and Ensign David Frank, were joined by two security
officers, Lieutenants Jameel Farah and Joseph D’Abruzzo. Kirk nodded a greeting to
the group, and noted that D’Abruzzo had very quickly broken off eye contact with him.
I should listen to McCoy
, Kirk told himself.

Which really was not a thought he wanted to have just as he was climbing up on the
transporter pad. He brusquely dismissed it as the rest of the party assumed their
positions, then looked over to Lieutenant Kyle, who was standing behind the transporter
control console. “Energize.”

The familiar sensation of the transporter enveloped him, and once it had faded, the
captain found himself standing on the bank of a small creek, on the edge of a forest.
Once he ascertained that the rest of the party members were present and accounted
for, he pulled out his communicator. “Kirk to
Enterprise
.” He winced as he was answered by a blast of static, and started adjusting the two
knobs below the speaker. “
Enterprise
, do you read me?”

After several seconds of fiddling with the settings, Uhura’s voice cut through the
background noise:
“. . . ing to compensate, sir. Are you reading now, Captain?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, I have you now.” The interference was still heavy, but that had
been anticipated. “Landing party is down and safe. We’ll check in again within fifteen
minutes.”

“Acknowledged, sir,”
the lieutenant answered, and Kirk flipped the communicator shut. He paused a moment
to take in their surroundings and to appreciate the natural beauty of this planet.
To find a world with such a vibrant biosphere in orbit of a subdwarf star was remarkable,
to say the least. The
expressions on the faces of O’Reilly and Frank, as they surveyed the area with their
tricorders, indicated that it was even more remarkable than Kirk knew.

He stepped over to where Spock stood studying his own portable scanner. “Any negative
effects from the atmospheric nystromite on the tricorders?” he asked.

“Yes, but it appears minimal,” Spock answered, turning in a slow semicircle while
his attention remained glued to his readout screen. “I believe my recalibrations will
allow us to collect reliably accurate data.” The science officer looked up then, and
pointed in roughly the same direction that the stream beside them was flowing, into
the thick of the woods. “The power source is five hundred seventy-two meters in that
direction,” he said.

“All right.” Kirk nodded to the party’s two security officers. “Farah, you take point.
D’Abruzzo, you’ll bring up the rear.” Farah nodded as he double-checked his phaser’s
power level, and then, holding it at the ready, started into the woods. Spock and
the two science officers followed, the trilling of their tricorders joining together
in a strange but not unpleasant electronic harmony. They remained close to the stream,
but as they worked their way deeper into the forest, the trees became larger and the
bank narrower. Progress slowed as they had to start winding their way
around the thick-trunked trees and up the gentle slope away from the waterway.

At one point, Kirk’s foot landed awkwardly on a root, sending him stumbling and nearly
pitching forward onto his face. Just as he regained his balance, D’Abruzzo was there
behind him, one hand grabbing onto his right arm. “Steady there, sir,” he said.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Kirk said. “Nice of you to help keep me upright for a change.”

“Aye, sir.” D’Abruzzo looked abashed as he pulled his hand away and took a step back
from Kirk.

Do I really intimidate the boy that much?
Kirk asked himself. D’Abruzzo certainly appeared to be more nervous now, caught under
his captain’s scrutiny, than he had minutes before, on the lookout for any surprise
threats as they explored this alien world. “Lieutenant . . . Joseph. May I call you
Joseph? Or do you prefer Joe?”

“Whichever you like, Captain.”

Kirk struggled to hold back a sigh. “I believe that I owe you an apology,” he said,
as they started following the rest of the team.

“Sir?” D’Abruzzo answered as he moved to keep up with him.

“In the gymnasium yesterday,” Kirk said, taking occasional glances over his shoulder
to ensure the security officer was keeping up and listening. “I get
the impression that you were somewhat uncomfortable being matched up with your commanding
officer.”

D’Abruzzo hesitated before saying, “Perhaps somewhat, yes, sir.”

“And that’s my fault,” Kirk told him. “It really wasn’t all that long ago that I was
in your place, a young junior officer intent on doing whatever I had to to impress
my superiors.” Briefly, he reflected on the sense of respect and awe with which his
younger self had regarded Captain Bannock during his time aboard the
Republic
, and Captain Garrovick on the
Farragut.
“Sometimes, I suppose I forget that I’m the one being looked up to in that way now.
But I want you to know that, on the judo mat, I absolutely want and expect that you
consider me your equal.”

D’Abruzzo did not answer immediately, and when he did, what he said was, “Permission
to speak freely, sir?”

Kirk looked back over his shoulder again. “Of course.”

“Well, sir, it’s just . . .” D’Abruzzo hesitated again, then blurted out, “On the
judo mat, we’re not. Equals. You’re pretty badly outmatched, to be honest.”

Before Kirk could find it in himself to answer that charge, Farah called back from
the head of the column, “Captain!”

“What is it?” Kirk asked as he and Spock moved up to where Farah had stopped at the
edge of a small clearing. The ground was covered with what looked like bootprints
of differing shapes and patterns, clearly made in the very recent past. At the center
of the roughly circular patch of bare soil was a pile of charred wood and ashes. “Spock?”

The Vulcan consulted his tricorder and reported, “My readings indicate that this fire
was extinguished no less than thirty-six hours ago.”

“And what about signs of higher life-forms?” Kirk asked.

Spock shook his head. “Still detecting none.”

“Then where are the people who built this fire now?” Kirk asked, looking past Spock
and beyond the tree line at the clearing’s edge. The
Enterprise
had first arrived at the Nystrom system a little less than thirty-six hours earlier.
While it was by no means unthinkable that these beings could have left the planet
and system without attracting the
Enterprise
’s notice, it seemed far more likely to the captain that they were still here on the
planet.

