STAR TREK: The Original Series - The Last Roundup Page 8

  The door hissed open. “Well, good morning, Mr. Chekov. I apologize for my present state. What can I do for you?”

  “Sorry to intrude, sir, but there’s something I think you should see.” Kirk smiled wryly as he observed that although he was no longer in command, he was addressing Chekov, and Chekov was responding, just as they would have aboard the Enterprise.

  “Sit down ... if you can. It’s tight quarters here on Sanctuary,” Kirk said. Chekov took one of the two small chairs and Kirk took the other one. “What is it?”

  [91] Chekov frowned. “It may be nothing,” he said.

  “Or it may not,” Kirk said.

  “Well, I’m not particularly trained to contribute scientifically, although I have been helping out. Most of the time I’ve been assisting Alys in downloading and sending messages,” Chekov said. “You know, to loved ones back home.”

  Kirk nodded. He hadn’t sent a single message. He had friends and acquaintances scattered throughout the galaxy, but unlike most of the colonists, there was no one on Earth—no one “back home”—he really felt like talking to.

  “Subspace traffic has dramatically increased over the last four days,” Chekov continued. “And I’m not certain of this, but I think ... Captain, I believe our communications are being monitored.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Chekov shrugged, clearly troubled. “Nothing I can point to for certain. Little things. Echoes, blurry images, things like that.”

  “That’s a pretty slender thread to hang charges of eavesdropping on, Lieutenant.”

  “I know, sir. I probably shouldn’t have troubled you with this, but I didn’t know who else to take it to.”

  Kirk leaned back, thinking. “For now, take it to no one. I want you to spend as much time as you can on sending these messages, and I want you to document every glitch you encounter. If this keeps up, we’ll tell Alex about it. It could be nothing more serious than the system needing to be fixed.”

  “Aye, sir.” Chekov rose.

  [92] “And Chekov?”

  “Aye, sir?”

  Kirk grinned. “Thanks for thinking of me.”

  Chekov returned the smile. “You were the only one I did think of, Captain.”

  After he had gone, Kirk showered and dressed, thinking hard. One was trained to look for the most likely answer to any problem. Chances were, the equipment simply hadn’t been set up properly and there was a glitch in the system. As for subspace traffic being heavy, well, maybe this was a hot time for space travel in this sector.

  Still, he trusted Chekov, and he knew the younger man wouldn’t have come to Kirk about this if he hadn’t had some kind of feeling that there was something wrong.

  Just like the feeling Kirk was starting to have.

  Scott was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was having a “day off,” as he put it, though others on the engineering team would have called it a day of hard labor. He, Alex, and Skalli were going to traverse the entire planet and tune up the monitoring posts they had set in each of the Sanctuary’s ecosystems. This was done once a week, whether it was needed or not, as so much of the colony’s research came from these posts. In Year Two, there would be much more extensive visitation of the areas, but for now, this sufficed.

  There were eight of them: One in each icy heart of the arctic circles, two along the planet’s equator, and one on each continent. Oceanographer Leah Cohen had [93] bemoaned the fact that they didn’t have the technology to put a few on the ocean floor, to which Scott had gallantly replied that in a few years he was certain the brilliant engineering team would figure out a way to do so. The bonnie lassie had rewarded him with a sweet smile.

  The posts retrieved data from the surrounding area twenty-seven hours a day, data that was carefully analyzed. Each week (of course, the weeks here were a long nine days and three hours) someone would come and make sure everything was functioning correctly, and now it was Scott, Alex, and Skalli’s turn. Today, they were having problems with what Scott called The Desert One. Technically, it was Monitoring Post AE-584-B2, stationed in the arid climate of one of the major continents, but Scott preferred to keep things simple.

  Alex was piloting, humming happily to himself, while Skalli was talking animatedly with Chekov, back at Sanctuary Heart, as the base itself was called, as the little shuttle Drake flew over the brown-yellow sands. Not for the first time, Scott admired the sleek design of the craft, the ease with which Alex was able to maneuver her. Aye, she was a bonnie one, all right.

