"HAVE WE GOTTEN sensor readings on the shuttle's location yet?"
At the security station, Ensign Howard looked up as Kirk and his first officer exited the turbolift behind him. Faint dark smudges underlined eyes already glossy with fatigue, and it occurred to Kirk that he couldn't say for certain when Howard had last been off the bridge. Just counting back quickly in his mind, Kirk could place the young ensign here for at least the last two shifts.
"No, sir." Exhaustion made the ensign's voice uncharacteristically despondent. "We're having trouble getting clear readings from the surface past the Elasian armada."
Kirk frowned, trotting down the short flight of stairs. "Are they jamming us?"
Howard sighed. "Not exactly, sir. The Crown Regent has positioned her flagship in firing range in orbit above the Elasian mining camp. The single-man fighters in her armada have, well …" Howard waved in frustration at whatever played across his security screens. "Dispersed! They're scattering all over the outer atmosphere, shooting their phasers at random and exciting the ionosphere until it's impossible to get any kind of coherent signal through."
"Firing at random?" Kirk glanced curiously at Spock, then slipped behind Howard's shoulder to look where the ensign pointed. "I doubt that." He felt Spock move up beside him.
A three-dimensional globe representing Rakatan inched around on its axis as the Enterprise circled it in real time. Bright scarlet blips marked each of the three hundred Elasian gunships, speckled all throughout the upper atmosphere like mites on a sun-warmed log. Between them, flashes of white and yellow displayed the path of their phaser bursts as they fired across the ozone at each other. Shot answered shot, beam met beam until each and every salvo was contacted by another ship's phaser blast and stopped in midflight, rendered useless. Kirk watched the intricate net they wove between themselves for almost a full minute before he recognized the antiquated pattern they made.
"Not random, Mr. Howard," he announced, leaning over the ensign's shoulder to tap a finger on his screen. "Very carefully planned. Haven't you ever seen a geodesic defensive array?"
Howard's eyes danced all over the display as he tried to retrace his captain's reasoning. "Uh … no, sir …"
"Understandable, Ensign." Spock came to his defense with a reproving sideways look at Kirk. "It is an outdated battle tactic developed in the twenty-second century, primarily to thwart ground-based missile fire."
"But, sir …" Howard craned a frown back at Kirk. "Why would the Elasians be defending against ground missiles on an uninhabited planet?"
"Because," Kirk sighed, motioning for Spock to step aside so he could slip from behind the security console and back out onto the bridge, "a geodesic defensive array has exactly the side effect you've already noted. It disrupts everything from radio signals to transporter beams." He crossed his arms and scowled at the planet hanging before him on the viewscreen. "For some reason, our friend the Crown Regent doesn't want anyone beaming off Rakatan."
"Or escaping it by shuttlecraft." Spock answered Kirk's questioning glance by pointing at the Klingon frigate hanging motionless against the glare of the rising sun. "In her current position, the Crown Regent can easily intercept any shuttle attempting to dock with the Enterprise."
"You know, Spock—if the Elasians really do want Rakatan for its dilithium resources, cutting off everyone's access to the planet isn't exactly winning them any favors."
Spock dipped a small, acknowledging nod. "And yet, judging by our experience with her, the Crown Regent is efficient to the point of ruthlessness." He cocked his head and followed Kirk's gaze to the viewscreen. "The only logical explanation is that she has some other goal in mind."
"And it isn't very hard to guess what that goal is."
"Captain?"
Kirk turned to face his first officer, drumming a fist on the arm of his command chair as his mind raced ahead of his words. "Think about it, Spock—as Israi's guardian, the Crown Regent is the de facto ruler of Elas. As her aunt, she's also the heir to the Dohlmanyi." He waved toward silent, sea blue Rakatan. "All she has to do is get Israi killed on some dangerous, unsettled planet, and she'll rule Elas permanently."
