Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike Read online

  "But our chance is lost!"

  Aragor continued staring. That voice -- so loud, so

  completely uncharacteristic.

  "Sir... sir," Aragor began, "we had no salvo prepared

  for penetration. We thought we should take the

  opportunity to rescue you before

  Kellen rounded on him again. "You had one chance!

  You will not have that chance again! Next time the

  choice is to save my life or take an enemy life, take the

  enemy life!"

  Nobly said, but Aragor remained confused. He lowered

  his voice to compensate for the boom of Kellen's.

  "Sir, why do you want to destroy them? What did you

  see there?"

  Breathing heavily, Kellen fell suddenly still and his

  eyes fogged with fearful memory. He gazed again at the

  enemy ship. His voice changed. The skin around his eyes

  tightened.

  "All these things we tell our children to scare them...

  things we pretend to have conquered in our own minds

  ... they're all true, Aragor. There are demons. Real

  demons."

  "Demons? Which demons, sir?"

  Two strong shudders washed through Kellen's large

  33

  Diane Carey body, but he valiantly controlled himself and spoke with

  steady confidence.

  "I saw the Iraga first," he told them, and paused.

  A chill washed through the bridge. Aragor's heart

  began pounding. The other crewmen were looking at

  him as if to wonder whether to be afraid of their

  general's sudden insanity or afraid of what he was

  saying.

  They didn't really think he was insane. They knew he

  was not.

  That meant he had seen... it.

  Kellen's frazzled condition and overheated excitement

  ran like a virus through them all.

  "Then there were others," he added.

  Aragor's hands were clenched. He could barely find his

  voice to speak. "More... Iraga?"

  "No, other kinds. After the Iraga came out of the wall,

  others came too. Demons with vestigial membranes

  expanding from their shoulders... they spread their

  arms and the membranes opened and filled the space

  before me..."

  "Shushara!" the helmsman gasped.

  "Others had fingers that reached to the ground...

  and w ith fangs protruding from their foreheads..."

  "Hullam'gat!" Mursha whispered, his face blanched.

  He looked at the helmsman, and together they were

  terrified.

  Watching realization dawn in his crewmen's faces,

  Kellen nodded slowly. As he transferred his excitement

  to the crew, he seemed to grow more like his usual self,

  recapturing the restraint that had brought him ultimately

  to power.

  "The tales are all true," he said. "They have come

  back as they promised they would... and they are on

  that ship out there."

  His knees barely steady enough to support him,

  Aragor moved toward Kellen. "What should we do?

  What can we do?"

  "I know what to do," the general said. "It will take us

  34 FIRST STRIKE

  all to defeat them. Aragor, you beam onto Ruhl's ship

  and take command of the fleet. Call the Empire for

  reinforcements. Track that ship, but do not go near it.

  Do not. I will go for help."

  "For help? From where?"

  "I said it would take us all," Kellen repeated.

  Once more he turned to the viper's tongue of a ship on

  the main screen. He began distractedly plucking the bits

  of moss and dust from his hair.

  "We need a demon to fight demons," he said. "I am

  going to get one."

  35

  ! begin to like you, Earthman. And ! saw fear in

  the Klingon's eyes.

  --Maab of Capella IV

  "Friday's Child"

  Chapter Three

  "LEvr qK, secure position and open fire!"

  Ah, life in space. Weeks of tedium broken by moments

  of terror.

  For centuries they'd said that about being at sea. It was

  dead true about both.

  Dust rolled off the ridge from photon salvo bombardment

  and turned into a shimmering heat in the valley

  below.

  Two hundred enemy troops. Maybe more. Almost the

  whole crew of a large battleship. That meant there must

  be more than one ship up there now, and probably a

  conflict going on in space.

  The captain's dirty hands and torn uniform tunic

  attested to a stressful morning. Barely noon, and there

  had been four major skirmishes already.

  Through the shaggy hair of his attacker he had shouted

  to his own men, while chiding himself for having been

  surprised, for concentrating so much on the movements

  of the troops that he'd let himself be jumped. His face

  cracked into a grimace as he took a numbing blow to the

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  Diane Carey

  side of his head and had to damn away the dizziness in

  order to keep fighting. If he had to be close to a Klingon,

  this was at least the way. Punching.

  Beneath his soles the dry earth drummed with the

  thudding boots of men fighting all around on the jagged,

  jutting terrain. He sensed a shift in the attack pattern.

  Saw nothing, but he knew what he would do in this

  terrain, with these objectives, and made a bet with

  himself that the enemy would do it too. The chips were

  the lives of his men, the pot this planet and its sixty

  million tribesmen, some of whom had no idea the others

  existed.

