Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike Page 6
up. If he goes back a loser, his career's in the dumper."
"Jim, keep your head down! They can take aim on you
from up there!"
Dropping only a couple of inches in response, Kirk
glanced up, up, up to the highest crags, where Klingon
lookouts had taken position.
Below that, Lieutenant Doyle's bright blond hair
shone in the hot sun, but he was behind cover, huddled
with about fifteen other Starfleeters and a handful of
Capellans. Kirk saw the lieutenant's arm move as he
gestured weapons up.
A dozen hand phasers came nose up, then leveled and
took aim.
"He sees something we can't see." Kirk made silent
bets with himself about what Doyle saw. "They're taking aim... I see the Klingons."
"Where?"
"Over the top of the incline."
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"How many?"
"Not enough for a dozen phasers, that's for sure. And
they're not charging. They're moving back and forth up
there, trying to get attention."
"You think it's a trap, sir?" Bannon asked.
"I think it's something. Trick of some kind...
Doyle's being enticed to fire. I need communications!"
"I'll go, sir!" Bannon thrust to his full height, almost
as tall as the native Capellans but about half as thick.
McCoy grabbed him and forced him back down, out
of the line of fire from the upper rocks. "Down, boy?
Bannon's red hair was plastered across his pale forehead
and he seemed exhausted, but there was determination
in his eyes. He was willing to go.
"All right, go," Kirk said. "But keep low. Don't get
any closer than you absolutely have to. I don't want all
my people bunched up."
"Aye, sir!" The young officer took his own phaser in
his hand and scraped away on the slanted slabs.
Klingon activity on the top of the incline was increasing.
Still no advancement, just more figures moving this
way and that, taking potshots with disruptors at the
hidden Starfleet forces. Rocks splattered and splintered
with every miss, but they kept shooting, even without
clear targets.
Bannon made a red and black streak of color as he
moved across the lower landscape, picking his way
toward Doyle's company. Slow going. As Kirk watched
he felt bad hbout the terrain. Down on the plain the
ground was nearly level. Large groups could move more
freely, attack more openly, but there would be death by
the hundreds. Here, the ground was ungiving, stony, and
damned, but there was cover.
Before Bannon came within earshot, Kirk saw Doyle's
men stretching out their phaser arms. In his mind he
heard the order--Ready.. aim...
"Not yet," he uttered, feeling the sweaty tension of
McCoy at his side. "Not yet--"
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Ducking blue disruptor shots from above, Bannon was
moving slowly, but he was nearly there.
Fire!
A globular burst of red-pink phaser fire launched from
the huddled Starfleet group and struck out at the incline.
The up there Klingons ducked out of sight. Not one was
hit.
Instead, an answer came from overhead--a gulp of
bright bluish energy sprayed from the cloudless sky and
landed squarely on Doyle's men as if a giant flyswatter
had just come down. The sheer whine of sound drove
Kirk, McCoy, and the three ensigns plunging for the
ground, cuffing their ears.
Kirk forced himself up instantly and looked down into
the valley.
The bodies of his crewmen and several tribesmen
streaked the dusty flats. Two hundred yards short of his
goal, Bannon lay knocked flat. Fury rolled in Kirk's
chest. He'd been outthought by the enemy.
"What the blazes was that?" McCoy gasped, peering at
the sky, then back down at the draped bodies.
"Some sort of response to the phasers," Kirk muttered.
"From where? A ship?"
"Maybe a shuttlecraft."
"Let me go down there!" the doctor asked. "I can treat
those men."
"You stay put." Kirk heard the anger in his voice and
valiantly tried to keep it from lopping over from his own
self-recriminations and onto McCoy. He didn't bother
pointing out that those men were probably beyond
treatment.
"Captain!"
The familiar baritone call caught him fast and he
turned and headed toward it.
"Here!" he called. "Spock, over here!"
From among the whey-colored rocks, First Officer Spock kept low but hurried to them, carrying a bow in
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own phaser, and that meant something.
"Did you see the flash?" the Vulcan asked without amenity. "Disruptor backwash came from the sky."
Kirk nodded. "What do you think it is? A ship?"
Spock shook his head, squinting. "Too low. More
likely a satellite keyed to Starfleet phaser energy. You
will recall that Klingon disruptor fire did not set it
off."
"Could it be affecting our communicators?"
