Title: Another Planet's Hell
Author: Sita Z
Rating: R
AN: Thanks to Gabi (tja, wir machen alle unsere kleinen Freudschen Verschreiber ;-) ), highonscifi (hope it's been worth the wait!), Reedie (I know what you mean... writing this author's note gives me an excuse for not studying for my exams in February -shudders-), WhtevrHpnd2Mary (sorry about the long wait... never meant to drive you sane -g-), Tata (sorry it took me so long... I never had the time to update, and then the stupid internet was down...grr), luna (yeah, let's hope he isn't... but I'm not so sure ;-) ), stage manager (I admit it, I am -g-), Icea (okay, okay, I'm sorry about the cliffhangers! ;-) ), Rinne (I guess it's set in the second season, after Minefield and Singularity), Buggles586 (alright, let's get back to Mal...), The Flaming Dragonfly (well, even -if- (and I'm not saying that is gonna happen -eg-) Malcolm is going to get rescued, I guess there'll still be enough angst for him to go through), KaliedescopeCat (it would seem so...), bunsdarien (glad you like it... and feel free to review any time, I love your (and everyone else's) feedback ;-) ), LoveChilde (don't worry, Trip'll have to deal with his trauma soon enough...), Eyes on Tactical ( I suppose we're all sick little things ;-)... and no, it's not wrong to anticipate that there'll still be some h/c in this story) and CordeliaBlack (why does everyone think I'm an evil person?? -blinks at readers with big puppy dog eyes- okay, maybe I can see your point -g-...) for reviewing!
Please read and review!!!
Chapter 12
"What if we don't pick up any bio signs?"
Trip looked up at the person who had spoken. It was Zha'Khor, a middle-aged Tellarite woman with long, braided red hair. She hardly ever talked when it wasn't absolutely necessary, but had been one of the first to volunteer for the rescue mission. At the moment she was sitting in the chair next to the pilot's seat, holding her rifle loosely on her knees and evenly meeting his eyes.
"I don't know," Trip admitted. "I don't think they have cloaked the buildin', and if there are any bio signs in the near vicinity, then the scanners are gonna pick them up. But there's always a chance that we won't find them."
A brief silence followed his words. Trip looked around the flitter at the six people seated on the chairs or squatting on the floor, dark hoods shadowing their faces. They hadn't been the only ones willing to join the team, but Chi'an had decided it was best to take as few people as possible. There was Sepek, of course, who was quite good at shooting as Trip had been told, Chi'an in the pilot chair, Zha'Khor, Lerin the Andorian, a man with deep ridges on his forehead and a brown pattern on his hands who was called Lem (his real name was unpronounceable for everyone except himself), and Lanja, the Xyrillian doctor. Lanja had refused to accept one of the phaser rifles, saying that he was coming along "just in case". Trip knew how protective the Xyrillian felt of his fellow campers, and hoped that they weren't going to need the doctor's skills, at least not to treat anyone present in the flitter. He didn't even dare to think of what condition any potential rescued victims might be in. Trip remembered what Chi'an had told him about the man who had screamed for three days and three nights before he had died. If Malcolm was still alive, he might be suffering just the same, poisoned by the drugs he'd been injected with.
Trip closed his eyes. Seeing the tension on the others' faces only intensified his own anxiety - no, not anxiety. It was fear. He wasn't afraid of using the rifle that was resting on his knees; if anything, the prospect of a fight made him feel even more alert and ready for action. No, what he was afraid of was activating those perfectly recalibrated bio scanners, only to face a blank display after minutes of futile scanning. No second human bio sign within a range of 1 kilometer.
It was as he had told Zha'Khor - he had no idea what he was going to do if the scanners didn't pick up any bio signs. Search the area, maybe, rummage through every heap of garbage until he found Malcolm's decaying body? But what if they hadn't taken him outside after killing him? What if they had burned him, or otherwise disposed of the dead body?
"Approaching the factory buildings," Chi'an's voice came from the pilot seat, and Trip opened his eyes again, forcibly pushing these thoughts away.
Suddenly he remembered something Malcolm had said years ago, in a freezing cold shuttlepod with half a bottle of bourbon in his bloodstream and only ten hours of air left: "Happy endings. Must think happy endings."
Yeah, Mal. Let's think happy endings. Just hold on a little longer, my friend.
