Chapter Three
Prisoners
As soon as they step from the stream Travis and Liz are roughly grabbed, their arms wrenched behind their backs. Each wrist is bound separately with a short cord, then their arms are crossed behind them and the cords tied tightly above their elbows. After the pain inflicted by the crash, this position is extremely uncomfortable.
During all this rough treatment, Liz can not pull her eyes from the still body of her friend. Grief vies with remorse, the grief of Tia's meaningless death on this stagnant, backwater planet with the pain she would have to convey to Charles Tucker – if she lived – of how his beloved had met her ignoble end.
She can barely contain her emotion as she and Travis are forced to continue their march. This was supposed to be a spore and flora gathering survey, a simple sample run. Now John Abrams and Tia Anlor are both dead, and neither Liz nor Travis can be sure of surviving the hour.
x
Arms bound tightly behind them, they are marched along the river bank at a rapid pace intended to prevent them from breaking away. Neither can hide from the other their grief. It is one thing to say they will have to bury their feelings in concentration on working out just how they will escape; quite another to actually do it.
The soldiers flank them on either side, the last two taking up the rear of the column. Then, without warning, the phalanx turns and start to ascend the left bank.
It is a difficult climb without the use of hands, but none of the soldiers is inclined to help, requiring a steady pace with all too clear signals of their rifles. At one point Travis tries to move closer to Elizabeth, but is warned away by the soldier on his left. Liz looks back with an expression of gratitude and warning on her bloodstained face.
Both her eyes are already darkened, dried blood having formed a rivulet down the left side of her face.
They reach the top of the deep valley without falling, an impressive enough accomplishment, but as they survey the rocky landscape – the line of forest on the other side of the valley – they are halted. They realize they had been turned around by the orientation of the shuttle following its rolling, bouncing crash, and had been following the path back from where they'd come. They realize that what had been the right bank from above the valley was now the left side as they retraced their path. Even if they had not been immediately captured, the decision to follow the river upstream would have led them into danger.
One of the soldiers kneels down upon the ground, doing something neither Liz nor Travis can see, but a moment later a five foot square section of rocky ground drops away from before them, opening on a hinge on the near side, the square trap door sloping away to reveal the mouth of a dark tunnel.
The Enterprise officers are impressed. Neither had noticed the camouflaged entrance.
x
Directed onto the trap door, they are herded into the tunnel, which continues to descend along a 45 degree incline seemingly hewn out of the bedrock. When all the soldiers are in the tunnel, the last does something to a well concealed control on the right wall and the trapdoor ascends into place, taking the light with it.
The tunnel which had seemed to descend forever before them into gloomy darkness now becomes black as pitch. Absolutely no light remains, and the darkness presses against their eyes with oppressive force. They are given no time to adjust or prepare themselves, but are roughly shoved forward, having to set a brisk pace to keep from falling.
Each can appreciate the strategy of this black tunnel, even if neither enjoys it. Any attacker who breached the outer 'door' and tried to descend would be backlit while defenders could fire upon them from the darkness, perhaps from unseen niches in the walls on either side of this steep tunnel. The plan is elegant in its simplicity, and they have to figure out how to get a cautionary warning to the Enterprise.
x
They descend for a long time, Travis counting the steps, before the surface beneath their feet changes from a sharp incline to the more familiar feeling of horizontal metal. They are marched several meters along this new surface before rough hands on their arms jerk them to a sudden stop. Behind them a heavy metal door slams with a deep, reverberating 'clang' of ominous finality and a searing burst of light assaults their eyes.
Unable to protect their eyes from the painfully intense light; their wide, dark-accustomed eyes seared in the first moment by the unexpected burst; they are blinded by the glare, yet dare not keep their eyes closed long. Squinting against the painful illumination, they are marched to their right and out of a metal chamber.
Travis, having seen just a tiny aspect of the room, can discern openings where walls lined with sharpshooters would catch their blinded prey in deadly crossfire.
When they come out, their eyes watering from the searing intensity, they can barely see in the more subdued light of the next chamber, unable to perceive anything through the visual ghosts imprinted on their stunned retina. It is several moments of blind walking before they can see anything at all, and what they finally manage to see is disheartening indeed.
x
They are passing through a long metal lined corridor, one of several that branch out at intersections set at regular intervals. Travis still tries to count the steps of their rapid march, in hopes of plotting an escape through searing light and blinding darkness to a concealed control and a run through unobstructed ground past unknown numbers of concealed defenses. It is not a pleasant plan.