Spock considered for a heartbeat, eyebrows raised. "Given the ties the Crown Regent appears to have established with the Klingons, Captain, such an outcome could prove disruptive to peace in that quadrant of the Federation." He flicked dark eyes back to Kirk. "However, if the Elasian claim to Rakatan is proven valid, and if there are, indeed, significant dilithium deposits here—"
Kirk waved that line of thought aside. "I'm starting to doubt there's any dilithium at all on Rakatan. You've talked to Bascomb—it must just have been an excuse to get Israi here." Suddenly decisive, Kirk bounded up to the turbolift. "Mr. Howard—have Mr. Scott called up to the bridge, then relieve yourself of duty." He shook a stern finger at the ensign, but smiled to lessen the sting. "Take a full shift off, or I'll report you to your boss. Mr. Spock, you're coming with me. We're going to see if we can't rescue a certain young Dohlman from her aunt's tender loving care."
Spock followed him to the turbolift at a more appropriately dignified pace. "You have a plan by which to bypass the Crown Regent's defenses?"
"The simplest one in the world, Spock." Kirk ducked into the 'lift when the doors were barely open, then paused to hold them wide so his first officer could enter. "We're going to come at her from the direction she least expects us—from below."
The silence inside the wrecked shuttle seemed endless to Uhura. Israi was smiling at Sulu, not her usual flash of amusement, but a slow radiant smile like a sunrise. Sulu stood pinioned by her dark gaze, suspended between fascination and terror like an insect transfixed by a stalking reptile. The shuttle's medical kit, containing their only supply of antidote to Israi's tears, dangled forgotten in his hands.
"Your Glory," Uhura said quietly. "Would you please tell Sulu to bring me the medical kit for Dr. Mutchler?"
The Dohlman swung to face her, almond eyes alight. "So! You acknowledge my bonding of this male from your cohort?"
Uhura didn't have time to wonder if that had been a tactical mistake. "Dr. Mutchler needs painkillers and a cold pack for his leg," she said, trying as hard as she could to keep her voice calm. "Can I have the medical kit?"
"Of course." Israi's chin lifted with a more confident arrogance, despite her blood-streaked shoulder and bandaged arm. "But I cannot let your former bondsman run to your bidding now that he is mine. Come and get from him what you need."
Uhura gritted her teeth in dismay. Israi's pride in her newfound maturity was going to make what she had to do a hundred times harder. And Sulu wasn't helping. He stood with his back to Uhura, unable even to hold the medical kit out toward her without Israi's authorizing command.
Taking a deep breath, Uhura slipped Mutchler's hand out of hers and tried to give him a reassuring pat. The geologist's gray eyes had fixed on Israi with all of the fear and none of the fascination that Sulu showed. "Don't worry," Uhura told him on the merest thread of a whisper. "I won't let her cry on you."
Mutchler's gaze darted toward her. "But him—can't you do anything—"
Uhura laid a shushing finger across his lips, afraid that Rakatan's intense silence would carry his hoarse whisper to Israi. The geologist's eyes narrowed and he fell silent.
The canted floor of the shuttle shifted as Uhura crossed it, settling with an odd groan as if the ground beneath it were not entirely solid. Uhura slipped and caught her balance with a gasp, figuring it couldn't hurt to make Israi think she was scared. She was scared. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, driven by the knowledge that she only had one shot at this.
"Sulu." Uhura tugged at the medical kit, but couldn't force it from his frozen grip. She swung around to frown at Israi, who watched her with an odd mixture of triumph and teenage mischief in her almond eyes. Uhura had to force words out through her teeth to keep her anger from showing. "Israi, please tell Sulu to give me the medical kit."
The Dohlman smiled again. "Give your former Dohlman her medical kit, bondsman."
Without a sound, Sulu relinquished the medical kit to Uhura, and she slipped a hand inside to rummage among its contents. Tiny ampules of inhalants and cans of spray bandage tumbled together beneath her fingers, but she didn't dare look down to separate them, knowing that would attract Israi's attention.
