KIRK GLANCED AWAY FROM the ancient shuttle's instrument panel only long enough to register Uhura's wide-eyed look of stunned surprise. Behind her, Israi regally placed both hands on the communications officer's shoulders and pronounced grandly, "Welcome to my family, sister of my heart."
Then the ship jolted, bucked almost into a roll, and Kirk flashed his attention back to the helm to fight for control of the spin. "I'm somewhat new to Elasian politics," he remarked through clenched teeth as he used their tumble to buy momentum. One of the armada gunships tore past at the farthest edges of the viewport, skating wildly across the curve of the upper atmosphere with a trail of ionized ozone glowing behind it. "But I suggest you accept the Dohlman's appointment, Commander."
"But, Captain—"
He arced them away from another line of approaching ships. Phaser fire ignited the space nearby. "Just say yes!"
"Crown Regent Uhura does not need to accept." The young Dohlman sounded remarkably unconcerned despite their pitching and slewing. "I have stated it. That makes it so." She patted peremptorily on Uhura's shoulder, motioning at the open comm line. "Speak to them that they may know your voice, my Crown Regent," she said, somewhat more loudly. "Let them know that your words must be heeded as my own."
"They know my voice, evil child!" The Crown Regent—Zhirnen now, Kirk reminded himself—sounded even closer and more angry than before.
"Your voice no longer carries power." Uhura managed to project a hauteur to rival Israi's, even though she sat in worried stillness with her hands clenched tightly on the edge of her panel. "Her Grandeur the Crown Regent does not recognize your existence, nor does Her Glory the Dohlman." She threw a questioning glance over her shoulder at Israi. "Isn't that right, Your Glory?"
The Dohlman nodded, smiling. "Hear the voice of my new Crown Regent, males of the magnificent fleet of Elas! Her words are as mine!"
A great corona of plasmic light swarmed across the nose of the shuttle, scarring the viewscreen and hurting Kirk's eyes. Zhirnen's voice came right behind the explosion. "You will all of you choke on your own lying spittle!"
The captain twisted in his seat, instinctively searching behind him for the source of the shot even as he aimed the shuttle into a screaming plummet. "Oh, hell …" Sunlight glinted off brushed gunmetal beyond the starboard portals; then Zhirnen's flagship swept up and away as their vectors crossed and sped apart again. The old K-117 slammed the skin of the atmosphere, creaking with stress.
"Captain!" Scott's voice broke across the open channel, loud with apprehension as he intercepted the Elasians on their own frequency. "Sensors report you're down below their array again!"
"Thank you, Mr. Scott, I know that." They entered the stratosphere badly, and a pocket of superheated air butted up against the small ship from below. Kirk fought to keep his hands on the controls as the first waves of ash darkened the viewscreen and roared like demons against the outer hull. He hoped the spreading mass of particulate matter scrambled Zhirnen's weapons sensors as thoroughly as it blinded their own. "Scotty, give me polar coordinates—where are you?"
"Sixty degrees and twenty-seven seconds—" Lightning strikes and ion buildup in the cloud of ash shredded the comm signal with static. "—heading for south of the equator, counterrotational." A crack of electricity from somewhere very nearby kicked the shuttle like an angry mule.
"Captain," Spock interrupted from his position near the main hatchway, in the rear of the ship out of Kirk's direct sight. "May I remind you that maintaining an adequate atmospheric seal is exceedingly difficult during such turbulent maneuvers."
"Spock—" They were nearly ninety degrees off the Enterprise's position, heading rapidly away through the waves of glowing ash. "Tough." A roll of ash-filled thunder shook them as though in a vicious fist, and Kirk found himself nearly standing in an effort to force the ship into a downward arc instead of out of the atmosphere again. Above the disrupted atmosphere, they could be picked up on Elasian sensors or visually seen—that made them dangerously vulnerable.
"Scotty, keep on that orbit and don't slow down. As soon as we show up on your sensors, beam us out of here." Kirk could try to bring them around circumpolar, but didn't want to voice the plan while Zhirnen was surely listening.
"I'll do my best, sir," the engineer promised gloomily. "But if they've still got that geodesic net in place …"
"With all the ships that have been pulled out of alignment to fire at us, that geodesic net can't still be working." At least, Kirk hoped not. "For now, you just concentrate on beaming out anyone still at that mining camp. Once we're in range—"
Light, as white and searing as a warp core, blasted across Kirk's vision. He felt a jolt like a punch to his stomach, then the unmistakable pressure of his safety harness straining against the shoulders of his environmental suit as their downward plunge tried to lift him out of his seat.
"Rear boosters are off-line!" Spock was almost shouting.
They barely had emergency lighting up front, much less useful controls. The communications board and navigations console were dark and shock-cracked, the helm a frightening mixture of unresponsive and sluggishly inactive. Kirk could barely coax life out of the attitude thrusters spaced along the shuttle's bottom edges.
