Disclaimer: Star Trek (plus all its intellectual property) is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.
Beta'd by Kathy Rose - though what she did was more like reconstructive surgery, and my debt to her is enormous.
OC Em Gomez is borrowed by kind permission of Chrysa.
Just over eleven hours later, the call the ship had been waiting for arrived.
The alpha shift had taken over on the Bridge. Hoshi had just sat down at the comm station when, a hand to her earpiece, she called out to the captain. "Sir, it's another signal!"
"Let's hear it," ordered Jon.
It was almost an exact duplication of the one they'd received yesterday.
"–esting urg– assi– – any ship – –urvey team – –quake – trapped –"
T'Pol looked up from her station. "I have the location, Captain. But as I surmised yesterday, a rescue will be extremely hazardous. There is a considerable amount of volcanic activity in the area. The storm activity would make transporting dangerous in the extreme, and flying a shuttlepod down in the combined conditions would be ill-advised to say the least."
"I'd be willing to try," said Travis immediately.
"We would quite possibly be adding additional casualties to the situation," T'Pol drily responded. "I do not mean to imply any deficiency in your flying skills, Ensign, but the conditions are severe."
"Hoshi, send an emergency transmission to Tellar," Jon said as he stared at the planet on the viewscreen. "Inform them of the situation and ask if there are any ships in the vicinity that could help out with a rescue." His brow furrowed as he considered the tumultuous world; the red-brown atmosphere was whorled with storms that must be thousands of kilometers wide. The thought of sending any craft as frail as a shuttlepod into one of those maelstroms was blood-curdling. And even if the pod got through safely, there were the volcanoes to take into account, not to mention the sulfur dioxide clouds.
What the hell is down there that's worth risking lives for, he wondered. Now I have the choice between leaving these people to die, or risking my own crew to save them.
The initial distress call had come as a surprise, breaking a period of relative calm during which there had been nothing much for the ship to do except visit, inspect and map various astronomical features of the area they were currently traversing. The transmission had quickly been identified as coming from a planet right on the border of Tellarite space, circling a star that was identified on the star charts as being named Gallarax.
A Vulcan science ship, the K'Ver, had visited briefly ten years earlier, T'Pol had informed the bridge officers during the resultant briefing. They had noted that the star was showing signs of instability, and that there were no signs of habitation on any of its four planets. Evidently finding nothing else worthy of interest, they had departed.
Someone, however, had evidently found a reason to visit now. Enterprise had picked up a badly broken call for help, on an audio transmission only. Finding that his was the only ship in the vicinity, Jon had ordered his helmsman to set a course and take them to the rescue at the best speed possible. Also on his orders, Hoshi had transmitted a response, but there was no knowing whether it had been received. There had been no reply to it, and nor to the repeated calls from the ship during the intervening hours; at a guess, more than one member of the bridge crew had wondered whether there would still be anyone left to save by the time they got there.
Now Enterprise had established orbit and the captain was trying to ascertain whether a rescue was feasible. He hadn't expected to be faced with quite such dangerous conditions, and though he was eager to save the trapped people down there if at all possible, his primary concern was the safety of his own crew. The K'Ver's report had been dry and precise, and hadn't conveyed any real sense of what they were actually up against: a system whose star was a ticking time-bomb. 'Unstable' was a classic Vulcan understatement, he thought, remembering the astrometrics readouts. A ring of debris in the orbit of what had been the innermost planet testified to the destructive capability of the star's solar flares. That was all that was left of Gallarax Prime. Now, the increased stellar activity was having an extreme gravitational effect on this second world's molten core, and the planet was starting to tear itself apart.
"Response from Tellar, sir," said Hoshi a couple of minutes later. "They have no ships that could reach here for several days."
"Great." Jon hesitated. "Hoshi, tell Engineering to get a shuttlepod ready. T'Pol, I want you to keep an eye on the conditions in the area. If we get a window of opportunity, I want us to take it. Travis, you'll pilot the pod, and Malcolm, I want you to go along to see what can be done safely." He locked eyes with the tactical officer, with the plain message: Make sure Travis doesn't get carried away by his enthusiasm. I trust you to keep a level head down there.
Malcolm nodded imperceptibly. "Understood, sir."
"Better hold on tight, sir. This is going to be a bit rough."