"We'll need a splint for Mutchler's leg too," she said, talking at random to cover her lack of movement toward the geologist. She found the hyposprays and fingered her way along them, knowing from McCoy's briefing that the antidote to Israi's tears was stored in the last of the five side pockets. "You'll have to tell Sulu to open the locker for me, Your Glory." Uhura fumbled with the pocket flap, her fingers sliding in at last to reach for the reassuring coolness of a hypospray. "With the power gone in the shuttle, I can't—"
It happened almost too fast for Uhura to follow. With all her strength, she yanked the hypospray of antidote out of the medical kit and stabbed it toward Sulu's shoulder. At the same moment, a dark hand snapped out and caught at her wrist with steel-wire strength. Uhura stopped as if she'd run into a forcefield, the hypospray held quivering only a few centimeters away from its target.
"What," Israi asked coldly, "is in that medicine dispenser?"
Uhura bit her lip to moisten a mouth gone dry with failure and fear. Her life rode now on how well she could judge Elasian psychology. If she made another mistake—
"It's a chemical antidote to your tears," she told Israi bluntly. "Because I don't want to give my bondsman up to you."
"Ah." Israi stared at her for a long measuring moment, then reached up with her free hand to wrench the hypospray out of Uhura's fingers. Its automatic trigger released a useless spray of mist when she slammed it against the wall beside her. Uhura tried to swing the medical kit out of her reach, but the Dohlman was too quick for her again. She yanked it free and sent it hurtling out the shuttle door into darkness, with one negligently powerful snap of her slender arm.
"The painkillers—!" Uhura protested.
"You had other doses of antidote in there," Israi said, turning calmly to face her. Sulu stood at their shoulders, face rigid with his inability to intervene in the confrontation. "If not, you would have thrown the kit away when you tried to free your bondsman."
Uhura flinched at the accuracy of the Dohlman's interpretation of her actions. Just because she's young and arrogant, Uhura reminded herself, doesn't mean she's stupid.
"Dohlman Uhura." Israi reached a hand out to close around her wrist again, gently this time. "I do not blame you for trying to retain your cohort. It is what an honorable Dohlman should do." A frown crept onto her face and her grip tightened. "Although you should not have used such a craven method as an antidote. You should have challenged me, tears against tears, to see which of us is the stronger."
Uhura took a deep breath. "Since I am not of Elas, Your Glory, that would not be—" She paused, searching for the best word. "—diplomatic."
Israi snorted and released her. "Diplomacy is for the spineless. From now on, Uhura, you and I will settle our differences without it. Agreed?"
Uhura considered how well her gamble of being honest about the antidote had served her, and nodded. "Agreed."
"Good." The Dohlman pointed a slim, imperious finger at Mutchler, who was watching them in gasping silence from the other side of the shuttle. "Now, go and tend that idiot geologist with the medications you carry on your belt. And tell him he is safe from me." Israi stood back, resting one hand proudly on Sulu's stiff shoulder. "A Dohlman is measured by the strength of her cohort, and I would scorn to have a scientist among mine."
Years ago—when he was still a young ensign, and hadn't yet figured out that he was destructible—Chekov had felt the agonizer's kiss rip him open and tear him inside out. It had lasted for only a minute, maybe not even that long. But it had been enough to father nightmares for more than a year, and to make him awkwardly excuse himself from a class at the Security Academy during a lecture on what the agonizer did to a victim's nervous system. Only a year ago, the prospect of being face-to-face with Klingons during border negotiations had kept him sleepless for three awful nights, praying that nothing went wrong enough to allow the capture and torture of hostages.
And now, on a planet half a galaxy away, here he was.
They all but carried him across the mining compound. If they had let him walk he could have attempted escape, and possibly been killed in the process. As it was, he didn't even have the leverage to fight effectively. He made one attempt to plant his feet against the doorjambs to keep from entering their destination building, but Oben only shoved his legs aside with one shoulder and barked at the others to bring him along.