The people they pass, intent on their own purposes, are without exception uniformed in brown material. There seems little to distinguish men from women; all wear the same design of clothing. There are a few distinctions in terms of patches or insignia that at the moment mean nothing to the Enterprise team, but on the whole the people they pass are all of a kind.
All regard the wet, blue uniformed newcomers with small measures of interest. Travis, in particular, seems notable to them; mostly, he suspects, because of his dark complexion.
There seem to be few differences in skin or hair among the soldiers they pass. They are distinctly humanoid, more so than many either had seen in a while, but all have a pallor that, in a human, would have indicated a long term lack of exposure to sunlight – but among these people neither can be sure. Their skin has a certain grayish tint to it that may or may not be natural, but with no one to compare it to the Enterprise team can draw no conclusions. Certainly Liz, with her long experience in biology, is not about to put forth even a conjecture, let alone a theory. Not yet.
They are struck, however, by the antipathy; or active dislike, on the face of every person they pass, coupled with a degree of satisfaction at the sight of Liz's bruised and bloodied features that neither of them likes. It seems as though there were nothing unusual, but quite gratifying, about a bloody prisoner being forced through the corridors.
x
They are marched for a long time through corridors, sometimes turning left, sometimes right. The signs on the walls and doors mean nothing to them, and each wishes that Hoshi Sato was with them now.
Finally they reach a non-descript door bearing an uninformative sign in a language made up mostly of sharp angles, no gentle curves at all. Without fanfare or announcement, it is opened and they are pushed in. The door slams shut behind them.
The room they find themselves alone in is completely bare. Neither believes either of these two conditions. But for the moment, the UT is gone too, and they can converse freely.
"Any idea where we are?" Liz asks.
"About half a kilometer from the Pod."
And how far down?"
"Walking 45 degrees, down the hypotenuse of a right triangle, as 'deep' as it is 'long'. By my count, we're a hundred fifty meters deep, and that far from the entrance."
"Mine too." She says, glad of the confirmation, her voice odd. "Then right ninety two meters, left twenty three; another left seventeen…"
"And then right eleven." He concludes.
"This looks like a military base, but it also looks to have been here for a long time."
"Did you notice their faces?"
"They aren't just distrustful, they don't just dislike us; they hate us."
"People generally don't hate me until they get to know me."
"That's not what Jen says." She quips.
"Very funny. How do you feel?"
"Well, as I said even my bruises have bruises from that damned harness; I can't breathe through my nose –."
"I noticed." He says with a wry grin, commenting on her nasal voice.
"Very funny." She retorts in turn. "But on the whole, I guess I could be worse." Neither of them explore this, thinking of the battered body of John Abrams in the shuttle, and of the young Auran left behind on the bank of the stream, both dead. Neither will willingly give into thoughts of their friends, doing their best to shut out grief – or at least to push it back while concerns of their own survival are paramount.
Neither will admit to the other that they cannot do so.
"Any guess what they want from us?" Liz asks after a few moments of silence burdened by sadness and regret. "You've been on a lot more landing parties than I have."
"Been captured by hostile forces a lot more than you have, too." He says ruefully. "It's never a pleasant experience. I think our only chance is going to be to co-operate, and try to contact the ship. Maybe we can negotiate."
"Can we get out of these ropes, first?"
"We can try." He gets behind her, trying to determine how the ropes are secured. Then they turn back to back, Travis trying to free her from memory.
x
They do not get the chance however, for a moment later the door flies open and several soldiers return and grab Travis, shoving Liz away where she falls onto the ground. She rolls through the fall, not hurt but very annoyed, hearing Travis' outraged protest over her rough treatment. She is unable to do anything except watch as they drag him out of the cell, slamming the door shut again.
Travis is forced along a long series of tunnels that he realizes must have been hewn out of the ground years before. They were once pristine, smooth and straight, but the packed dirt shows signs of considerable humidity and wear, and a general musty, airless smell pervades the entire establishment.
The lighting, now that he sees it through eyes not assaulted by blackness and intense light, is dimmer than Enterprise's. It is, however, impossible to tell yet if this is by design or necessity. He reminds himself that it is too soon to reach any conclusions.
