Chapter Two

1130

Nelson was disappointed. And, simultaneously, he felt guilty for being so. The feeling was unpleasant to say the least. It was a good thing that the Cardassians weren't using this planet as a base, a supply depot, or some kind of missile launch site. But he'd been looking forward to finally playing an active role in doing some damage against them: an active role in protecting the Maquis and, as a consequence, the settlers that were being persecuted and driven out of their homes by Cardassian aggression.

Perhaps Torres and the others had found something significant down the other branch of tunnels, but it seemed unlikely given what Nelson had seen - or more precisely, not seen – so far. And, even if Torres and those with her had found Cardassian weapons, Nelson wouldn't have been there at the moment of discovery. The satisfaction would not be his. He was going to have to wait for his chance to personally get some payback for what the Cardassians had done to him and thousands of others just like him.

It had been eight years already, so he should be able to wait patiently for a little longer.

What were the chances of a rockfall, the very day the Maquis had ventured down into these long abandoned tunnels? What were the tunnels doing here in the first place? Sahreen had put forward that they were the remnants of an ancient mining operation, though according to historical records, this planet had never been inhabited by humanoid life. It was certainly turning out to be an interesting first away mission for Nelson, if not in the way he'd expected.

He'd anticipated that there could be danger and embraced that possibility. He'd already experienced combat once in a remote sort of way when the Val Jean had come under fire from a Cardassian warship. But standing around powerless to help except to man his post, phaser in hand, ready to defend his position if the Cardassians boarded, was quite different to the current problem.

As the three of them made slow but steady progress up the shallow incline back to the rendezvous point, careful not to trip on the carpet of small stones knocked loose from the walls and ceiling, Nelson's thoughts were preoccupied with the frustration that, if their way back to the surface was blocked, they'd be late getting back to the Val Jean and out of the fight in the meantime.

Jor stumbled, reaching for his elbow to halt her fall and snapping him out of his contemplations. He frowned, turning to see her eyes heavy and half closed before she slumped against him. He supported her as best he could. Beads of perspiration had moistened the dust on her forehead forming globs of dirty paste above her eyebrows. Yelling for Sahreen to come back, Nelson lowered Jor to the ground. She wasn't heavy, but with the extra gear he was now carrying in addition to his rifle, he feared she'd slip out of his hampered grasp if he didn't promptly put her down. And they needed to take a good look at her. Not that Nelson had any medical expertise he could offer, but Sahreen would know what to do.

Jor's eyes fluttered open as her head came to rest again the tunnel wall. "I'm sorry," she groaned.

Nelson froze. Those words in that tone of voice sent a chill through him. He shook it off. Sahreen arrived with the medkit already out of his bag. "We should scan her, shouldn't we?" Nelson said quickly, unburdening himself of his rifle so that both his hands were free to help Jor into a more comfortable position. "Maybe she has a head injury."

Sahreen nodded, calm as ever.

"I didn't hit my head," Jor insisted, more alert again. "It's the pain in my back. It's got me feeling faint."

Nelson observed closely as Sahreen calibrated the medical tricorder from the medkit to assess a human. Sahreen then held the device above Jor's head and ran it down across her torso and back up. He held the device's display so that Nelson could read the diagnosis.

"See here." Sahreen indicated the schematic of Jor's upper body on the display.

Nelson studied it carefully over Sahreen's shoulder. No wonder Jor was ailing. "A fracture to the tenth rib on the right-hand side. Blunt trauma injury to the right kidney with bleeding into the perirenal space."

Sahreen relinquished the tricorder to Nelson and reached into the medical kit. "Read me the treatment recommendation summary please."

"Ten cc's of five percent terakine for the pain," Nelson read aloud. "Vascular regeneration for the kidney damage, and osteogenic stimulation for the fracture."

Jor laughed weakly, humourlessly at that.

"What?" Nelson asked, frowning.

Sahreen explained, "There's no vascular regenerator in our medkit. What's the second-line treatment for the bleeding?"

Nelson forced himself to concentrate on the information on the screen. "Twenty milligrams of lectrazine every four hours until vascular regeneration can be initiated."

