Chapter 38 - Breakdown
"Team Oscar, we know you can't respond or risk giving away position . . . triangulate . . . four . . . hun . . ."
The radio cut out, making the darkness feel even darker. Kirk kept walking, feet scuffing with each step. He flipped his face plate fully down to see the monitors. The signal meter was strong, but the noise had jumped to match, overpowering with a signal block. They'd need to get higher and hope for line of sight, but that was too risky right now. They were trapped and on their own until further notice. Without coordination of their position and that of the targets, an additional team couldn't safely attempt to blast them out from under the shield thrown up by the enemy base.
Kirk and team slogged around another bend in the narrow canyon. The glow of the morning was coming on, lighting the dust at their feet. They had yet to reach the rendezvous point. Emitted infrared had guided them through the night, growing murky as the world cooled. The armor, the weapons, the packs, everything felt three times heavier than it should.
"Break, sir?"
Kirk turned, nearly lost his footing, stopped. He nodded. There was no shelter for the last hour and no reason to expect any upcoming. Any place would have to do.
Packs dropped, weapons were rested on butts. Groans and mutters as bodies sank down. People tore open snacks with their teeth and drank from canteens. Kirk remained standing, hand on weapon. He drank a bit of water, than drank a lot when he felt it outline his guts and course through him like life itself.
Daylight filled the sky. Kirk roused them all to loud groaning. Armored bodies stretched, grunted. Gazes glanced challenging Kirk's way, then glanced off to the sides, to equipment. Postures spoke of annoyance, reserved outbursts. They continued along the canyon in silence.
Kirk heard the unfamiliar sound at the same time as the others. Two of the crew backpedaled to the sides of the canyon. Kirk and three others raised weapons, turned slowly on toes.
Fire blasted across Kirk's faceplate, seared sand and blasted apart plants to either side of him. A keening sound began, oddly human, and not. Kirk launched into a run, pushing sand backwards as much as he propelled himself forward, reached harder ground and began zig zagging. Streaks of phaser fire chased him. He heard return fire from their own guns, lifted his own as he ran, spun and ran backwards, looking for a target.
A small enemy ship darted out of view over the edge of the canyon, reappeared seconds later farther down, firing again. It changed directions too fast to contain a humanoid without advanced gravity compensation. Kirk followed it with his rifle, fired repeatedly. It went out of sight again.
"Cover!" Kirk yelled this despite the lack of available cover. He waved to indicate they should scatter out of the area, around the surrounding bends. Running footsteps came alongside Kirk. He turned back, saw a figure on its knees in the middle of wash of the canyon, gloved hands holding his helmet above and behind his head as if about to throw it overhand.
"Kilpea!" Kirk waved the others to go on. "Get to cover!"
The ship flitted overhead again. Blaster fire burned grooves of molten glass across the wash's surface. Kilpea remained fixed, head vulnerable, through the barrage, miraculously untouched.
Kirk scrambled back to him, straight down the center of the canyon. The ship overhead curved to follow. Kirk fired without shouldering his rifle. Dearly hoped his sense that the ship veered away was correct.
Kirk reached Kilpea, grabbed him under one armored arm as he passed. Kilpea was light, his body came free from the earth, toppled backward. He did nothing to stop the movement, fell on his back, dragged Kirk down with him. The barrage came again, tossing molten embers mixed with sand at them in radial bursts.
Kirk bent double over Kilpea, felt his backplate armor flare with heat as a blast crossed over him. Kirk pushed up, grabbed Kilpea by the edge of the plate on his chest and hauled him up. Another figure came in, took Kilpea's arm over his shoulder and hauled up. Ranran.
"I ordered you into cover," Kirk spat, mostly because he didn't expect him or anyone else and it unnerved him to fail to know where yet another thing was supposed to be.
"Yes sir."
Their voices wobbled with their running, each supporting Kilpea's arms. Kilpea kept trying to pull his legs up, pull into a fetal position. "No. No," he kept saying.
They rounded the first sharp bend of the canyon into a deeper, narrower gorge half blocked by waist-high fallen boulders, fully in shade. The rest of their small team were here, weapons at ready. The overhead warble came again. There was no way of going farther, dragging a man, and likely no cover ahead.
"Everyone down. Close up gaps in armor. Go silent."
Kilpea dropped as soon as he was released. Kirk and Ranran crouched close beside him. Kirk did as he ordered the others, pulled himself into a ball, knees wide and high. He couldn't breath well in this position but didn't relax it.
"No more. No more."
Kilpea fought against Ranran's attempts to put his helmet back over his head. Kirk yanked Kilpea into the curl of his body and bent over him to shield him from view and from fire. The ship darted overhead and kept going, firing twice at the wall of the canyon. They all remained still as it went on, sound fading, increasing, fading again. Trapped in Kirk's lap, Kilpea continued his mantra of pained denials. Kirk pulled his hand out of his glove and pinched the back of Kilpea's tightly corded neck, half a caress, half a rebuke. Kilpea fell still.