"Where are you going to take us down?" Sepek asked. Trip looked out the front window, and saw that the flitter was descending again. Outside, the huge windowless buildings he remembered so well were growing larger - dark, forbidding shapes in an otherwise brightly lit city.
"In the backyard where we landed last time," Chi'an answered, her fingers darting across the helm controls. "It's the safest place to start from."
No one spoke as she initiated the landing approach, concentrating on the difficult task of bringing down a large flitter on a small yard surrounded by high stone walls.
Finally, a slight shudder told Trip that the landing thrusters had been deactivated. All eyes immediately came to rest on Chi'an. From the moment when they had started planning this mission, she had been in charge, making it clear in her reserved way that the final decisions how to proceed were up to her, and no one else.
"Tucker," she said quietly, gesturing at the main console. Trip got up, his heart pounding in his chest.
Concentrate on the scanners. Don't think about anything else. The scanners.
After he had figured out how the system worked, it hadn't been too difficult to recalibrate the scanners so they would automatically lock onto any human bio sign in the near vicinity. All he needed to do now was activate the scan unit, but all the same, Trip's fingers trembled as he sat down in front of the console.
Concentrate.
No one said a word, they all watching in silence as he began to work on the controls. Trip watched as a yellow display lit up, telling him that the scanners were online and working. Then, with a swift motion so no one would notice the shaking of his hand, he activated the program.
Alien letters appeared on the small screen, the Sar'veen equivalent of the word "scanning". Or at least Trip believed that was what it meant. The few letters Orven had taught them were not enough by far for him to decipher Sar'veen writing.
"And?" Chi'an asked, her eyes intent on his face. Trip briefly shook his head, staring down at the display.
"Nothin' yet."
Lerin shifted on her chair. "How long is this going to-"
"Got somethin'!"
The screen had changed into a pattern of blue lines, representing a sketched outline of the area. Trip saw a dark blue rectangle - the factory's main building - surrounded by several smaller squares, presumably the storage houses. At the very edge of the map there was a small blue spot, a building standing about a hundred meters apart from the rest of the factory complex.
"There," Trip said hoarsely, pointing at a pale gray dot in the middle of the detached building. "That's it. A human bio sign."
Chi'an met his eyes, and for once, her lips curved upward in a faint smile. "So he's alive."
"Yes," Trip said. "Looks like he is."
Think happy endings.
Trip felt a smile tug at his lips, and for a moment wanted to laugh out loud with relief. Malcolm was alive. He was going to get him out of there.
Must think happy endings.
"Alright," Chi'an said, getting up from her chair. "You know what to do. Sepek, Lem, you go first and secure the area. Tucker, can you find out how many other people there are in this building?"
Trip bent back down over the console, hardly noticing the opening and closing of the hatch as Sepek and Lem left the flitter.
"Looks like there are... six other bio signs in there," he said as he changed the scanners settings to a wider range. "No, seven. Five of them are Sar'veen."
"Five," Chi'an repeated. "Any guards outside the building?"
Trip glanced down at the display that was now showing eight gray spots within the blue square that represented the building. "No. They're all inside the house."
"Good."
The hatch opened again, and Sepek appeared, his rifle at the ready. "The building's only a few hundred meters from here," he said. "There shouldn't be any problems."
"Very well." Chi'an gestured at the rest of the team to follow her, and silently they got up, climbing out of the hatch one after another without ever speaking a word.
The night air was cold, and Trip gripped his rifle harder as he looked around the small backyard. His senses seemed sharpened, a feeling similar to what he had experienced when they had run away from Orven's place. He wasn't afraid anymore, only very alert, aware of every smell and sound around him.
"Good luck."
Trip turned around and saw Lanja smiling at him. The Xyrillian doctor was still inside the shuttle, crouching next to the hatch with a small gun in his hand. They had agreed that Lanja was going to stay with the flitter, since the Xyrillian refused to use one of the rifles, and insisted on taking only a small hand pistol.
"I'm not going to use a weapon that can't be set on stun," he said, then added "I'm a doctor", as if that explained all about his reluctance to fight and kill.
Chi'an had accepted his refusal, and so no one mentioned it again.
Trip nodded in acknowledgement, and Lanja smiled, then pushed the button to close the hatch.
"Let's go."
Following Chi'an and Sepek, they made their way through the narrow passage leading to the alleyway Trip vaguely remembered from the time when Chi'an and Sepek had all but carried him back to the flitter. This time, he noticed the garbage and glass shards that were littered on the ground, and carefully walked around them so as not to cause any noise.