  His stomach rumbled. When they’d finished with this one, it would be time to take a break for lunch.

  “Where’s a nice spot to have our picnic?” he asked Alex. Alex grinned over his shoulder.

  “There are the most spectacular waterfalls near the top of the continent,” he said. “We stop for lunch every time we check out the post there and have never been disappointed yet. But you’ve got to keep the secret—don’t want everyone volunteering for post-check duty!”

  [94] “Ooh, a waterfall!” cooed Skalli, her eyes wide with anticipation. She was oblivious to the glares Alex and Scott were giving her. “Yes, Chekov, you heard right—we’re going to a waterfall for lunch when we finish. Won’t that be fun!”

  Scott and Alex exchanged rueful glances. “Looks like somebody let the cat out of the bag,” Scott muttered.

  “Yes,” Skalli was saying. “We only have—Chekov? Pavel, are you there? Hello? Drake to Sanctuary Heart, come in. Uh oh.” She turned to look at Alex. “It sounds as though we lost him.”

  “Skalli, come in,” Chekov said urgently. “Skalli—Sanctuary Heart to Drake, please come in.” Silence. Damn it. Once again, they’d lost communications. In frustration, Chekov slammed his fist on the console.

  “Hey, take it easy,” said Alys Harper, the blond human female who was serving communication duty along with Chekov. “No need to break it more than it already is.”

  Chekov gnawed his lower lip, then made a decision. “Alys, go find Captain Kirk.”

  “Kirk?” He couldn’t see her expression, but he didn’t need to. She managed to cram a great deal of distaste into the single syllable word. “Why? Julius is in command whenever—”

  “Just go find him, all right?”

  “Okay, okay, calm down, sheesh.” Muttering under her breath, she left to do as he had asked. Chekov found himself longing for the days when orders were given and followed without commentary, critique, or discussion.

  [95] He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and methodically began to check everything that could possibly be wrong on his end with the communications.

  He had a gut feeling he wouldn’t find anything.

  “Hello? Hello? Hmmm,” Skalli said. “Looks like we’ve lost communication for some reason.” She frowned, turning the problem over in her mind, then seemed to dismiss it. “Oh, well. We’re almost at the post anyway.”

  Scott was rather more disturbed at the abrupt termination of communication than Skalli was, but she was right about one thing. Alex was already beginning their descent. He could see the landing area now, the only flat rock in a sea of sand and jagged peaks.

  Alex eased the craft down smoothly and they gathered their tools, putting on their protective glasses and gloves. The sun’s glare was almost unbearable, and the post would be far too hot to touch with bare hands.

  “One quick check before we go,” Alex said. He nodded. “Good. No sandstorms in the vicinity. We’ve got a window.”

  When Scott opened the door, a blast of heat hit him with almost palpable force. For a brief moment, he recalled with longing the chilly rainstorm that had driven him to embrace this mission. Then he took a cautious breath of the hot ah” and jumped down into the sand.

  They had a long walk ahead of them before they would see those waterfalls.

  Kirk listened attentively as Chekov described the problem and everything he’d tried to fix it. On a whim, [96] Kirk opened his communicator. “Kirk to Julius.” Nothing.


  “Our communicators aren’t even working, then,” Chekov said. Kirk shook his head. Chekov pointed to the screen. “This is closing in on their area and we can’t even alert them to it.”

  Kirk looked at the monitor and his grim mood worsened. A sandstorm was starting to form. Here on Sanctuary, that was a dangerous thing indeed. “If they’re still in the shuttle, they’ll detect it,” he said.

  “But if they’re not, they could be caught in the open,” Chekov said. Kirk knew what the team would be wearing: the usual Sanctuary garb of comfortable pants and shirts that permitted easy movement, boots, gloves and glasses. Nothing more. Nothing that would remotely protect them from the whipping winds of a sandstorm. Not for the first time, he wished that they had a second shuttle. There would be no time to get the Mayflower II prepared to fly.

  “Keep trying to raise them,” he told Chekov. “I’m going to go find Julius.”

