Chapter Six



"YOU ARE CHIEF UNDERLING of this cohort?" The big Elasian male paused just inside the shuttle's hatch, scowling with rank disapproval as he looked Chekov up and down. Chekov had a feeling he was going to thoroughly loathe the word underling by the time this mission was over. "Your Dohlman thinks to make fun of us." The accusation in his voice was bitter.

Chekov crossed his arms and returned the Elasian's flinty stare with a thin smile. "You must be Takcas." In fact, he remembered the red-haired Elasian from the viewscreen on the Enterprise's bridge, when both Takcas and his Dohlman had spoken to Kirk in the most shamefully disrespectful manner. No doubt his comments now were as civilized as Chekov should have expected. "Welcome aboard the shuttle Gamow. I am—"

"I have no care for who you are." Takcas ducked the rest of the way inside, his head brushing the ceiling when he straightened to stand upright. He raked his gaze across the shuttle's stark interior, and his aquiline nose wrinkled as though smelling something sharp and unpleasant.

Chekov was suddenly glad he'd opted to wait for Takcas in here, instead of extending the Terran courtesy of greeting the Elasian outside. Not only was it familiar ground, but the human-proportioned shuttle also granted Chekov a distinct advantage in mobility and comfort when it came to dealing with these seven-foot-tall behemoths. And he had to admit that he wasn't sorry the rest of Takcas's cohort didn't have room to follow their leader inside.

"Chief Underling Takcas—"

"No!" The Elasian swung about with a fierce scowl, his voice as sharp and hard as though he were disciplining a dog. "You will not call me that execrable word, little underling. I tolerate such foul language from your Dohlman only because my Dohlman tells me to. You will call me 'Kessh,' and you will treat me accordingly."

Chekov had almost forgotten the Universal Translator on his belt until the alien word pricked it into action. It responded to the guttural bark—kessh—with the apologetic chime that meant it had no direct translation for the concept. Three words were offered in an attempt at explanation: sergeant, guardian, alpha male. Chekov had to admit that any of those was better than underling, no matter what language you spoke it in.

"Is there anything in particular you would like to examine, Kessh Takcas?" he asked. The sooner they completed this inspection, the sooner Chekov could rejoin the rest of the landing party. "Your Dohlman expressed concern over our weapons system."

Angular face still drawn into a frown, Takcas paced negligently forward, apparently oblivious of Chekov blocking his path. "This pitiful transport shuttle doesn't have a weapons system." He stopped just short of colliding with the lieutenant, and leaned to peer at the pile of seismic equipment near the rear of the shuttle. "But it has other equally distasteful things. You will move those boxes outside."

"No, I won't." Chekov craned his neck to meet the gaze a half-meter above him, but refused to take the step backward that would have made their conversational distance more comfortable. He had agreed to call this man by whatever title his culture preferred—he hadn't agreed to back down from him. "My Dohlman left very specific instructions regarding those crates." Actually, it had been Mutchler, fretting aloud the whole time he stacked them in the corner as Chekov had ordered. "They contain delicate scientific equipment—"

"I know what they contain." Takcas cut him off with a snort and a dismissive wave. "I have destroyed two such shipments of equipment already."

So Mutchler had remarked. "Then you don't need to see this shipment, do you?"

The Elasian surprised him by turning sideways to try and elbow his way past, and Chekov had to step sternly to his right to impose himself between the kessh and his target. They collided briefly—hard enough for Takcas to make clear he wanted access, and long enough for Chekov to shove back at him and make clear he wasn't moving. "I told you, Kessh Takcas, my Dohlman doesn't want anyone to touch this equipment."

"Your Dohlman." The Elasian slapped backhanded at the lieutenant's shoulder, a disgustingly patronizing gesture. "I already know that your Dohlman would not even be here if those hairless geologists hadn't gone crying to the government. You take orders from them, not from her."