They passed the rest of the factory buildings, keeping close to the walls of the storage houses. In the meantime they had left the area that was lit by street lamps, and the ground was getting muddy, making it more difficult for them to watch where they were going. In a way, the place reminded Trip of an abandoned building site; there were rusty containers and crates half buried in the ground and filled with old rainwater, dried-up bushes growing everywhere between the discarded paper and bottles that covered the ground.
"There," Sepek said quietly. Trip raised his head. It was dark, but he could still make out the clear shape of a building only a hundred meters away, right in the middle of the muddy field. In comparison with the rest of the complex, it wasn't very large, no more than fifty or sixty meters in length. It had a flat roof, and no visible door - in fact, it looked more like a huge block of cement than anything else.
"The entrance is in the back." Sepek pointed with his rifle. "We'll have to walk around it."
"They might have scanners in there," Lerin said, her face shadowed by her hood so that only her mouth was visible. "What if they pick up our bio signs?"
"Gives us an advantage," Chi'an said calmly. "If they come out to see what's going on, we can shoot them one by one. And we'll be long gone before the police's here."
She nodded at Sepek and Trip. "We'll be the first to go in. The rest of you give us covering fire, then come after us."
As they approached the building, Trip noticed that his hands were shaking again - not with fear, but because of the pure adrenaline that was flooding his body. He half-expected, half wished for someone to come out of that building, give him a reason to use the phaser rifle whose handle felt warm on his cold, sweaty fingers.
Nothing happened, though, and there was no sign that anyone in there had noticed their presence. As Sepek had said, there was an entrance on the back of the building, a small door with a panel next to it on the wall.
Chi'an lifted her rifle, but before she pulled the trigger she threw Trip a last look. "Ready?"
He nodded, and she fired her gun, the panel bursting into flames. A smell of burning wire filled the air. The door hadn't opened, and Sepek forced the barrel of his gun between the door and the frame, using the rifle as a lever to push it open.
With Chi'an leading the way, she, Trip and Sepek entered a narrow corridor lit by white tubes that were embedded in the ceiling. Trip saw a door at the end of the hallway, with a sign written in Sar'veen letters.
"Wait!" Chi'an held up her hand, and only a split second later, the door opened. She never waited for the Sar'veen man to let out a scream, firing the instant he stepped into the corridor. Trip saw his eyes grow wide when the blast hit him square in the chest. He was slammed against the wall and dead before he even hit the ground, his chest one smoldering black wound.
"Come on!"
They broke into a run, dodging the dead body of the Sar'veen that was lying crumpled up on the floor. Another man came out, screaming and holding up his hands in a desperate gesture of defense before Sepek shot him as well.
Entering the room at the end of the corridor, Trip took a brief look around, his rifle at the ready. It was clearly some sort of lab, with a metal examination table in the middle and rows of shelves on the walls. For a moment, the bright light hurt his eyes, and he squinted, hearing someone scream and the breaking of glass.
When his vision cleared, he saw that there were three more Sar'veen in the room, one of them lying dead at Chi'an's feet, a puddle of pale orange blood spreading around him and pooling between the shards of broken lab equipment.
Chi'an raised her rifle again, and pointed it at the two remaining Sar'veen, a man and a woman clad in pale yellow coveralls. Both of them were backed up against the wall, their gray faces white with fear as they stared at the rifle pointed at their heads.
"Where are they?" Chi'an asked, and took a step towards them. "The prisoners. Where are they?"
"P-please don't shoot us," the man whispered, his voice breaking. "Please..."
"Where are they?" Sepek walked up to him until they were face-to-face, pushing the barrel of his gun into the man's stomach. The Sar'veen cried with pain and doubled up, arms wrapped around his mid section. Sepek grabbed his hair and yanked his head back up. "You bastard. Where are the prisoners?"
"You're not going to get away with this." The woman spoke up. Her voice was shaking, but she held her head high, meeting Chi'an's eyes. "Go on and shoot, but you're not going to get away with this."
"Where are the prisoners?" Chi'an raised her gun to bring it down on the woman's head, but suddenly the Sar'veen ducked past her and made a desperate run for the door.
"Shoot her!"