Kirk’s question was answered by the whine of a weapon discharge from off to his left.
A bolt of energy streaked past the edge of his peripheral vision, striking a nearby
tree trunk. Tiny sharp bits of scorched bark peppered both him and Spock. “Take cover!”

The
Enterprise
party quickly fell back the way
they had come, into the relative safety of the woods. Kirk, with Spock close at his
heel, vaulted over a large fallen tree and pulled himself low to the ground behind
it. The barrage of shots continued, though all of them flew wide and high.
They’re just shooting blind
, Kirk decided. They likely hadn’t even seen the landing party, but had merely detected
movement around the old campsite and were trying to scare them away.

Not that their intentions would make any difference if one of those shots found its
target.

Kirk, with his back against the tree’s moss-covered bark, pulled out his communicator
and flipped the grille open with a snap of his wrist. “Kirk to
Enterprise
: we need an emergency beam-out, now!”

The only answer he got back was static.

*   *   *

Talk to me.

Uhura sat hunched over her station console, one hand cupped over the receiver she
had inserted in her left ear, and the forefinger of her right hand plugged into the
other. She listened intently to the signals being fed through the communications array,
which most people would interpret as nothing more than meaningless noise. A part of
her brain told her that those people would be absolutely correct in that conclusion.

The communications officer had been unable
to tease any further information out of the brief signal they had intercepted when
they had initially breached the nystromite field. Uhura had been scanning continually
since then for any similar signal patterns that might signify a form of communication.
To her frustration, though, she’d so far come up with nothing.

So absorbed was she in listening for alien messages that she failed to hear Sulu move
up behind her and speak her name. It wasn’t until he lightly tapped her shoulder that
she responded, gasping and nearly throwing herself out of her seat. She spun around
toward the helmsman, who had stepped back away from her, the back of his thighs pressed
to the red railing at the edge of the bridge’s upper level, and his hands held palms
out in what was meant to be a calming gesture. “Sorry, Uhura, sorry,” he said. “I
didn’t mean to startle you like that.”

“No, it’s all right, sir,” Uhura said as she quickly recomposed herself. With the
captain and Mister Spock down on the planet, Sulu had the conn of the
Enterprise
, and she made sure to afford him the deference that entailed. “I’m sorry I didn’t
hear you.”

Sulu dismissed the apology with a shake of his head and took a step closer to her
again. “Have you picked up something interesting?”

“No,” she said with a frustrated sigh, plucking out the earpiece. “I’m not picking
up anything.”
Uhura dropped the device onto her console and then rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know,
maybe I really didn’t hear what I thought I heard when we broke through the asteroid
field.” She hated to think that she could have made such a mistake or, worse, that
her mistake might have led them on some kind of wild snipe hunt. But it wasn’t something
she could dismiss as an impossibility, either.

Sulu considered her with a thoughtful expression, then said, “Well, to me, it seems
just as likely that whatever you heard wasn’t intended to be heard by anyone outside
of this anomaly. And once whoever it was realized that we were here, they went silent.”

Uhura’s eyes widened as she considered that scenario, and what it meant to the ship.
“Do you really think that?”

“I think it’s something we have to consider as a possibility. And if there are others
in this system keeping their eyes on us, then it’s to our advantage that we did get
your warning right off the bat.” Sulu gave her a smile of encouragement and said,
“Keep listening, and let me know if you hear anything more.”

“Aye, sir,” Uhura said, smiling back at him. He turned and continued to walk the circuit
of the upper bridge stations as she picked up her earpiece again.
He’s going to make an excellent commanding officer someday
, Uhura thought, replacing the receiver in her ear.

The earpiece was still full of static, but Uhura immediately detected a difference
in its tonal quality. She removed it and checked the settings, thinking at first that
she’d knocked something out of adjustment when she’d tossed it down earlier. Everything
appeared to be normal, but when she put the device to her ear again, there was still
the same unexplained change in the signal.

Acting on a hunch, Uhura switched the active channel on her board and tried to hail
the planet’s surface. “
Enterprise
to Captain Kirk.” She received no reply. “
Enterprise
to landing party, come in.”

Sulu, now standing at the engineering station where he had been talking with Ensign
Strassman, turned back around toward her. “What is it, Uhura?” he asked.

Before she could answer, the ship was rocked by a surprise collision.

*   *   *

“Enterprise!”
Kirk put the communicator directly to his lips, trying to make himself heard to the
communications officer while at the same time hoping not to draw the attention of
whoever it was still shooting at them. “
Enterprise
, come in!” The captain tried manipulating the device’s settings as he repeated his
message, but to no avail. With a frustrated sigh, he snapped the communicator shut
and looked over to where Spock had taken cover, flat on
his stomach behind the thick trunk of another ancient tree. With only a look passing
between them, his first officer clearly understood that the landing party was all
on their own.

Kirk slipped the communicator back into place at the small of his back, and then drew
his phaser. Slowly, the captain lifted himself off the forest floor, turned over onto
his knees, and peered over the top of his log to try to assess their situation. The
rapid-fire volley of shots ended as suddenly as it had started, and a stillness descended
over the forest, broken only by the faint buzz of flying insects. Kirk slowed his
breathing as he listened, and after only a few seconds, he heard approaching footfalls,
and then indistinct voices.

He looked around for the other members of the landing party. Ensign Frank was off
to his right, past Spock. To his left, Kirk spotted a glimpse of a red uniform shirt,
belonging to either D’Abruzzo or Farah, standing out plainly against the browns and
greens of his surroundings. Kirk winced, and wondered why Starfleet opted to put their
security personnel in such a highly visible color. O’Reilly and the second security
officer were out of Kirk’s sight, and he hoped out of sight of the aliens who were
now making their way toward the clearing.