"If my Dohlman's orders are to safeguard equipment owned by the geologists, then that's what I'll do." He lost a single step against Takcas's pushing, but planted a foot against the seats behind him to keep from going farther. "I don't question her orders—ever. I obey them." He threw his whole weight into the shove, and stumbled Takcas back a step and a half.

"You obey a Dohlman who values the wants of geologists?" the Elasian sneered. But he didn't come closer again. "They only covet this planet because we have found dilithium here."

"The geologists were on Rakatan first—"

"Then they should have protected their claim! Stationed guard ships, formed an armada!" Takcas's hands came down to his sides, and one fist curled possessively around the dagger at his belt. "They are thieving maggots not fit to steal Elasian refuse, and your Dohlman is no better for having been with them." He stabbed a finger at the waiting boxes. "Move those useless machines outside, or I will move them for you!"

Chekov placed a hand on the seat backs to either side of him and clenched the fabric to try and hide his tension. "I'll stop you."

"Will you?" The question was almost a laugh. Takcas spread his arms as if to draw attention to the difference in their sizes. All Chekov focused on was the long, narrow dagger he'd freed with the motion. "How?"

No matter how belligerent the opposition, Chekov knew Kirk would hold him responsible for any insult he paid an alien dignitary—or her staff. That no doubt included foul language, and it certainly included stabbing. So, gritting his teeth against the rush of impolite things his heart wanted to say, he locked eyes with Takcas and repeated only, "I'll stop you," as though the outcome were never in question.

The Elasian's eyes narrowed; then his face melted into a faint smile that made him look younger than Chekov had originally thought. "You talk bigger than you stand."

Unsure how to respond, Chekov kept silent as Takcas slipped his knife back into its sheath and turned to bellow something in Elasian to the group outside the door. Their laughter rolled into the shuttle like a tumble of rough-hewn stones. A single voice broke free of the babble to rattle off a lengthy chain of language. Takcas nodded casually in response before turning back to Chekov. "What is your name, little kessh?"

He didn't hide his disgust for Takcas's labeling. "Chekov."

"Chekov." It sounded different, somehow, in the blunted Elasian accent, but seemed to please the alien male all the same. "That's a good name." He smiled hugely, crossing his arms. "You know, Chekov, on my world a male no larger than you would have been killed in adolescence."

It occurred to Chekov then that whatever this was about, it had nothing to do with the shuttle, or security, or anything else he could understand. "As far as human males go," he said noncommittally, "I'm not so small."

"I've seen human males." Takcas cocked his head in cool amusement. "You're not so large, either." He waved toward the open hatchway without giving Chekov a chance to reply. "Now come. My men say we must hurry back to the compound. There's been a problem between our peoples, and if we aren't quick, we'll miss all the fighting before my Dohlman has your Dohlman's precious geologist put to death."


Kirk knew Spock would have told him that impatience was illogical at a time like this. After all, the transporter worked as quickly—or slowly—as it worked, and no amount of irritation or frustration would change the laws of physics. If he felt as if the rematerialization process was taking longer than normal, it was only his flawed human perception misinterpreting invariant reality. Kirk reminded himself sternly of that while he waited for the transporter effect to release him and Metcalfe to the Johnston Observatory's central operations room, but he still felt as if he'd been staring at the same patch of rounded wall for untold minutes before the last energized tingle left his skin and set him free.

"If you'll excuse me …" Metcalfe jerked her elbow out of his grip with ill-concealed resentment, then had to fumble to catch the sliding trail of disks she'd dislodged from the stack in her arms.

Kirk didn't try to hold her, and guessed that moving to help her right now would be as big a mistake. He hadn't meant to herd her into the transporter room like a nanny with a stubborn child, but she'd persisted in poring over every piece of data he'd let her take from the shuttle's computer before leaving, even after Kirk explained that they had a limited window in which to return her to the moonbase before the Elasians took offense. In the end, he'd had to drag her to the transporter room by careful force, listening to her wailing protestations all the way.