It happened very quickly. Reacting to Chi'an's cry, Trip raised his rifle and fired, not taking aim, only thinking that the woman had to be stopped. He hit her right in the back. Again, there was the sound of glass breaking as another equipment table was knocked over by the force of a dead body slamming into it. The various bottles and phials shattered on the floor, their contents filling the room with a sharp smell of acid.
Trip stared at the still body of the woman lying among the shards. She was dead, orange blood coming from the wound on her back and soaking her yellow coverall. She was dead, and he had killed her. Very slowly, he lowered his rifle, not able to take his eyes off the body on the floor in front of him.
"Where are the prisoners?"
Like a man in a dream, Trip turned around and saw Sepek forcing the Sar'veen man to his knees, pressing the muzzle of his gun against the man's temple. "Tell me!"
"P-please d-don't kill m-me," the man sobbed. "P-please, I didn't - I didn't want to do it, I was only doing m-my job, they'd've fired me if I hadn't-"
"Listen." Chi'an crouched down in front of the man so she could look him in the eyes. "Tell me where the prisoners are, and we won't kill you."
The man drew in a loud, gasping breath before he answered. "Th-they're in the back of the building," he said, pointing at a door at the far end of the room. "Through that door, down the corridor..."
"Good." Nodding at Sepek, Chi'an got up, and raised her gun one more time.
"No!" the Sar'veen screamed, his eyes wide with terror, and a moment later he dropped limply to one side, blood soaking the front of his coverall.
Chi'an never wasted another look on him, and followed Sepek to the door the man had pointed at. Trip didn't move, staring down at the blood on the floor. There was orange blood everywhere, on the floor, the walls, the tables, filling his world and making it impossible for him to look away. He had killed that woman. Fired his gun and shot her in the back.
"Come on, Tucker, we don't have time for that!" Chi'an was standing in the doorway, her eyebrows drawn together in a frown. "The police can be here any time."
Her voice brought him back to reality, and Trip was able to finally take his eyes off the dead body. Malcolm. He had to find Malcolm.
Following Sepek and Chi'an, he walked down a second hallway. There was another door at the end of it, and Chi'an fired her rifle. This time, the door opened immediately.
"Lights," Sepek said quietly. The ceiling lamps lit up, and illuminated a large room covered with white tiles. On either side, there were cells fronted by metal bars. A sharp smell of disinfectant and urine hung in the air, reminding Trip of the cargo hold back on the slave ship.
"Malcolm?" he asked, but there was no answer. His voice echoed strangely in the silent room. "Mal?"
Again, there was no reaction, and Trip took a few hesitant steps into the room. The first two cells were empty.
"There's someone in here." Sepek had walked past him, and pointed at one of the cells a little further down the corridor.
"Here."
Trip stepped closer.
Malcolm lay in the remotest corner of his cell, curled up in a fetal position. Trip fired at the lock to open the door, and in a single, swift stride was at his friend's side. Malcolm was naked, shivering violently, his arms wrapped around his upper body in a hopeless attempt to warm himself up. Strangely enough, his eyes were open, but he didn't look up as Trip approached.
"Malcolm!"
Crouching down next to him, Trip saw that Malcolm's arms and upper body were covered with dozens of small burn wounds, some of which looked more recent than the others. There was blood on his face and next to him on the floor, and he was lying in his own urine which was blood-stained as well. When he became aware of someone approaching, Malcolm tried to retreat further into the cell, bumping against the wall in his desperate attempt to get away. All the while he never made a sound or turned his head, even though his eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated with terror.
"Malcolm, it's me. Trip." Carefully, Trip extended a hand and touched Malcolm's shoulder. The Lieutenant's skin felt clammy and cold. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
At the touch of his hand, Malcolm shrank back, his eyes searching the room in a strangely aimless manner. Trip's breath caught in his throat when he realized that Malcolm could not see. He was blind.
"Malcolm." Trip tried to speak as soothingly as he could, gently tightening his grip on Malcolm's shoulder. "It's Trip. I'm going to get you out of here. It's okay, no one's going to hurt you."
Malcolm gave no sound, but he seemed to relax a little. Trip took off his jacket and wrapped it around the Lieutenant, very carefully so as not to hurt him. Malcolm offered no resistance, and gradually, the shivering subsided.
"We found two more." Chi'an's voice came from the door, and Trip turned around. In the meantime, the rest of the team had entered the building, and he saw Zha'Khor holding the limp, naked body of a Klingon woman in her arms. "Sepek's got the other one, but I don't think he's going to survive. He's hardly breathing."