"I have no facts to corroborate that, but the theoretical
conclusion bears some logic." Spock's dark eyes scanned
Kirk's blood-splattered gold shirt. He was assessing his
captain for injuries, but he said nothing about it. He too
was breathing hard, despite this hot weather's being
more natural for him than shipboard climate.
Kirk looked up, scanning the sky. "If Scotty could get
in close with the ship, he could knock any orbiter out
with one shot."
"We must assume he is occupied." The Vulcan's
words were laced with portent. He offered nothing more
specific, but there was concern in his dust-grooved expression.
"We're on our own. McCoy, corral those three ensigns.
We're going to need runners to communicate with the
field positions."
"Yes, sir," McCoy responded, with fear clutching his
sudden sense of purpose. At least he didn't argue.
"All right, if that's the way it is," Kirk huffed to his
first officer as they watched they doctor pick his way back
to the grotto. "They neutralize our weapons, then I want
theirs."
Spock nodded, scanning the enemy lines. They hung
together in silence for a few seconds, and Kirk listened to
the sound of his own heart pound in his ears.
His left middle finger was hurting. Probably a sliver.
Felt like it might be under the fingernail. He glanced
down, but didn't see anything through the dirt plastered
48 FIRST STRIKE
to his fingers, and thought the sight of their captain
picking at a tingeruail might not do his crew any good.
He shook his head. Out of all the bruises and cuts, a
silver was distracting him. Battle could be a fun-house
mirror sometimes.
As the ground cover crackled behind him he spun
around and almost lashed out, but Spock pressed him
back somehow, subtly, only
raising one arm a little. Kirk
glared at what had startled himmMcCoy and the three
ensigns slipping into the cover of the rock with them.
Steadying himself, he tilted a silent thanks to Spock
and motioned the others toward him, then gestured
them to huddle.
Crouching behind the big flat slab, Kirk looked at his
men one by one. "We think the Klingo ns have deployed
a satellite or shuttle that blankets the immediate area
with destructive power when it detects Federation phaser
tire. Your job is to get to our commanding officers and
relay information. Standing order is phasers down, indigenous
weapons only. Consider the phasers neutralized.
Draw the enemy into hand fighting if possible. It'll
give us a more equal chance than letting them have wide
berth. New goal--capture Klingon disruptors."
"Sir, I don't see how we can tight disruptors without
phasers," Ensign Dunton said, a gaunt scrapper with a
gap between his front teeth.
"Phasers can target thousands in open ground," Spock
said calmly, "but at close proximity, it may not be any
better than a sword or knife, Ensign."
"It's awful," Dunton uttered, glancing out at the
collapsed forms of his shipmates. "They shouldn't have
to die in the dirt like that."
"We're here to knock the Klingons back," Kirk said
firmly. "That's the bet all spacefarers make. Our lives
might come down to this."
He saw in their faces that they suddenly understood
something they'd never thought of before--that this
might be the real fate they'd signed up for. No stars nor
bright nebulae, but the dust of some distant alien planet
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between blood-crusted teeth, and the taste of foreign soil
on a dying breath.
Beside Dunton, Ensign Fulciero looked up at him like
a kid on Santa's knee who was hoping for the right
answer. "All we gotta do is hold them off from the
villages long enough for the battle in space to be won,
right, sir?"
Kirk placated him with a nod. "And Starfleet to send
reinforcements."
He didn't estimate how much time that might take.
"What if they get past the ship?" the third ensign
asked. "They could lay waste to half the planet from
up there."
Kirk landed a fierce glance on him. "They won't."
Fulciero blinked into the sun. "Why not?"
"Because they won't. We don't have time for lessons,
gentlemen. You have your orders. Disperse."
Being on the move with a message to deliver would be
good for them. Better than sitting here, anticipating
disaster and asking questions that would take time to
answer.
Tense, he and Spock and McCoy watched the ensigns
fan out, trying to reach companies of Starfleet forces
before anybody else used a phaser. His skin crawled in
expectation of the thready whine that could come any
second, from any quarter. Twice he thought he heard it,
and glanced at the sky, waiting for the bright pounding
response, but he was wrong both times. His unit commanders
were better than he remembered. He had
become too custodial. Forgotten that they could see the
sky too, knew a plasma burst when they saw it, and were
good at their jobs. They weren't using phasers. In several
places he saw his crew holstering their hand weapons and
taking up the crude weapons of the planet--rocks,
sticks, Capellan swords and klegats.
For a moment he wanted to tell his men not to try
using the klegats. The bladed disks were used efficiently
by the strong Capellans, but they took training. They
were deliberately not very sharp. Injury came from raw
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FIRST STRIKE
force and bone breakage. It was a crushing weapon as
much as a slicing one.