Sahreen nodded. "Obviously you need care from a qualified medic," he said, placing a hand on Jor's shoulder. "But we can make you more comfortable and keep you stable until we can get you to proper medical facilities."

"Just patch me up so I can stay on my feet," Jor said, and catching Nelson's anxious stare, she pushed herself into more of a sitting position. "Hey," she said. "I've got through worse than this. Don't look so worried."

Nelson swallowed hard and with confusion took the hypospray that Sahreen pushed into his palm.

"You should do this," Sahreen told him. "Nothing like learning on the job." When Nelson hesitated, the older man gestured to Jor's neck. "Just hold it here and depress the mechanism."

Jor let out a sigh of relief and offered Nelson a grateful smile as the analgesic he administered quickly did its work. He smiled back, feeling better for it. Like she said, she had been through worse. Next, he gave her the lectrazine making a note of the time, and hoping that in four hours they'd at the very least be back on the shuttle. It was quite possible they wouldn't be. He suppressed the urge to ask Sahreen how much lectrazine they had with them, but then Jor asked the question herself. There'd been ten doses in the medkit, Sahreen said, including the one already used. Nelson did the maths. Thirty six hours was rather more reassuring than four. And there should be an identical supply to draw upon in the group's other medkit carried by Torres, assuming that nobody else was in need of the drug, and that they could link up with her and the others. Seventy six hours, give or take. That didn't sound so bad at all.

"Osteogenic stimulator," said Sahreen, handing the device to Nelson. "Run this close to the skin above rib number ten."

Jor pointed out the relevant area above her clothing. Nelson activated the tool and held it still until it bleeped that the treatment cycle was complete. Jor inhaled slowly and deeply, and smiled again. "See? Good as new," she insisted, but her movements were stilted as she rose first onto her knees and from there onto her feet. And wobbled. Her hand slid on the slick tunnel wall as she reached out to steady herself, but she regained her balance before she could fall. "I'm fine," she snapped, brushing off the hand that Nelson offered her, then adding a quiet "sorry." He tried not to take it personally.

"Have some water," Sahreen said to her. "If you still feel faint in a moment then I'll give you a stimulant, but I'd rather not. When those wear off they leave you feeling worse than before."

Jor raised an eyebrow. "Personal experience?"

Sahreen nodded, handing her his flask. "I once stayed awake for six days straight on the damn things. When I stopped taking them I felt like my head would explode."

The older man didn't elaborate as to why he'd had reason to forgo sleep for such a long period. Nelson had soon learnt that in the type of organisation that the Maquis was, there was a fine line between knowing enough to do one's job, and having too much information about events that weren't of personal concern. The latter could be a liability. So, he tried not to ask questions about the comings and goings on the ship even though his curiosity burned. Whilst the majority of those assigned to the Val Jean when Nelson had first been brought on board were still on its crew, new faces had appeared, either new recruits like himself, or transfers from other cells. And at any given time there would be empty bunks with small groups off on away missions either to meet with contacts, aid colonists, or to fight in some way.

At least most of his comrades were eager to share (in varying degrees of detail) their reasons for taking up arms. Those stories served to enrage and, as a consequence, encourage, keeping the justifications for fighting at the forefronts of everyone's minds. But, when it came to specific missions, all information was on a need to know basis. Nelson, as a raw recruit, was not usually in the loop.

A minute later, Jor straightened, insisted she really was fit to walk, and they continued.

..._ _ _...

1145

By the time B'Elanna and her three companions made it to the tunnel junction, the dust was settling. Even more welcome was the sound of voices and a faint glow approaching from the east. Sahreen soon strode into view followed a moment later by Nelson and, walking very stiffly, Jor. It seemed that the other three members of her team had endured the same battering as those that had remained with B'Elanna – perhaps worse.

"You're OK," Tabor exclaimed, rushing to envelope Jor in a hug, then appearing to think better of it. He settled for a hand on her shoulder, a move he then repeated with Nelson and Sahreen. Nelson was carrying Jor's pack. Sahreen had lost his headlamp. B'Elanna heaved a sigh of relief as she took in the sight of all six of her team together. Alive.