  The sky here was unforgiving, cloudless. His opponent

  twisted sideways and forced the captain's face into the

  sun, blinding him, and he staggered. The Klingon's

  shoulder crashed into his cheek. He felt his own teeth cut

  the inside of his lip, and the sudden warm salty taste of

  blood filled his mouth. It made him mad.

  He spat the blood into the Klingon's glossy bronze

  face.

  The Klingon arched backward and took the captain by

  both arms. They sawed at each other for a terrible

  instant before the grip was broken and the captain

  managed to land a knot of knuckles where they did some

  good. The Klingon spun and slashed downward with his

  hard wristband.

  The captain raised his own arm to block the blow.

  Bracing his shoulder for the impact, he took it full force

  but managed to deflect it to the side and keep his skull

  from being cracked open, though the force drove him

  facedown to the ground. He sprawled. His skin shriveled

  in anticipation of a hit, but luck was with him. The

  Klingon stumbled.

  Bracing his palms on the ground, the captain shoved

  upward, balling his fists in a single surge into the

  Klingon's solar plexus. He felt his hands go into the soft

  organs beneath the Klingon's rib cage, slamming the air

  out of the big alien's lungs.

  40

  FIRST STRIKE

  The Klingon gagged, staggered, and went down, suffering.

  The captain scraped to his feet, knotted his rocky

  right fist, and delivered it like a piledriver into the
soft

  spot at the base of the Klingon's skull. The attacker went

  down and didn't get up.

  One down, two hundred to go.

  Chest heaving, he straightened and looked around.

  Disruptor fire glazed the air and raised a crackle of

  burning ground cover and scrub brush. Hacking, shouting,

  and shooting, the Klingon wave was attempting

  another surge over the grade to the captain's left, their

  disruptor fire hampered by the rock formations, but

  creating dangerous shrapnel out of the stone.

  He drew a breath and shouted.

  "Spread out! Separate!" If his men weren't close

  together, there was less chance of having them mown

  down. "Go right! Move! Move, move!"

  They swerved and scrambled in the direction he

  waved, the knuckle of rocks bearded with dry growth

  that would provide cover long enough for them to take a

  breath, reorganize. Motion diluted the terror with the

  twisted passion of combat.

  "Take cover!" he shouted.

  Not retreat, and they didn't.

  Below, on this side of the narrow gravelly ramp

  leading between two towers of rock, his battered men

  lined the gully. Their red and gold backs created a

  necklace of ruby and amber jewels across the bright

  throat of the ridge as disruptor fire cracked over their

  heads. Among them were the native Capellans, taller

  than the humans by a head, and flamboyant with bright

  blocks of color on their long-sleeved suits and snug

  hoods that imitated helmets.

  Hand-to-hand fighting had broken out in four places

  that he could see--make that five. Anxious to be in five

  places at once, he forced himself to keep low. The valley

  was dotted with solid patches of color--the Starfleet red

  and gold, the native purple, black, blue, green, and even

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  Diane Carey

  pink now and then. They looked like giant Ninjas in

  goon boots and windbreaking capes, with fur stitched

  across their chests and hanging in long stoles over their

  shoulders.

  He didn't care if the natives wore fishnet stockings as

  long as they backed up his troops, and they were doing

  that. He brought his palm-sized communicator to his

  lips and flipped open the antenna grid.

  "Kirk to Enterprise."

  The ship didn't answer. Why not? Where were they?

  In his mind Jim Kirk saw the giant cruiser looping the

  planet in orbit, emptied of a third of her crew because he

  needed them down here, and he gritted his teeth. Why

  wasn't the bridge crew answering? What was wrong?

  At dawn, when he ordered his ship piloted away from

  the planet, everything had been peace, quiet, mission

  accomplished. He'd secured mining rights and turned

  the leaders of this province away from dealing with the

  oppressive Klingons. Now look.

  Unfortunately the Klingons hadn't gone away pouting.

  They weren't satisfied at having been legitimately edged

  out. If they couldn't have this planet by trickery or

  bribery, they would take it by force. They'd come in with

  the sunrise over this region.

  Leaning his communicator hand on his bruised knee,

  Kirk paused to catch his breath and scan the battlefield.

  It figured. Just when he got complacent, easy in his place

  as a spacelanes wagoneer, the universe snapped his axle.

  This was nonaligned space, and that was the problem.

  Having made the treaty, Kirk was obliged to veer back in

  and protect the Capellans against the insulted Klingons.

  It was a good thing he was obliged to come in, because he

  was mad and would've come in anyway.

  He had ninety-four men on the ground, plus sixty

  Capellans from the nearest tribe. Others had been summoned

  in the night from far-distant tribes, but they

  wouldn't make it in time. The battle was here and now.