"Captain," Spock snapped, "here they come."
He pointed to the upper ground, now swelling with
living enemy soldiers who were met by advanced Star-fleet
guards, swinging and hacking.
"Typical," McCoy threw in. "They know they've
knocked out our phasers, so they're advancing." Frustration
showed in his eyes as the doctor gripped the ledge
and watched their own men fall wounded, and clearly he
wished he could sneak out and begin treating them.
"Why aren't they using their disruptors?"
"Terrain," Kirk said. "Too many obstructions."
"I believe there is more." Spock pressed a hand to the
rock and straightened to look over. "Klingons prefer
hand-to-hand fighting. They consider it more honorable
to kill at close quarters than with a long-range weapon. If
they can arrange for that, they will do so."
"So we'll give it to them," Kirk said. "We can--"
At his hip, his communicator suddenly whistled.
He snatched at it, missed, and had to grab again.
"Kirk to Enterprise--status report!"
"Scott here, sir. We punched through the communications
blanket."
"What's going on up there?"
"Battle, sir. Three cruisers. We're holding our own now.
But we've got a new development. More Klingons coming
in, and I don't know what to make of it."
Kirk glanced at Spock. "More Klingons. Lovely. Why
don't you know what to make of it, Scotty? What're they
doing?"
"Unidentified bird coming in at warp six, with wings
up, weapons systems off, broadcasting interstellar distress
call."
"A distress call while at warp six?" Kirk let the
communicator drop a little and looked at Spock again.
"Not ship distress, then."
"Unless they are under hot pursuit," Spock suggested.
"Not likely." Kirk brought the communicator up
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again. "Let the situation play out, Scotty. Don't fire on
them until you figure out their intent. If you don't like it
when you find it out, blow them out of the sky." 'Aye, sir."
"And there's a satellite of some kind of hovering
mechanism over our locality that's keyed to our hand
phasers. Can you knock it out?"
"We've picked up on it and we're targeting it. If we
overshoot, we could hit you there on the surface."
"Understood. Hurry up."
"Aye, sir. Scotty out."
"It's good to hear his voice." Kirk pressed the back of
his hand to his bleeding mouth. "Gentlemen, I think I've
finally reached my limit."
They both looked at him, and Spock asked, "Sir?"
"I'm sick of Klingons."
He pushed away from the rocks.
"On your toes. This is it." He stood up and started out
into the open.
"Jim!" McCoy snatched him by the arm. "They'll see
you?"
"I want them to see me. Come on, Spock."
Enemy forces were plowing over the ridge, nearly two
hundred of them at a quick sweeping estimate. Their
silver tunics and black sleeves were crisp in the unforgiving
sunlight, their howl of charge more chilling
than the
whine of their disruptors. Screams of injured and dying
men looped up like sirens. The survivors on both sides
scrambled for new cover.
But none for retreat. It was good to see.
He knew better than to micromanage. His men knew
he was here. They'd fight in pairs or triplets or any kind
of unit they could form. Enthusiasm carried them up the
incline to meet the enemy, and it dimmed their sight of
the Klingons' fury until they could match it with their own.
He plunged out into the open and scooped up a raw
wooden club and a stumpy sword from the body of a
fallen Capellan.
FIRST STRIKE
"Spock!" When his first officer turned, Kirk tossed
him the sword.
"The doctor is right," Spock said by way of warning.
"They will target a commanding officer if they can pick yOU Out."
He was plumbing for Kirk's plans.
All right.
"If I don't give them a target," Kirk told him, "they'll
lay scattering fire and wound as many as they can hit. If I
let them spot me, they'll concentrate on trying to knock
me out, preferably hand-to-hand, for the glory of it. I can
make them fixate on me. Goad them into letting me
manipulate their battle plan."
With a nod of understanding, Spock let disapproval
creep into his expression, but he couldn't fight the sense
of it.
"Problem is," Kirk added, "they might target you tOO."
Spock passed the sword from his left hand to his right.
"Acceptable, sir."
"I thought you'd say that. Let's go."
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53
Chapter Four
As atom KLiNgONS came roaring down the incline, disruptors
holstered and daggers gleaming, Kirk and Spock
charged out to meet them, pushing as close to the center
as possible when they finally met the enemies head-on.
Kirk had to work to draw attention to himself, convince
the swarming enemy that he was the leader.