Now Metcalfe dumped her pile of data disks atop one of the many workstations. Kirk left her to her doctoral thesis, and stalked across the circular ops to vault up the steps leading to Bascomb's private office. She scowled at him without surprise when he keyed open her door and came to stand before her desk.

"Where's my shuttle, Kirk?"

He appreciated the white-haired geologist's directness. "Being held hostage." He jerked a nod toward the central chamber and Metcalfe at her busy station. "To make sure none of your geologists pulls a stupid stunt like that again."

"That wasn't a stupid stunt!" Bascomb slapped shut the data notebook in front of her on the desk, anger flashing in her dark eyes. "That was a normal data-gathering run, and you know it. We can't monitor the whole planet from this moon—we can't even keep Rakatan Mons in view for more than six hours from up here! We make over thirty of those runs every day—something I can't do with only the three shuttles you've left me."

"Dr. Bascomb," Kirk told her tightly, "you can't do it at all." The honest frustration in her wordless snort touched him. It was an emotion he felt rather often when dealing with the Elasians. "I'm sorry," he said, more calmly, "but you know that Starfleet missions always take precedence over the normal scientific operations of Federation observatories. Until we've settled the problem with the Elasians—"

Bascomb waved him into silence. "The problem with the Elasians, Captain, is that they're interfering with the work of our observatory! Your mission here was to restore normal scientific operations by getting those people out of our way. Grounding all our shuttles doesn't help—"

"Our mission," he interrupted smoothly, "was to investigate the possible presence of a sentient race inside that volcano. Or had you forgotten?"

Bascomb's only response was a streak of red climbing up her weathered cheeks, and Kirk had to clench his teeth to keep from saying anything he'd regret. Apparently, Metcalfe's sincere obsession with the possibility of native Rakatan sentience had been nothing more than the lure used to pull in a starship to evict the Elasians. Knowing he'd been used in such a ploy didn't improve Kirk's already thinly stretched tolerance.

"In any case …" He knew his voice sounded clipped, but didn't entirely mind when Bascomb winced a little at his sharpness. "It doesn't matter what our original mission was, Dr. Bascomb. Right now, my top priority is to establish whether or not the Elasians have a valid claim to this planet and the dilithium they say they're mining here."

Bascomb pulled back slightly in her seat, startlement jerking her eyebrows toward her hairline.

"Until my landing party gets full access to the Elasians' astral charts—" Kirk reached for his beeping communicator without even slowing his train of thought. "—you're going to have to keep your geologists from causing any trouble." He flipped the small grid open. "Kirk here."

"Dilithium?" Bascomb didn't seem to have heard the last half of what he said. "Who said there was dilithium?"

"Spock here, Captain." The Vulcan's deep voice cut across the geologist's disbelieving protest. "We have received a Priority One hail from Lieutenant Chekov on the planet's surface."

Kirk wondered if Spock could derive him an equation for how rapidly problems with the Elasians seemed to develop the longer the Enterprise stayed near them. "All right, Spock. Patch him through to me."

Kirk didn't even hear the changeover when Spock cut in the planet-based channel.

"Captain?" Chekov sounded breathless, his words broken by gasps that seemed to come in the rhythm of rapid walking. Kirk didn't envy the lieutenant the chore of trying to travel and talk at the same time in Rakatan's oxygen-poor atmosphere. "I'm outside—the mining camp—near the—shuttle landing site." He paused for a moment, only his breathing sounding through the link. "The Elasians—" he finally gasped, "say—there's been a—conflict with our landing party. I'm on my way now—"

"A conflict?" Kirk flashed through the last few hours, trying to think of any insult to the Elasians he might have missed. He was beginning to lose count even with the ones he knew of. "Over what?"

Even through his ragged breathing, Chekov's annoyance was easy to hear. "I'm—not sure, sir—but whatever it was—Dr. Mutchler did it."