During the trip, he sees indications that there is a considerable compliment of personnel here, now both uniformed and not. As he is forced deeper into the complex; he gets the sense that there are more people about than either of them had estimated, and that they have been there for a long time.
xxx
Deep in the ravine by the shallow river, the body of Tia Anlor lies upon the rocks, golden blood soaked into the front of her white powder bathed uniform from the wound in the center of her chest. She lies where she had fallen when she'd been unexpectedly shot, unmoving, not even her blood flowing any more.
Suddenly, with a sharp gasp, her golden eyes fly open and she winces tightly as searing pain flares through her chest. With terrible clarity she recalls the bullet she could not avoid slamming into her chest, knocking her off her feet, coming down hard on the rocks, her head striking one of them as light and pain both vanished.
She does not know how long she has lain there, only that she can not hear her friends, her head aches and her chest feels like a sledge hammer had slammed into her. This almost drowns out the dozens of aches from the rolling crash that had flung her over and over against the restraints of her seat; but every ache still announces itself with insistent clamor every time she tries to move.
She remembers being shot, can feel her breastbone broken, but the bullet obviously has not gone deeply, perhaps because it was slowed by that bone. She reaches up slowly, carefully, fighting the pain and touches her uniform. It is wet, and when she raises her hand it is covered in white powder drenched by cool golden blood.
She slowly raises her head, but it causes the pain in her chest to flare. More slowly, more cautiously, she raises her other hand to the point of pain behind her head. It is also wet, the flare of pain making her wince, and when she dares to move to bring her hand forward it too is smeared in golden blood.
"Krintax!" She breaths. She tilts her head back carefully, the pain in her chest protesting until she can see, well back behind her, the dented, smoldering and holed hull of Shuttlepod Two. She realizes that, if it is still smoldering, not too much time could have passed. She can not feel the bulk of the communicator in the sleeve pocket of her uniform, remembering it had been confiscated by the soldiers who had captured them. Even if their communications were no longer being jammed, she could not contact Enterprise that way.
'Li vas muur ti silpe.' She thinks, knowing if any help could be had, it is only by the Pod that she could get it; so she does 'have to reach it'. But it is easily two hundred val away, better than a hundred and eighty human meters!
Using her legs, she forces herself to turn over before she can reconsider, knowing if she lets herself do so her resolve would not fail, but she will hurt more by going slowly. She turns face down, feeling a melyk kick her chest. She winces tightly, her breath stolen in a blast of pain. She lies still, gasping for air, trying to force the pain to fade.
She does not allow herself to think about the pain but reaches out, enduring it as much as she can. She can barely breathe, and every time she takes a breath it only hurts more. Fighting the pain down, digging her fingers into the rocks, she brings her legs up carefully beside her and tries to get what foothold she can. Taking a deep, careful breath, holding it, she pulls and pushes herself forward.
Her pent up breath explodes in an agonized shriek.
xxx
High in orbit above the planet, Enterprise continues to search with all its sensors when suddenly Hoshi looks up with a start, vastly surprised by something she has heard. She quickly works the controls on her board, and this flurry of activity is not missed by Archer or the others. "What have you got, Lieutenant?"
"A moment sir, please." She temporizes, continuing her work. Archer does not interrupt again until her rapid motions slow. Finally she looks up at him.
"I'm sorry, sir. It was a brief signal, a burst only, but I was hoping I could trace the source. I'm afraid that the best I got from the sensor logs was a general direction, out in the direction of Mintaka." Mintaka, also known as Delta Orionis, is a binary star system seen from Earth as the seventh brightest stars in the constellation Orion, the Hunter.
"What was it?"
"A short phrase. It was so brief I'd almost missed it, and so compressed it came through as one word. But it said 'Auran nic edalii'." Now it is Archer's turn to be surprised, but the look on Tucker's face reflects far deeper astonishment.
"'Auran we are'." He breathes quietly. It is as if the impossible had just materialized and slapped him in the face.
"Is there any chance of mistake?" Archer asks Hoshi. This is a possibility he wants eliminated right away. They had been transmitting a hail for weeks, and before he allows the one person it would have the most meaning for to know about it, he is going to be certain it was genuine.