  Several long minutes were wasted in searching, since the communicators weren’t working. Kirk finally found Julius in his quarters. The door chimed several times before Julius answered the door. He was tired-looking and unshaven, and seemed surprised to see Kirk.

  “What is it, Uncle Jim?”

  “Your brother and two other members of this colony are about to be bombarded with a violent sandstorm, and we can’t reach them,” Kirk said bluntly.

  [97] Julius snapped to attention. “What the—what do you mean?”

  “Communications are completely off-line,” Kirk said. He flipped open the dead communicator. “Even these. There’s a chance that they’re still in the shuttle but if they’re outside in this—”

  “Oh no,” Julius breathed.

  After a ten-minute walk—more of an ordeal than a stroll, considering the terrible heat—the team reached the post. Although they had erected a protective physical shielding around it, it was obvious that the grit of the desert’s sand was taking its toll. Scott proceeded to quickly clean the internal workings and then put it through a test run. This would take about twenty minutes. It wasn’t enough time for them to hike back to the shuttle, so they resigned themselves to being hot for a while. They leaned up against a rock formation and waited. Scott closed his eyes.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Skalli asked. She pointed to a flurry of motion in the distance.

  “Uh oh,” Alex said. “That looks like a dust devil.” He removed his communicator and flipped it open. “Alex to Sanctuary Heart. Hey, how come you didn’t warn us about this sandstorm we’re ... damn it. It’s dead!”

  Scott felt a chill despite the severe heat. It was conceivable that the communications had been damaged on the shuttle, but for the individual communicators to quit working meant that something had occurred on a much larger scale. He rose, staring at the dust devil that was rapidly becoming a sandstorm.

  [98] “Alex, is there anyplace we could take shelter?” he asked. Because if there isn’t, he thought grimly, then all a rescue party will find will be three scoured, bleached skeletons.

  Alex didn’t reply. He was fiddling with the communicator, still trying to raise Sanctuary Heart. Scott’s eyes flicked from the youth and his communicator to the encroaching storm.

  He reached out and shook Alex by the shoulder. “Lad, we’ve got to take shelter!” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the rising wind.

  Alex looked up at him wildly. Poor lad, Scott thought with a twinge of sympathy. This is his first real crisis. Alex had the charm and charisma to get people to follow him, but he didn’t seem to know a damn thing about how to lead when the chips were down.

  “Over here!” It was Skalli, jumping up and down and waving her long arms. Scott hadn’t even noticed her get up, but she had clearly done so and found them protection against the storm. Scott shifted his grip to hold Alex’s upper arm and hauled the young man to his feet.

  The sandstorm was beginning. As they stumbled to where Skalli stood, Scott was intensely grateful for the goggles. Grit scoured his face and even though he covered his mouth and nose with his hands, he felt the fine, powdery sand slip past his lips and into his nostrils. Alex was hacking violently by the time they squeezed into the crevice. It was easy enough for Skalli, but Scott reluctantly admitted to himself he’d had one too many desserts as he nearly got wedged tight. By sheer stubbornness he forced his way inside.

  [99] There was no light save what filtered in from the crevice, and they needed to get as far away from that as possible as wind and sand continued to find their way into their shelter.

  “This way!” cried Skalli. “Follow my voice!”

  Alex was able to stand on his own now. Coughing and gasping for air, both men stumbled toward the back of the cave. It grew darker and darker until finally Scott could see nothing. He still walked forward as quickly as he could, arms extended to feel his way, until Skalli’s slender, gloved fingers closed about his hands and guided him forward to sit on the floor.

  They could still hear the wind crying and moaning like a wounded beast. Pressed together for warmth, for the cave was cold after the unforgiving heat outside, Scott felt Skalli shiver.

  “It’s scary,” she said, voicing something that would probably have gotten her kicked off Kirk’s bridge. “It sounds like a monster or something.”

  Scott was not inclined to reprimand her, as she was directly responsible for all of them surviving this in the first place. “Good job, lass,” he said, squeezing her shoulder.