B'Elanna recounted Tabor's discovery of uridium ore in the surrounding rocks to the three who'd been elsewhere at the time. Sahreen reported a lack of any significant discoveries to the east and on the status of the group's casualty. Jor's injury was a real concern, just how great of one would depend on the seriousness of the suspected rockfall. The sooner they inspected it the better.

On the way down, it had taken ten minutes to hike from the tunnel entrance to the junction in which the group was currently assembled. The ascent, though the gradient was shallow, could be expected to take a little longer than that, and there was no way yet to tell how far along they could travel before their route was blocked. B'Elanna took a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm herself. Part of her wanted to sprint on, but her better judgement was to take a steady pace. The heat seemed to have cranked up a notch in the last half hour and she was desperately thirsty now. The others must be suffering even more. Vance and Dalby had removed their leather vests. Even in the gloom she could see that Nelson was red-faced and sweating. With sadistic pleasure she instructed the kid to share some of his load with Vance. The pilot, to her surprise, took half of the heavy explosives without complaint. There was a first time for everything.

Six pairs of eyes were upon her, their expectant stares weighing her down while at the same time lightening her feet to push on forwards. Each of the six had been chosen for a particular ability, technical or military, and Chakotay had chosen her – the Academy drop-out, not exactly known for her excellent people skills – to lead them.

Sahreen had been in the Maquis since the movement's inception and was the oldest member of the team. She felt particularly awkward to be in charge of the mission over him, but, according to Seska, Chakotay didn't consider Sahreen leadership material. Sahreen was too quiet and reserved to give orders. Not that he wasn't well respected for his strong work ethic, unflappable demeanour and the fact that, without ever being weak-willed or timid, he never complained. Dalby and Vance had been recruited around the same time as B'Elanna. Those two were similar in many ways – to each other and to herself. Both men were quick to anger, but Vance enjoyed complaining about anything and everything, whereas Dalby did whatever was needed without a fuss. The other three Maquis were nearer to B'Elanna in age. Tabor, the Bajoran, was the closest she would consider to a friend. He and Jor had history; both had lived for a short time on the Salva IV colony before Cardassian aggression had forced them into the waiting arms of the Maquis. That left Nelson, the orphan who'd dropped out of high school to join the cause. This was the first time Chakotay had let him take part in a mission off the ship, and the kid had had the misfortune to be assigned to her command.

B'Elanna could only hope that, between the seven of them, they'd have the expertise to extricate themselves from this mess she'd gotten them into. She ordered them to move out, and this time she led the way herself.

..._ _ _...

1210

Hopes had risen. According to their tricorders, and perhaps more accurately, Sahreen's excellent memory and sense of direction, they were a mere fifty metres from the surface, and their route had so far been clear aside from a mass of tiny stones that cluttered the ground underfoot. The air had grown more hazy as they ascended, however, making breathing more unpleasant. Nelson, third in the line, rounded a bend and caught sight of two static dots of light ahead: Torres and Dalby. As he neared their position - right where the tunnel was supposed to meet the open air - Nelson could see why they'd stopped. He gasped. Even Sahreen, when he soon joined the first three, let out a less than polite exclamation. It shouldn't have been such a shock, but it had to be natural human instinct to react that way when confronted with the concrete reality of being buried alive. A huge jumble of rocks, ranging in size from tiny slivers to person-sized boulders, lay in their path, plugging the tunnel entrance.

"This isn't a roof collapse," Sahreen said, picking at the debris. "These rocks have fallen down the mountainside and poured into the mouth of the tunnel like a river." He grabbed a handful of the looser, finer matter and sieved it through his fingers. "Top soil."

Torres began to pace in a tight circuit, one hand on her hip, her tricorder in the other. "The debris field extends for five metres," she said.

"That doesn't sound so bad," remarked Dalby.

"But the pile's up to three metres high. This piece of crap tricorder can't calculate the mass, but … it's a lot of rock."