"We need to get out of here," Trip heard Sepek's voice. "They're going to be here any minute if one of those bastards managed to activate the emergency signal."
"On my way." Trip turned back to Malcolm who had tensed at the sound of strange voices coming from outside the cell. "Malcolm, I'm going to take you out of here. There's nothin' to worry about, those people out there are... friends." For want of a better word. Trip wasn't sure if he actually considered Sepek and Chi'an his friends. "No one's going to hurt you. The people who did this to you are dead."
He slid one arm under Malcolm's legs, wrapped the other one around the Lieutenant's shoulders and lifted him up. Trip knew it must hurt, the coarse fabric of the jacket rubbing against the burned skin, but Malcolm never made a sound, only closed his eyes and rested his head on Trip's shoulder.
As he stepped out into the corridor, his eyes fell on the man in Sepek's arms. He was still very young, almost a boy, with thin ridges on either side of his face and the back of his hands. His skin was covered with an ugly rash, and the places where he had scratched himself raw were clearly visible in the bright light.
Chi'an had followed his eyes. "Well, at least he's not going to die in this place. Your friend alright?"
Trip nodded. Malcolm was going to survive, and right now, that was the only thing that mattered.
They left the building on the same way they had come, no one casting another look at the dead bodies or the blood spattered lab. Malcolm shivered when the cool night air hit his bare skin.
"We're almost there," Trip said quietly, feeling he had to let Malcolm know what was going on. "Back in the flitter it'll be a lot warmer. There's nothin' to worry about."
Trip didn't know why he kept saying this; Malcolm seemed past the point of worrying about anything, let alone reacting to reassurances. The Lieutenant's continued silence was unsettling, and briefly Trip wondered if they had done something so he had lost the ability to speak. But no, in that case Malcolm would at least have tried to produce a sound, which he hadn't. He was simply not responding, and Trip began to suspect that it was more than only a reaction to the physical shock he had suffered.
After only a short time, Trip's arms were aching with the heavy burden, and the still sore skin on his back had started to sting painfully, but he declined Lerin's offer to carry Malcolm the rest of the way. He knew the Lieutenant would be terrified if he handed him over to a stranger, even more so since he couldn't see what was going on. Trip kept talking softly, telling Malcolm the names of the people around him and describing their surroundings. The sound of his voice seemed to have a calming effect on the Lieutenant.
"We're there," Trip said quietly when they had finally reached the flitter. "I'm gonna take you inside now, okay?"
Unsurprisingly, Malcolm didn't give an answer to his question. Trip waited for Sepek to climb inside, then, with Lanja's help, lifted Malcolm through the hatch. The Xyrillian's face hardened when he saw the wounds on the naked bodies of the three rescued people. Silently, he helped Sepek, Trip and Zha'Khor lay them down in the back of the flitter, producing several blankets so they wouldn't have to lie on the cold floor.
Trip heard Chi'an start the shuttle, and felt a slight shudder as the flitter took off. Malcolm's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, and he was still shivering despite the thick blankets he was covered with. Lanja had taken only a brief look at him, then moved on to his other patients after assuring Trip with a quick nod that Malcolm was stable for the moment.
Rubbing the Lieutenant's hands in order to warm them up, Trip watched as the Xyrillian doctor examined the Klingon woman.
"She's going to survive," Lanja said after while, sat back on his heels and spread another blanket over the woman's naked body. "Like your friend, she's malnourished and badly dehydrated, and probably suffering from the after-effects of the drugs they injected her with. But she's tough. She'll pull through."
"Lanja." Sepek was kneeling next to the young man whose skin beneath the rash had turned a pale shade of gray. "I think his breathing has stopped."
Lanja felt his pulse, waited, and then let go of the too-thin wrist, gently pulling a blanket over the boy's face. "He's dead."
Trip looked back down at Malcolm whose eyes were still closed. His face was pale and glistening with sweat, and Trip reached out to brush back a strand of dark brown hair that had fallen across his forehead.
"You're gonna be alright," he said quietly. "Happy endings, remember? You're gonna be just fine. Now don't you give up on me, y'hear?"
At first, there was no reaction, but then, almost imperceptibly, Malcolm nodded his head. Yes.
"Good," Trip whispered, watching as his friend fell asleep, his breathing growing slow and even. And he wondered if Malcolm was ever going to speak again.
TBC...
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