ONLY UHURA'S FIERCE GRIP on Chekov's shock webbing saved her. Thrown sideways by the impact of the immense eruption, the shuttle reeled and tumbled like a windblown leaf. Metcalfe collided with Uhura, then was flung helplessly away again to the other side of the ship. Uhura saw Israi catch the geologist with one hand, the other locked into Sulu's restraining straps. Muscles tightened to steel wires in the Dohlman's arms as she fought to hold on to Metcalfe.
"Get the rear impulse boosters back on-line, Spock!" Kirk's shout echoed through the rushing din and fierce stutter of the engines. The Vulcan's reply was inaudible, but after a dizzying plunge and swoop, the shuttle's flight path finally stabilized. The little ship paused like a runner collecting her breath, then slowly began to rise again.
Through the viewscreen, Uhura could see the nonstop glare of lightning through billowing ash. An occasional bolt engulfed the shuttle in its sheeting white glare and made the control panels blink in alarm, but the ship's internal surge protectors held firm. Uhura took a deep breath, barely able to believe they were still alive, then unwrapped her protective arm from around Chekov.
"Damage reports." Kirk's voice sliced through the chaos as sharply as if he stood on his own bridge.
"Rear boosters on auxiliary power, Captain." As usual, Spock sounded much calmer than any organic being had the right to be. "They will continue to function for approximately forty-five minutes. Other impulse systems are operating within minimum tolerance."
Uhura tried to pitch her own shaking voice loud enough to carry to the cockpit. "We've got structural damage to the hull just behind the main doors, Captain. Sulu and Chekov are alive and strapped in against turbulence, but Ms. Metcalfe—"
"I'm all right." The geologist sat beside Israi with both hands pressed to her ribs, but she lifted her tousled head with the determination of a Starfleet cadet. Behind her, a trickle of smoke and ash coiled into the shuttle through a series of rock-torn gashes. "The hull's wide open to atmosphere, Captain. In Rakatan's air, that means we'll drop below minimum breathable oxygen pressure at five thousand meters."
Kirk threw a grim look at his first officer. "See what you can do about making us airtight again, Spock. We need to make at least nine thousand meters to get past the Crown Regent's geodesic net and get beamed aboard the Enterprise."
Spock nodded and reeled back down the shuttle's central aisle, threading his way carefully between Uhura and Israi. Metcalfe staggered to her feet and joined his inspection of the breached hull, still with one arm wrapped around her ribs. Uhura hurried forward to take Spock's vacated seat. Kirk acknowledged her presence with a nod but never took his eyes from the flashing instruments on his panel.
"What's the hull temperature?" he demanded.
Uhura searched the antiquated copilot's board until she found the correct readout. "Six hundred degrees Kelvin, sir."
The captain grunted. "We're all right up to nine hundred." His hands flickered over the controls, responsive to every slight change in wind and air pressure despite their ash-blinded instruments. Uhura watched him in awe. With her command qualifications, she could nominally pilot this kind of shuttle, too, but she knew she couldn't possibly do it so well in this lightning-shattered darkness.
"Thirty-five hundred meters," Kirk read from the altimeter. "How's it going back there, Spock?"
"The damage is not extensive, Captain, but without welding equipment—"
Metcalfe interrupted. "We do have welding equipment, Mr. Spock. This is a drilling rig, after all" Uhura glanced back to see the geologist hauling a small plasma torch out of one equipment locker. "But I don't know what you're going to use to weld those holes shut with."
Spock accepted the torch from her with a lift of one eyebrow, then wordlessly began to shrug off his environmental suit. The torch sputtered, eating across the suit's metallic breastplate carapace and cracking it into polygonal chunks. Before the pieces had even cooled, Spock fitted one over the closest rent and began welding it closed. The plasma arc was so bright that Uhura had to look away. She hoped the Vulcan's inner eyelids gave him some protection from the glare, if not from the drifting sparks.