  Alexander Kirk, who had coaxed over a hundred people to pack up and move in pursuit of a dream, and who had completely panicked at the first sign of a real problem, said nothing.

  Chapter Nine

  “I DON’T CARE if Lissan isn’t scheduled to return for three days, I want him here now.” Kirk was aware that he was close to bellowing but frankly didn’t give a damn. They still hadn’t been able to communicate with the away team and had watched in quiet apprehension as the fierce storm had settled directly over the monitoring post for almost two hours. Kirk and the others knew that if the party had been caught outside, they’d be dead by now.

  “But you don’t understand,” said Julius, flushing a little. “I can’t just order them to—”

  “Fine. Then I will,” Kirk shot back.

  “Hey,” snapped Julius, stepping in toward Kirk and looking him in the eye. “I’m the one who deals with the Falorians. You keep your Starfleet nose out of it.”

  Kirk smiled without humor. “I seem to recall that my Starfleet nose—or at least my Starfleet self—was one of the things you and your brother desperately wanted to get to Sanctuary.”

  [101] He took a deep breath and calmed himself. He reached to put his hands on Julius’s shoulders but the youth angrily shook them off.

  “Julius, listen to me. Something is going on that is causing our communications to be disrupted. Because of it we weren’t able to warn the team about the sandstorm. They could be dead as a result of that. It’s your own brother. Aren’t you worried?”

  Julius’s blue eyes continued to bore into Kirk’s, but a muscle in his jaw tightened. “It could be equipment malfunction,” he said, sounding to Kirk’s ears like a stubborn child.

  “We’ve checked everything out. Besides, that wouldn’t take into account the communicators,” Kirk replied. “Something external is jamming the frequencies. I’m not accusing the Falorians of anything. I’m sure they don’t even realize what’s going on, but I’m also sure that they are the ones responsible, even if it’s indirectly. Now, will you contact them or shall I?”

  Julius’s shoulders drooped slightly. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Once we have communication again.”

  Uncle and nephew stood side by side in the communications room for the next twenty-three minutes, arms folded across their chests in almost identical poses, until with a burst of static a welcome, lively female voice was heard.

  “—Heart. Come in, Sanctuary Heart. Repeat, we have minor injuries and are returning to home base, do you copy?”

  With a relieved grin, K
irk leaned forward to reply. Julius’s hand blocked the motion and the younger Kirk [102] said, “We read you loud and clear, Skalli. What is the nature of your injuries? Is everyone accounted for?”

  “We’re fine, Juley,” came Alex’s voice, turning warm with affection. “We lost communications and were right at the monitoring post when the storm hit. I’ve no doubt you saw it on your sensors.”

  “We did indeed,” Julius said. “Pretty big one.”

  “We have some minor dermal abrasions but were able to find shelter in time,” Alex continued.

  “Thank God for that,” Julius said, sounding more sincere than Kirk had ever heard him. He glanced at his nephew and saw that Julius was pale and shaking a little. And were those tears he was blinking back? For the first time, Kirk realized just how deeply these two brothers were bonded.

  “Did you figure out what was causing the malfunction?”

  Julius, who was leaning over the console, looked up at Kirk. The cautious, hard mask was back in place. “Not exactly,” he said. “We think perhaps the Falorians may have accidentally jammed the signal. We’re going to try to talk to them.”

  “Good thinking, Julius,” Alex said approvingly.

  Julius scowled.

  When the shuttle finally arrived, Julius hurried to embrace his brother. Six engineers scuttled out to attend to the Drake, looking for all the world like busy ants. Kirk felt a strong hand on his arm and glanced up to see Scott propelling him to a quiet corner.

  “What happened out there, Scotty?” Kirk asked.

  “Your nephew cracked,” Scott said. “He’s a good lad, [103] mind, and I’m not passing judgment, but he panicked.”

  “You were the one who found the shelter, then?”

  “Och, no, can’t take that credit. Young Skalli kept her wits about her and found it for us.”

  Surprised and impressed, Kirk looked up to see Skalli talking with Chekov, waving her arms, flapping her ears, and pointing back at the shuttle.