Jor and Tabor arrived, with Vance right behind them. The latter clasped his hands on top of his closely shaven scalp in dismay. Torres stopped her pacing. The additional sources of light made it easier to see the obstruction, though in no way helped in the perception of its depth. Nelson had never considered himself to be claustrophobic. He'd been quite comfortable exploring the subterranean passageways as they searched for weapons, even in the sections where the headroom had reduced to less than his one hundred and eighty centimetres – and those sections were abundant. But the tunnel that he'd until now considered comfortably wide seemed to close in. With the seven of them assembled together in a huddle, that cramped feeling was all the more exacerbated.

Tabor spoke, his eyes flicking to Jor though his head didn't move. "When we don't make our rendezvous, surely Chakotay will send someone out to look for us."

"No," Torres said. "He won't. It was agreed that if we're more than two hours overdue, he'll not risk sending anyone else. After what happened on Quatal we can't afford to lose any more people. We all knew that coming here."

Quatal, Olmerak, Volan – half a dozen good people had been killed in recent weeks, and a couple more maimed and out of the fight. There were plenty of volunteers willing to step into their places, but it took time to initiate them into the organisation's ways, and that could only be done once their backgrounds and motivations had been thoroughly checked out to ensure they weren't spies for the Federation or, even worse, the Cardassians.

"I know that," Tabor replied raising his hands in deference to the half-Klingon. "I just think … when it comes down to it, Chakotay won't want to just leave us behind."

"He won't want to, no," said Dalby. "But if that's the protocol …"

Torres nodded. "We're on our own. None of us should waste time hoping to be rescued."

"Starfleet may be a bunch of wankers," Vance said bitterly, "but they wouldn't leave their people behind."

"This isn't the time to discuss Chakotay's tactical decisions," Torres snapped. "The fact is he made a tough call. And we're not conscripts, we're volunteers. So, if you didn't like it, you shouldn't have come."

Vance opened his mouth, but held his tongue. Nelson couldn't fathom Chakotay's rationale in placing Vance under Torres's command. The pilot and the engineer had been at each other's throats for as long as Nelson had known them, and with the rest of the team either backing Torres or staying silent whenever an argument broke out between the two, Vance was an isolated figure, distinct from the cohesive unit that was the rest of the team. It didn't seem to bother him, though. Perhaps he actually enjoyed being a clod for the attention it got him. Some people were just like that. Nelson had shared classes with a few back in school. Which seemed a lifetime away now.

Six solemn faces turned again to fix on the obstruction. If their stares could vaporise solid rock, the exit would have been cleared in an instant. Instead of focusing on the rockfall, Nelson kept his eyes on his comrades. If he was going to be of help to them, he had to remain calm, and looking at that giant mass of debris was making his heart race.

"So, how the hell are we going to get out of here?" piped up Vance eventually, staring with unmitigated contempt towards Torres.

Torres looked down at her tricorder once more, snapped it off, and, head held high, said, "We dig our way out."

..._ _ _...

B'Elanna glanced around, taking in the reactions of the others to her suggestion. No. It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order. Not that there was the slightest thing she could do if they all disagreed with her plan.

Dalby sighed, running a dusty hand through his equally dusty hair, but he'd do what she asked. Tabor, always quick to show support, was already setting down his pack and removing his vest ready to work. Sahreen's expression was bland as ever, but he straightened from his position leaning back against the wall behind Nelson. Nelson's attention was on Jor. Jor wasn't going to able to contribute to the heavy lifting and she'd be pissed about it. B'Elanna would have to find another way for her to contribute.

Predictably, Vance was the first to speak, deep frown lines creasing his shiny forehead. "What the hell are we supposed to dig with? You got a shovel stowed in that pack, Torres? Or a portable replicator to make one?"

B'Elanna scowled at him. "We use our hands. I know it'll be hard going. For every piece of rock we move another will take its place from above, but we don't necessarily have to shift the entire pile. If we can burrow through … we just need a hole large enough to crawl out of." It was hardly a foolproof plan. Without any heavy equipment, it was an overwhelming prospect, but what choice did they have? There was no other exit. The ventilation shafts were too narrow to climb up even if they'd brought climbing equipment.