When she turned back, the volcanoscape below them wrung a gasp from Uhura. They had risen into the spreading thunderhead of the ash cloud, and she could see immense fountains of red-hot debris illuminating the darkness.
"Oh, my God." The shallow breathlessness of her own voice told Uhura how near they were getting to the limit of breathable oxygen. "It's—it's beautiful!"
"Yes, it is." Metcalfe had come forward to lean over her, aching ribs obviously forgotten in the thrill of exhilaration. Her wide eyes tracked an enormous spray of incandescent ash as Kirk banked the shuttle around its feathery fire. "It's the inner heart of a Krakatoan-type eruption. And we're probably the only sentient beings that have ever seen it."
"And lived to tell about it." Kirk sounded a little breathless now, too. Black sparkles had begun to dance across Uhura's eyes, making the view outside almost hallucinogenic—roiling clouds, platinum-bright lightning, hot ash glowing like the open gates of hell. "Assuming we do live to tell about it. Spock, we're at forty-two hundred meters. Haven't you got those holes sealed up yet?"
"All but one, Captain," the Vulcan reported. "Unfortunately, I have exhausted the charge in this welding device."
Uhura swung around to see the welding torch expire in a burst of spitting sparks. Spock straightened, his olive-dark skin freckled with the flash burns that came from welding without protection. He frowned thoughtfully at the last narrow gash in the hull, then picked up the severed sleeve of his environmental suit and plastered it over the break, using both hands to spread the metallic fabric taut. Uhura knew that only someone with a Vulcan's strength could have held that seal shut against the buffeting volcanic wind. "I believe Ms. Metcalfe may now reactivate the shuttle's oxygen-exchange systems."
"Ms. Metcalfe." Kirk spared a swift glance up from his instruments when the fascinated geologist didn't move. "Wendy." He nudged her gently with one elbow and she turned to look at him with startled eyes. "Hit the oxygen. You can admire the view better if you don't pass out."
"Oh." Quick color chased up her cheeks before she swung around to the life-support panel and dialed the oxygen exchangers to their highest level. After a moment, Uhura drew in a deep breath of oxygen-rich air, feeling its cool comfort pour down her raw throat into weary lungs.
Without warning, the shuttle burst out at the top of the towering column of ash above Rakatan Mons. It wasn't until they lost the screaming rush of volcanic particles past the battered hull that Uhura realized how loud it had been and how loudly they must have all been shouting to be heard over it. She suddenly understood why her throat ached so fiercely.
Kirk let out an almost silent sigh of relief and increased the shuttle's upward velocity. "Closing in on six thousand meters—"
"Vessel approaching, Captain!" Uhura pointed at the silver speck floating over the black mountain ranges of ash below them. She scanned her instrument panel and found its crude energy-field sensor. "I think its shields are up."
"Damn!" Kirk swung the protesting shuttle into a precautionary dive. "We would come up right at one of the nodes in the Crown Regent's geodesic net."
Radiant light blasted past them, fierce as volcanic lightning but arrow straight. "They're firing phasers, Captain," Uhura said unnecessarily.
"I only wish we could fire back." Kirk threw the shuttle into another evasive spiral and a second phaser shot missed. "We're not going to outrun them with our rear impulse boosters on auxiliary power, that's for sure." He sounded as though he was thinking out loud. "We can't turn on the warp drive, we haven't got weapons or shields—"
"We have a weapon." Uhura started to leap to her feet, but found Israi already at her shoulder, pushing a startled Metcalfe back to steady the unconscious men on the floor. Behind them, Spock leaned hard against his unwelded hull patch, straining to hold it against the drag of the stratosphere.
"My armada," the Dohlman muttered between her teeth as she watched the little warship chase them. She pointed an imperious finger at the communicator, but Uhura was already tuning it to all known Elasian frequencies. Kirk slammed them into another unexpected bank, then glanced over at Uhura assessingly.
"Cease-fire orders?" he guessed. When she nodded confirmation, his hazel gaze slid up to Israi's intent face. "Can you enforce them, Your Glory?"