"No, sir." Hoshi says definitely. "It came through on the same frequency that we have been using to transmit sporadic bursts of 'Auranli edal'; 'Auran I am'. This is definitely a reply."
x
After they had learned of the existence of a party of refugees from the home planet of their alien 'guest' Tia Anlor, flying a stolen cruiser belonging to the race that had enslaved that planet; they had been transmitting a message on a very irregular interval. The message was sent in short bursts and on a frequency used by the Auran resistance movement but, hopefully, unknown to the Silurians. This had been going on for the past nine weeks, since shortly after Patricia McCabe had come aboard. It was a chancy thing, and uncertain of success. It depended on the Aurans who were fleeing to safety receiving the signal, trusting it to be from a safe source, and breaking radio silence long enough to reply.
If they were wrong, if the Silurians that were hunting them traced the message, or had actually sent it, then they would die.
x
"I don't think there will be any more, sir." Hoshi reports unnecessarily. "It was barely enough to establish a direction," she waves her left arm uncertainly, "toward that half of the galaxy."
He had not expected more. "All right, Lieutenant, transmit another burst. This time 'piggyback' our transponder code. If they trust us, let them come to us." There had never been a different plan. He looks at the planet upon the screen before them. "I just pray that we get her back to give her the 'good' news."
xxx
Travis Mayweather is brought along a confusing maze of tunnels. When his captors perceive he is counting the distance, or maybe it is by general caution, they bring him up, down and back numerous tunnels in an effort to confuse him with a welter of identical corridors, forcing him to count back to negate distances and revise his mental map.
Another man might get lost, might succumb to the confusing welter of directions and misdirections, but from birth on the Horizon he had been used to thinking in three 'unmapped' axis all his life – it would take more than these twists, turns and doubling back to disorient him. But it was becoming a long and uninformative walk, so he decided to allow a confused and bewildered – or frustrated – expression to cloud his features, whereupon the soldiers finally settled on a last few turns, bringing him to into an outer, then an inner office.
When they finally get to their destination, he has a clear picture of where he is, where Liz is, where the entrance to the tunnel is, and a healthy respect for the vast amount of mining needed to construct so vast a complex.
x
Both offices are set up as administrative establishments that have seen long use and better days. The light is dimmer than he would like, possibly the result of either diminishing resources or the levels these people are used to. It is generally dimmer throughout the establishment than is the daylight outside.
He tries to discern which it is, so that he can make his plans accordingly.
He is placed more forcefully than is necessary into a single chair set up before a massive desk, behind which sits a middle aged man wearing the ubiquitous brown uniform. It is of a finer cut than that of the other soldiers, containing more decorative emblems of rank or station.
Travis assumes this is the head man. He does not know their system of rank, but in his mind he terms this man 'Commandant'. His uniform is ornate enough for him to seem to be the one in charge; and for now that is good enough for Travis.
On the desk between them is arrayed the survival supplies from the shuttle, the confiscated trios of communicators, phase pistols and the UT. He notes the latter is active.
"Where am I?" Travis demands, trying to take the upper hand in addition to eliciting more words for the UT's matrix to decipher.
"We shall ask the questions." The officer retorts in sufficiently clear English. Apparently, the UT has obtained what it needed during conversations among the soldiers to allow translations. It is still like watching a badly dubbed movie, as the movement of lips does not match the words each side hears, but it is passable. The officer, surprised at first at having Travis' words repeated with barely an instant's delay from the small unit, picks it up. "Who are you?" He demands, mildly surprised to hear his words rendered virtually simultaneously into unintelligible gibberish which seems to mean something to the prisoner before him, for he responds in the same nonsense sounds.
"Ensign Travis Mayweather of the starship Enterprise." The device in his hand renders in turn.
x
The look the officer gives to his fellows as he puts down the UT is not good. Either they did not understand him, or they did not believe him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Transporting a Biological Research team from our ship. We were here to conduct a survey of this planet. We thought it was uninhabited." As per Captain Archer's standing instruction, he made no attempt at all to conceal anything nor to deceive his captors. He just hoped they understood sincerity.
"Who is with you?"
"Ensign Elizabeth Cutler is still with me. Lieutenant John Abrams was killed in the crash when you shot us down; and Crewwoman Tia Anlor was shot by your soldiers!" Travis can not contain his mounting anger at the losses of his friends. "What I want to know is WHY?"