Bloody wonderful. Malcolm fastened the belt on the co-pilot's seat and stared, or rather glared, at the murk in front of them. They were practically flying blind, and although he had the greatest faith in his companion's flying skills, T'Pol's enumeration of the risks facing them had not been encouraging. In addition, his lunch was sitting rather uneasily in his stomach. Aware that they might at any moment get the green light to launch, he'd eaten very lightly, but even so, the way the shuttlepod was bucking in the turbulence was making him queasy. And if it was going to get even worse…
It was going to get worse. A lot worse. The air currents hurled the shuttlepod upwards and then the next second dropped it a hundred metres. Only the strict Reed canon on what expressions it was and was not appropriate to use in front of a junior officer prevented him from using one with which his Saxon forebears would have been familiar.
"I'm trusting your judgement, Ensign," he said through gritted teeth. "But you do realise that flying a shuttlepod head-first into a volcano is strictly contrary to regulations."
"Yes, sir, I'm fully aware of that." The young pilot was wrestling with the controls, but still achieved a grin. "The last thing I want is a posthumous reprimand on my records."
Malcolm said nothing, though he grinned briefly in return at the irony. Travis must be quite as aware as he was of the danger they were in, but still had the guts to make a joke. His opinion of the ensign went up another notch.
"Better conditions up ahead," Travis reported. It felt like several hours, but was probably only about five minutes, before he spoke again. "At least we won't have to wear the EV suits."
Malcolm frowned at that. He was deeply relieved that he hadn't had to resort to using the sick-bag; apart from being unpleasant in itself, heaving his guts up in front of a junior officer was undignified. But he was still somewhat unsure whether venturing out from the shuttlepod unprotected would be wise, and had decided that if they did manage to land safely, he'd use the pod's scanners as well as the hand-held scanners they'd brought with them to reassess the situation. They planned to set the pod down in the vicinity of an active volcano, but on the side opposite prevailing winds carrying away the toxic fumes. Unless there was any drastic change in conditions, the geography suggested that both lava and pyroclastic flows would move away from them as well.
He'd been fascinated by volcanoes for as long as he could remember; a boyish passion for anything that produced such magnificent explosions had at one time tempted him towards taking up volcanology as a career. Things had turned out otherwise, but he'd still learned a great deal of the science involved, just out of interest. It was certainly coming in useful now.
It wasn't a new eruption. This particular volcano had been active when the K'Ver had visited. As far as could be ascertained, it was relatively calm in nature; it was unlikely to produce the type of explosive event that would occur when a dormant volcano's awakening blew out hardened material blocking the vent like shaken champagne propelling a cork from the neck of a bottle. This fact alone was the reason why the shuttlepod was making the attempt to land so close to it.
The venture was still extremely dangerous. The ground was still rocked almost continually by earth tremors. Malcolm could only imagine that something of incredible value must be located here to make it worth anyone's while to risk such a threatening environment. An unstable area on an unstable planet, circling an unstable star – it couldn't be anyone's idea of home.
Moments later the shuttlepod broke through the base of the clouds and the men were able to get their first clear look at the landscape beneath.
It wasn't encouraging.
To their left, the volcano broke from the planet's crust in jagged menace, the plume of ash trailing away laced with bright threads of lightning. All around them were other, smaller peaks, uniformly greyish-brown in colour. The occasions when the wind died or changed direction would ensure that everything in the area was constantly covered by a snow of ash, suffocating any form of life that might try to get a toehold. The whole scene was one of desolation and peril as far as the eye could see in all directions, brooded over by the volcano's menacing presence.
"Mordor," said Malcolm quietly, awestruck in spite of himself.
"Mount Doom!" agreed Travis, grinning. "Sure hope Sauron's not at home!"
"Well, as we don't happen to have the One Ring with us today, I'm hoping he might not be too interested in us even if he is." The tactical officer began studying the scanner readouts; now that the turbulent upper layers of the atmosphere were past, it was possible to get far better readings of the surface. "There seems to be a network of tunnels. I'm picking up three Tellarite bio-signs. The whole area's seamed with cracks, and there's water there, too. They must be bloody insane." He caught himself; such criticism bordered on the unprofessional. "I can see what the problem is. The tunnel they probably came in by is blocked, and the others are narrow or lead to water. Tellarites are usually on the broad side. They probably can't squeeze through, and I don't suppose they've got aqualungs with them."
"You think we can get them out, sir?"