Utter Elasian arrogance radiated from every ash- and mud-crusted inch of the Dohlman's body. "Yes." She leaned over the communicator, dropping a hand on Uhura's shoulder to steady herself against the jolting of the shuttle. Uhura made one last frequency adjustment, then switched on the communicator and nodded at Israi to speak.
"Cohort of the Crown Regent and ships of the royal Elasian armada, your Dohlman Israi speaks to you. I have—" The young Elasian paused, throat muscles working while she gathered all the whiplash power of her voice. "—the tears of a Dohlman."
Some wordless noise tore across the static-plagued communicator in response. It might have been a ragged cheer or an equally ragged shout of rage. Israi ignored it and kept speaking.
"I have cried the tears, I have bonded my kessh and my cohort. As the true Dohlman of Elas, I command you—stop firing at the Starfleet vessel!"
Another phaser shot screamed past them, so close it rocked the shuttle with its heat corona. Israi's voice rose to a panther-sharp snarl that made even Uhura flinch.
"Worms that ate my dead ancestors, stop firing! I am aboard!"
The little gunship veered off, so abruptly it vanished into its own contrail. Kirk heaved a second and louder sigh of relief, banking the shuttle up through the last of the stratosphere and toward outer space. Uhura watched the darkness loom overhead, stars pricking through it one by one as the atmosphere thinned around them. Somewhere up there was the Enterprise. . . .
The communicator sang a faint but familiar whistle. Uhura hurriedly brought her gaze down to the instrument panel, dialing the frequency back to Starfleet standard. The signal must have come through most of the planet's ionosphere; it was interference-cracked and barely audible. "—caught the tail end of that signal," Commander Scott's voice said through the surrounding static. "I'm assuming it's you, Captain. We chased the Crown Regent to the far side of the planet, sir, but she gave us the slip and doubled back. We're coming around the other—"
A much clearer voice interrupted him with a shriek of rage. "It is a lie, all a lie! Dohlman Israi is dead, killed by the Starfleet assassins sent down to that planet. I am her appointed heir!"
"My aunt, the Crown Regent." Israi's voice trembled, but when Uhura glanced up at her, she saw the almond eyes burning with anger, not fear. "It is a good day for her to die."
"Males of my cohort," the Crown Regent continued fiercely. "Ships of my intrepid armada, destroy this false Dohlman who speaks to you. I command it, I who have cried the tears for each of you!"
Kirk's breath hissed between his teeth. "How many of them will obey her?"
"Only those of her own cohort, I think." Israi's fingers dug nervously into Uhura's shoulder. "They all know the sound of my voice, but those who are bonded will believe any lies the Crown Regent tells them." One of the tiny white pricks of starlight enlarged and resolved into a bullet-shaped gunship. "Some of them may fly ships of the armada."
"That figures." Kirk flung the shuttle into a steep dive as the second vessel began firing. "Isn't there anything you can say to make your aunt back off?"
"One thing, perhaps." Israi crouched down beside Uhura's seat, giving her a searching look she didn't entirely understand. The Dohlman nodded once, as if satisfied, then motioned her to adjust the communicator to Elasian frequencies again.
"Males of the glorious armada of Elas, all those who are not of my aunt's cohort—listen and remember my words if I am killed." Israi's clear voice deepened to the somber ceremonial tones she'd used when she bonded with Takcas. "Thus speaks Israi, sister of Dohlman Elaan, youngest daughter of Dohlman Kutath, and twelfth of the line of Kesmeth. On this first day of my tears, the first day of my true reign, I say unto you that my heir and Crown Regent shall no longer be Zhirnen, sister of Dohlman Kutath and my nearest of blood."
Another snarl of rage issued from the communicator, but Israi overrode it, her voice rising to a commanding shout. "Hear now and know the voice of your new Crown Regent." She glanced over at Uhura, and a surprisingly mischievous smile floated across her mud-stained face. When she spoke, though, her voice held only that uniquely Elasian kind of arrogant assurance.
"Dohlman Uhura of the line of Enterprise."