"Sod that," countered Vance. "I say we risk using the explosives and try to vaporise some of the bigger rocks. Or we use our phasers to cut ourselves a hole."

"You fire a phaser in here and the whole roof could come down on top of us!" B'Elanna shouted. "Uridium ore, remember?"

"I say it's worth the risk. Digging could take weeks. We'll die of thirst long before then." Vance's hand moved to the phaser on his hip. Surely he wasn't that stupid, was he? Dalby lunged for him, pinning him by the throat against the wall.

"You even mention it … even think about it again," Dalby growled, "and I'll kill you myself with my bare hands."

As much as B'Elanna enjoyed seeing Vance taken to task, it wouldn't do to let Dalby get too carried away. With one member of the team already injured, she needed the rest of them fit to dig. Dalby breaking his fingers on Vance's thick head would not be helpful. And she did have a responsibility to maintain order. She had to exert her authority without losing her cool. "That's enough," she said firmly. Dalby looked at her then back to Vance before releasing him with a little pat to the cheek for good measure.

Vance took his hand off his phaser with an exaggerated flourish. "So what about water?" he asked, civilly. "And food and air while we're at it? If we start digging away in this heat without drinking, we'll cook in our skins."

"I'm aware of that," B'Elanna said through clenched teeth. "We'll pool our supplies of food and water and see just how much we have between us."

Vance scoffed. "I'll tell you how much we have. Bugger all." He pushed down the straps of his pack and turning, unzipped a pocket to pull out a packet of ration bars, a few pieces of some fruit that B'Elanna couldn't identify, and a transparent, litre-sized drinking bottle that was barely a quarter full. "There's my contribution," Vance said, dumping the lot at B'Elanna's feet.

B'Elanna knew she had little more herself. Just one MRE (chicken with noodles according to the label), a single ration bar, and perhaps half a litre of water. She added it to the pile. The others did the same. The water situation was dire. The food might have sustained them if they were to be sedentary, but with the amount of calories they were going to burn off with their exertions as well as in their bodies' attempts to thermoregulate, they'd each be thinner leaving this place than they had been coming in. And none of them were carrying much in the way of excess fat; Vance was a big guy, but it was all muscle.

She deflected for a moment, addressing one of the other points Vance had raised. "There's nothing we can do about the air supply," she said. "Either there's adequate ventilation to keep us supplied with oxygen and prevent CO2 poisoning or there isn't. I know that's not very reassuring, but at least we haven't detected any noxious gases down here." Pausing to study the faces of her team members again, she held Sahreen's gaze when their eyes met. He'd be reluctant to contribute ideas if he thought it would make her look weak or incompetent, but she really did need his input now. Making a general call for suggestions would only invite Vance to say something insulting and unhelpful again. Vance really was impossible.

Luckily, Sahreen took the hint. "We found condensation at the far reaches of the east tunnel," he said. "Enough that it trickles down the walls in places. If we could collect sufficient quantity, it might sustain us."

Finally, something positive. "Good. See if you can work out a way to funnel it into our containers, then you go back down there and see what you can collect." It would mean one less body for the digging effort in the meantime, but Jor didn't look strong enough to hike back down there on her own, and she didn't know Nelson's capabilities well enough yet to send him off to work unsupervised.

"We don't need to eat yet," she said, stalling again. She directed Jor to take charge of the supplies, to portion out the food into seven approximately equal measures. Nelson helped Jor move the heavy gear back down the tunnel a few dozen metres to leave a clear space for the rest to work in. The other woman was also tasked with rigging a couple of palm beacons together to boost the illumination at the 'face' as Dalby had taken to calling the front of the obstruction. Now they needed a system. It would be dangerous – there was no getting around that. Moving one boulder could bring a rush of smaller rocks flowing in. B'Elanna would lead from the front and the others could form a line behind her to convey the debris back down the tunnel without completely blocking the way. They couldn't cut themselves off from the air supply deeper in the mine. Ordering Dalby to work beside her – clearly some of the rocks would be too heavy for a single person to move – and with nothing for it but to make their best effort, they started to dig.

..._ _ _...