"I don't see why not, if I set the charges carefully." He'd have to take very detailed scans of the surrounding rock and take into account what effect the shockwave would have on any pre-existing faults, but this was his area of expertise. If necessary, he could set off a series of small blasts to minimise the disruption – he certainly didn't want to bring down the rest of the tunnel and bury themselves along with the Tellarites. Even from here he could see it would be a challenging job, but unless the shuttlepod's scanners weren't picking up information that a closer inspection would reveal, it would by no means be the worst he'd ever tackled. Unfortunately, the rock composing the planet's crust was riddled with some extremely dense material. The scanners couldn't penetrate the deeper layers. He could see the tunnels near the surface, and some spots that indicated huge subterranean water reservoirs – probably a relic from a cooler period in the planet's history – but when he tried to probe more deeply, the signals went fuzzy. This was undoubtedly the reason why the mayday call had been of such poor quality, though he was still surprised that it was being broadcast on audio only; Tellar had ample technology for up-to-date transmission equipment. The briefing on board ship, however, had covered the fact that the planet's dense, turbulent atmosphere would make all communication through it extremely difficult.
On that thought, he toggled the comm switch. It had been programmed with the frequency on which the call for help had been transmitted, and would transmit in the appropriate language. "This is Lieutenant Malcolm Reed of the Starship Enterprise. We are responding to your mayday, and will shortly be attempting a rescue. Please respond."
"Ent-ise. It's taken you –ong enough –o respond!"
He depressed the mute button and breathed hard. He knew perfectly well that abuse was common coin of the realm in Tellar, but being on the receiving end of it still annoyed him mightily, especially in the current circumstances.
"We should be with you in approximately fifteen minutes," he said after releasing the mute button again, aware that his voice sounded even more clipped than usual. "Stand by to receive instructions."
"If you have enough intelligence to cooperate with them – which I doubt!" Travis shouted.
The tactical officer shut off the transmission and eyed his subordinate. "I don't remember asking for your contribution to the conversation, Ensign."
"I'm really sorry, sir, but you were being way too polite," Mayweather said apologetically. "They could have gotten really offended."
"Oh, heaven forbid." What would an offended Tellarite do, he wondered – speak ultra-politely? "In case you hadn't noticed, we're here to save their necks. I don't propose to worry too much about offending them in the process."
Travis returned his gaze to the console, but the grin on his face indicated that he wasn't seriously crushed. Trying to crush Travis was rather like trying to drown an air bubble, Malcolm reflected wryly; no matter how hard you stamped, he always bobbed up again afterwards. Still, it was an endearing quality, and one that he both liked and envied in the young ensign. Give Travis a decent few years of experience and a lot of hard work, and it would be something that would serve him well when he commanded his own ship, which Malcolm was certain he eventually would.
The shuttlepod was now coming in to land. The pilot was using the scanner readouts as well as visuals for the task; the layer of ash hid the unevenness of the ground beneath. Engineering had installed additional filters across the intake valves to keep out fine ash particles, a necessary precaution because, despite Travis's skilful handling, the turbulence stirred up by the shuttlepod set off a minor snowstorm of ash. Mordor vanished temporarily behind a haze of grey flakes as the shuttlepod finally settled delicately on to the surface, coming to rest at a slight angle but showing no inclination to slide or tip over or do anything else disconcerting.
A short distance away rested a small Tellarite craft, the layer of ash that had accumulated on it making it look as though it had been carved out of dirty snow. There was no mother-ship in orbit; presumably the survey party had expected to rendezvous with one elsewhere at a prearranged time. Given the extremely hazardous nature of the environment this was a very risky strategy, but there seemed no other possible explanation, though it was puzzling that the vessel had not responded to its landing party's distress call. Maybe it was too far away to pick it up.
As soon as the engines were off, and post-flight checks completed, Mayweather started running another set of scans. "Air quality is breathable. Some sulfur dioxide present, currently 0.1 parts per million and within short-term safety limits. Some other gases, but nothing that presents any significant threat."
This tallied with his own estimate of the situation. Although it wouldn't be particularly pleasant out there, they wouldn't be staying long. Once they reached the blockage in the tunnel, it would take him less than ten minutes to do his calculations and place the charges, and then with a bit of good luck and a following wind, they'd all be out of here. Unless the missing survey mother ship turned up in the meantime, Enterprise could then arrange a rendezvous with the nearest Tellarite ship to hand over their unexpected passengers, earning themselves credit – if not thanks – from the surveying party's government.
"Reed to Enterprise."
"Ent-ise."
"We've landed safely," he said, enunciating clearly because of the transmission interference. "We're about to leave the shuttle."
"–ake care, Mal-m." For all that it was so badly broken up, the captain's voice still carried a clear edge of worry.
The tactical officer nodded automatically in response. "Yes, sir. Reed out." He cut the transmission and snapped off his seat belt. Everything they'd need for the mission was packed ready in a case in the rear of the shuttlepod. If everything went to plan, he and Travis would spend very little time in this alien version of Mordor, and would soon be back in the safety of Enterprise, their own personal Shire.
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