  The next few minutes would tell.

  42

  FIRST STRIKE

  The line of Starfleet crewmen was jagged because of

  the terrain of bulging rocks. Above them, in the taller

  and deeper rocks, native Capellans bombarded the oncoming

  enemies with stones and sling-pellets. Not

  deadly, but confusing. Soon the enemy would be funneled

  into withering fire from the Starfleet hand phasers.

  The enemy surge was a litter of silver tunics and black

  sleeves, dark beards and sweaty bronze complexions,

  faces furious as if their land were being snatched instead

  of the other way around.

  "Kirk to Enterprise," he said again, then again. With

  bloody fingers he tried to adjust the gain. "Enterprise, come in. Mr. Scott, come in."

  The instrument only crackled back at him. No answer.

  He readjusted it for local communication.

  "Kirk to Spock. Kirk to Spock..."

  Nothing.

  He looked up, scanned the bright rocks for the form of

  his first officer.

  There was no other slash of color like Spock in this

  battlescape. All other Starfleet forces were command or

  security troops, wearing gold or red tunics. Commander

  Spock's lone blue shirt stood out. Among the hundreds

  of Terrans, Capellans, and Klingons, he was the only

  Vulcan.

  He had been the only Vulcan for a long time, the first

  in Starfleet, and bore his solitude with grace. Kirk

  watched with appreciation, but also annoyance. Why

  wasn't Spock pulling out his communicator and answering?

  The Dakota-like terrain, baked by midday sun a few

  shades brighter than Earth's, was hot and dry as baked

  clay. His men maneuvered in companies of twenty, each

  under a lieutenant. If he couldn't talk to them, how

  could they be ef fective?

  The captain slid to one knee, barely realizing his own

  flash of weakness, and shook the communicator.

  "Kirk to Spock, come in!"

  43

  Diane Carey Neutralized somehow. He couldn't reach the ship, but

  also couldn't reach his own men down here. Without

  communicators, he was back in the 1800s, orchestrating

  ground assault with hand signals, smoke, and mirrors.

  He looked around, picked a huddle of his own troops down the incline, and skidded toward them.

  "Jim! Where'd you come from?"

  Kirk waved at the dust he'd raised and looked toward

  the voice.

  Ship's surgeon Leonard McCoy's face was almost

  unrecognizable, his squarish features coated with sand,

  brown hair caked with sweaty dust until it was the same

  color as his face. His tunic, the only other blue one on

  the terrain, wasn't very blue anymore.

  "What happened to you?" Kirk asked.

  "What d'you mean, what happened to me? Klingons

  all over the place, Capellans knocking me down left and

  right, and Spock doing his Wellington imitation in my

  face!"

  "Give me your communicator." Without waiting he

  snatched the doctor's communicator from his belt and snapped it open. "Kirk to Enterprise."

  The empty crackle aggravated him.

  "Kirk to Spock. Kirk to anybody."


  "What's wrong, sir?" A skinny lieutenant named Ban-non

  sagged back against a rock for a moment's rest and

  knuckled his dust-reddened eyes.

  "Instrument failure. Try yours."

  The red-haired lieutenant tried, then looked up guiltily

  when he failed. "Sir..."

  "You too," Kirk said to the three others, all ensigns,

  huddled in this clutch of rocks.

  "How can they all be broken down?" McCoy asked as

  Kirk tossed him his communicator. He rattled it at his

  ear.

  "They can't."

  Lieutenant Bannon rubbed his bruised jaw. "Can't we

  reach the ship, sir? They could break through the com

  44 FIRST STRIKE

  munications trouble from Lieutenant Uhura's console,

  couldn't they?"

  Nettled, Kirk frowned until his face hurt and didn't

  meet Bannon's questioning eyes. "Probably."

  One of the ensigns glanced at Bannon, then asked,

  "Does that mean they're in trouble up there? They can't

  come after us?"

  "Don't worry," McCoy supplied, sparing Kirk having

  to answer. "Mr. Scott's a no-guff man. He'd step over

  anybody's line. I wouldn't get in his way. If the Klingons

  do, it's their own bad luck."

  Kirk looked out between two knuckles of rock at the

  Starfleet company nearest to the ramp. "That's Lieutenant

  Doyle's group. Phasers up... they're looking for a

  target. Awfully quiet down there all of a sudden..."

  "Maybe the Klingons are retreating," McCoy suggested

  with hope in his blue eyes.

  "Not likely." Kirk leaned forward with both hands on

  the rocks. "The local Klingon commander's in trouble.

  He lost his mining deal with this planet when we showed