"What has happened?" Israi cried, gripping the back of Uhura's chair for support. "What is wrong?"
Kirk tried to estimate the ship's position relative to the surface. All he could tell was that they were falling. "Lightning. It finally overloaded the systems." He didn't dare fire the thrusters until he knew which way they were headed, but didn't dare wait, either, for fear of delaying too long. "Your Glory," he said, very stiffly and calmly, "I think it would be best if you and the Crown Regent went into the back and strapped down."
Uhura snapped open her safety harness without question and ducked out from under the belts. "Come on, Your Glory." Her voice was firm, her hands steady despite the gaunt look on her burned and ash-smeared face. She turned Israi with no-nonsense force and shoved her toward the back of the shuttle. "I'll tell Mr. Spock to be ready."
Kirk didn't actually hear them break out the shock webbing, or even talk to Spock. The crack and groan of the old shuttle's frame wound together with the crash and roar of the storm outside to devour all other sound. He felt vaguely guilty for the damage he'd done to this faithful old vessel. Then he smiled wryly, considering how little this was likely to matter in just another few minutes.
Ash rolled like boiling mud directly in front of the small ship's muzzle, then dashed aside like a ripped-open curtain to reveal clear, night-black air and the heaving surge of an ash-carpeted ocean. Downward, Kirk realized with a fist of shock jamming into his throat. They were headed straight downward. He hauled back on the manual attitude controls and dragged the shuttle into a deep, sweeping climb. At this speed, they'd smash into the ocean surface as if it were solid rock—even clipping the crest of the waves would steal precious momentum they couldn't spare just now. Their only hope of reaching the Enterprise was if Kirk could steal enough speed from this plummet to throw them back out of atmosphere when he finally pulled up out of their dive.
Kirk pleaded with the little ship under his breath, watching the horizon creep with agonizing slowness into the top of the viewscreen as the K-117 screamed and shuddered and fought to lift its nose skyward. Rakatan Mons, steep sides now carved into a pulsing webwork of ash rain and lava rivers, crouched beneath the lightning-shot clouds, blasting up ocean waves as tall as mountains with each explosion at its summit. It grew in the shuttle's viewscreen, grudgingly edged downward as Kirk continued to drag the K-117 out of its dive, then plunged suddenly out of sight as the ship's nose finally tipped upward and shot up along the tall flanks, headed back for outer space.
Zhirnen's flagship burst into being just off their port. Kirk shouted a curse, but didn't dare try to alter their upward plunge just for the sake of avoiding an encounter. They had to get out of this ash, away from this volcano, or no amount of evasive maneuvering would save them. The little shuttle screamed past the Klingon frigate at a speed so high that Kirk barely saw the enemy ship as they passed it.
"She's coming around!" Uhura shouted from the rear.
Bless you, Kirk thought to his communications officer. Not that he hadn't expected Zhirnen's move, but it was reassuring to know he wasn't piloting this antique craft without some help from his loyal crew. Killing the damaged engines, he counted aloud as they rocketed upward, estimating the seconds, estimating their speed. When the shriek of storm and cinder against the hull at last began to fade, three stingy blasts from the attitude thrusters boosted the shuttle into an awkward tumble, tail over nose.
Kirk heard a crash, and shouts of alarm from the back, then the unmistakable roar of atmosphere rushing out into vacuum. He hoped Spock was all right—hoped they'd all be all right—but didn't have time to make sure of it just now. The ash-smothered column of Rakatan Mons rotated slowly into view, the battered Klingon flagship charging upward after the shuttle in a swell of alien smoke. Stabilizing as best he could in this nose-down position, Kirk cut every system still active and poured all their power into the forward thrusters. "Let's see how fast that bucket of yours can go," he growled at Zhirnen. He leaned into the throttle—ready to tear away in reverse with every ounce of speed the old shuttle's forward thrusters could manage—and the world beneath them exploded into a brilliant lake of flame.
A ripple of shock-torn air bucked through the accelerating shuttle, distorting the image on the viewscreen. They broke atmosphere to sudden blackness and terrifying cold. Kirk watched, transfixed, as a great column of fire roared silently up behind the Elasian's pursuing flagship. There was a moment—just the barest of instants—when light consumed the enemy vessel like flame licking over a moth's dry wings. Then the ship just seemed to evaporate without even its own death flash to indicate its passage, and the hungry red-and-black pillar surged up after the shuttle like a roaring god.
Oh, well, Kirk thought, still nursing the controls for every ounce of speed the old ship could give him. At least it's a damned spectacular way to go. Then the gout of superheated magma slammed over them, and the familiar tingle of the transporter effect raced along Kirk's frayed nerves before the volcano's first burning breath even touched him.