Chekov's eyes caught on the row of portable control stations lined up against one wall as someone slammed the door behind them. A power-frame manager butted up beside a field communications panel, with the security monitor for the camp defense screen tucked into the corner away from them both. A dozen armor-clad Elasians milled around the equipment, pointedly taking no notice of Oben's arrival or the delivery of his prisoner to the briefing table on the other side of the room. For some reason, Chekov had thought they'd drag him somewhere dark and sterile to do their interrogation, not a place so grossly public as the base of camp operations. Humiliation mingled with the flutters of terror in his chest, and he closed his eyes against the crowd of faces as they pushed him flat atop the narrow table and pinned him there.
"On Elas, kidnapping is punishable by the loss of both your legs."
He opened his eyes to find Oben at his shoulder, hands resting lightly on the edge of the table.
"Kidnapping a member of the Dohlmanyi, punishable by death."
An anger more comfortable and familiar than fear pushed at Chekov in an effort to break to the surface. "We've done nothing to your Dohlman."
"Prove it." Oben's face was still, and unconvinced. "Tell me where she is."
"I don't know."
The older Elasian shrugged, his gaze drifting to one side as he reached for something Chekov couldn't see. "Not according to Takcas. He placed her on board your shuttle, knowing that you would escape and take her far from here." He straightened again and turned over the small device in his palm as though marveling at its simple construction. "Now we have you, and we don't have her." Frosty green eyes flicked to Chekov. "I would like to rectify that."
The dry overhead lights stitched silver sparks along the agonizer's edges. "I don't know what you're talking about. . . ."
Oben didn't ask again.
Chekov tried to steel himself—tried to believe that knowing what to expect this time would at least help preserve his dignity while they used this Klingon technology to winnow him down to a shuddering scrap. Instead, primitive fear took over the instant cold metal brushed his skin. He exploded away from Oben's touch, twisting, kicking, wrenching himself to the edge of the table with no thoughts in his mind but to run. He somehow missed the actual moment when he tore free, but he knew when he hit the floor, and scrabbled for the outside door without looking behind. Shouts of anger and alarm boiled up from all over the room. The men who before had minded their panels with such studied disinterest suddenly broke away from their stations in a pack and rushed for him. Chekov knew he couldn't really fight his way through the wall of them, but he had to try. He landed a dozen blows before their combined weight overpowered him and toppled him to the floor in a tangle of violent struggle.
"So …" Oben's laughter, surprisingly soft and amused, lit his battered face with delight. He leaned forward to brace hands on knees, and smile. "This isn't your first exposure to the agonizer, is it?" Whatever he saw in Chekov's eyes made him laugh again, and he straightened. "Isn't that intriguing."
Chekov clenched his hands, unable to move in any other way. "We had no idea your Dohlman was on board—"
"I know that."
"We were only trying to reach our ship." The truth rushed out of him, too harmless to matter, even to him. "If Israi was somewhere on board, she was taken to the Enterprise along with the others." Surely Oben would realize there was nothing either of them could do. Chekov couldn't bear the thought of being tortured to death for simply knowing nothing.
"Your shuttle never reached the Enterprise," Oben stated with deliberate slowness. He knelt, first on one knee, then on both, and Chekov's heart thundered breathlessly against his rib cage. "It couldn't have, we know that. Which means the Dohlman is still somewhere on Rakatan, and you're going to tell me where." He displayed the agonizer between two fingers, and waited.
Chekov hated the thin, frightened sliver of voice that crept out of him. "… I don't know where she is …"
This time, he could only buck once against the bodies holding him when Oben put the agonizer in place. Its slick, alien contours moved against his temple, and he squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of agony. "I don't know where she is!" he cried, helpless. Then inspiration sliced through him on the memories of long-ago pain. "But I can show you how to find her …"
Oben answered with a silence so long, Chekov felt the first hope he'd known since waking up in the Elasian warehouse. He dared, very slowly, to open his eyes.
"You know what will happen if you've lied to us," Oben warned him darkly.
Chekov nodded, never taking his eyes away from Oben's. No belief flowered in the grim Elasian face, but the agonizer's threatening touch lifted. Chekov found himself suddenly able to breathe again, dizzy with the prospect of freedom. "I would do anything to avoid that," he promised hoarsely. "Believe me."