"We shall ask the questions here, Ensign. For instance, your skin is very strange. Where are you from?"
"Earth." Again a brief exchange among the soldiers.
"We've never heard of Earth. Where is it?"
"It's a planet fifty seven point eight two light years from here." He gives them the coordinates in right ascension and declination, not certain if they would mean anything, but trying to show that he is being cooperative and telling the truth.
"Fifty seven light years? Are you a fool, or do you think us so? You don't look Manaxian, but I'm sure you are at least in their employ. I'll give you one last chance to cooperate. Where are you from, what are your orders and what is you mission?"
Travis' spirits sink. Are these people as brilliant as Hoshi's former 'pet' 'Sluggo'? "I already told you. We're from Earth – well, all but Tia and she's dead now! We're officers from the Starship Enterprise conducting exploration in this sector of the galaxy. My orders were to convey a group of Scientists from our Life Sciences department; Lt. John Abrams, Ensign Elizabeth Cutler and Crewwoman Tia Anlor, to conduct research on this uninhabited planet. Now Abrams and Anlor are dead. If you'll just let me contact my ship, I can prove all this."
Not willing to do this, the 'Commandant' turns to one of his men. "Bring the other."
When they leave, Travis continues to try to convince the men of the truth of his statements, but it is not getting far. "We know your craft is from the Manaxian stronghold; you came from there on a direct line for our base. What was your mission?"
"Look, I told you what our mission is: Exploration. If our flight path came along the path leading from the direction of these 'Manaxians', that's just a coincidence. We were flying over the fertile region, looking for a place with a suitably diverse eco-structure to get some scientific testing done and collect samples. We're humans, not Manaxians, whatever or whoever they are. We know nothing of your planet or culture. Enterprise is here to explore; nothing more. Our sensors did not detect you or your Manaxians. We thought this planet was uninhabited. We were obviously wrong. If you want us to, we'll leave and I promise you we'll never come back!"
xxx
The pain in Tia's chest has spread to become almost unendurable as she pushes forward along the rocky ravine, dragging herself first with one arm, then the other, using her free hand to try to keep her wounded chest from contact as she pushes herself with her legs along the rocky ground. Every motion, every breath, is torment. Her head aches from the lump on it, but that is nothing at all, lost in the searing agony that flares through her chest every time she moves either arm. When she propels herself forward barely half a val at a time, the flaring pain makes it feel as though she is getting shot over and over again.
She does not allow herself to look up, to gauge her progress. She had done that before, and her spirits had sunk at her woeful progress and the distance she has yet to traverse. Now she focuses only on the ground before her, just that in reach, trying to find the best handhold on a rock that would not give way in the dry riverbed that would help her make the most progress with every torturous pull of arm and thrust of legs.
She looks down, and is instantly sorry, seeing golden blood dripping onto the ground. Her exertions have reopened the barely closed wound. Just a little now, but worse to come if she keeps it up. Auran blood clots more quickly than humans', but she had just rested long enough for the blood to stop flowing, not to begin to heal. That would take days. She knows she should stop, give her body a chance to recover again, for the bleeding to stop, but she has no idea what her friends are suffering. She has to keep moving, but carefully.
If she overextends herself, she could reopen the wound to the point where she would bleed to death in the bottom of this forsaken ravine, and be of no help to her friends. Then again, if she does not reach the ship, there is no chance of helping anyone.
Reaching out carefully, digging her feet in, she tries to push more with her feet than pull herself; concentrating on just keeping off the ground. But her next choice of anchoring rock is bad; it gives way and she falls hard onto her protecting hand, onto the rocks, that triply kranstaat melyk kicking her with vicious force. She lays upon the ground, agony ripping her chest open, searing pain with every gasp. She tries to get her breath back, to control her breathing and the pain. It hurts too much even to breathe. The pain is so intense she can barely think. She does not want to move again, but she must.
She curses feelingly, fighting the temptation to give in to the bitter tears that threaten to well up in her eyes. Even beyond a lifetime of restraint – since the occupation it had been drummed into her from infancy that an Auran does not cry in public – her burning thirst stops her. She will not give in and waste a single drop of moisture.
After a long moment she dares to look up. "Xynatye!" A burst of pain joins the expletive ripped from her.
Still over fifty val to go.