The ship darted overhead again, swept out farther along the canyon. The warbling surged and faded, firing sounded from a klick away, but the ship didn't reappear. No one moved for a long time.
Kirk decided the ship wasn't returning. He sat up, only then realizing that Ranran had been holding Kilpea's helmet over Kirk's back.
Ranran set the helmet aside. "Your armor's carbonized, sir."
The signal blocking would no longer be working across the damaged plates. His quick thinking had kept them invisible, as had Kilpea refusing the helmet.
"Thanks. Well done," Kirk said.
Kilpea's eyes were open but he appeared on the verge of catatonic. He remained flopped in Kirk's lap. Kirk's own limbs felt as lacking in will as Kilpea appeared to be. The others saw to their equipment with slow movements, half ignored their comrade draped over their commander. No one asked what their next orders were. Kilpea showed no signs of returning to himself.
Kirk didn't have a full medic with his team, only Verna, a low-level tech with a kit and minimal training.
Kirk caught his eye. "Got anything we can give him to keep him calm but still compliant with instructions?"
Verna bit his white lips. He stumbled over and knelt at Kirk's feet. He took out a hand scanner. Kirk released Kilpea's neck, which he had been still slowly massaging.
"No more," Kilpea said, almost factually. He fumbled around his belt.
Kirk and Verna moved at the same time to restrain Kilpea's hands and systematically removed his weapons from his person. Ranran dropped to his knees and emptied Kilpea's belt of everything else, inspecting each thing before putting it in his own kit bag.
Kirk held onto Kilpea, who tossed his head. Kirk said, "Mine too. He can get at mine as well."
Ranran hesitated but complied, taking all of Kirk's equipment onto his own belt.
Kirk scanned the sky. With the angle of the canyon, they'd be in shade for several hours.
"This is what we're going to do. There are six of us. Three are going on to the rendezvous. One will stay with me and Kilpea. Who wants to go?"
Two hands went up.
"Ranran, go along. I'm putting you in charge. Hand my stuff to Verna, who'll stay. I want you to find the team who went to the gun emplacement. If that means tracing their steps there, do so. If you get there and don't find them, return here. If you do find them, return here. Any questions?"
"No, sir, that's pretty clear."
Kirk rested one hand on Kilpea's spotted blond over brown buzzed hair. He was tall, but narrow, and had gone limp inside his armor. Kirk shifted his left leg, the only one he was free to move. Verna took up a position half in the light, propped up on a rock. He sighed bodily.
The departing trio established their plans where Kirk could hear them, then moved out.
Kilpea put his hands over his head and tried to curl up. Kirk shifted, let him lay on the ground instead of his leg, but kept a hand on his neck.
"I just want it. All. To. Stop," he said into the fold of his arms.
"It will eventually, for all of us," Kirk said. "No need to rush it. It will come."
Verna studied Kirk openly, even after Kirk fixed his gaze on him in return. Kirk's emotions were on hold. He hesitated examining them, wondering if he'd find acute disappointment in himself for his predicament, for his falling far short of what he had been so certain he could do. He didn't feel much of anything. He was going to get Kilpea through this. It seemed like the job most needing attention that he could manage right now.
Kirk rested his head back on the rock behind him and closed his eyes. He dozed instantly, his exhausted mind snatching at sleep as soon as it was offered.
"Sir?"
Kirk lifted his head. He was hot, very hot. The sun was shining across his shoulder and the side of his head. Kilpea was asleep in the shade of a boulder, with Kirk's hand on his ankle under the flexarmor at the top of the boot. Kirk didn't remember taking hold of him there.
Verna was standing up, brushing off, taking up his kit and rifle. Kirk rocked onto his knees and checked Kilpea's breathing. Voices and muted crunching footsteps made him lift his head. His team and the team assigned to attack the gun emplacement were entering their small area of canyon.
Kirk rocked back on his feet, but didn't stand, remained kneeling beside Kilpea. Lieutenant Uirik stepped through the crowd to take the lead, followed by Hummer and Jon carrying someone on a stretcher, someone worrisomely lifeless.
Uirick slipped off her helmet, rolled it into the crux of her arm. Her hair didn't flow out, but remained bundled and filthy at her neck. "Lost Hun, sir, on the initial approach to the gun. There was a trap we didn't see." She stared hard at the ground, "I didn't see."
Hungren was lowered to a shady spot on the scree at the edge of the canyon. His lips had the purple color of a body injected with stabilizer to prevent tissues from breaking down. Kirk nodded, put his hands on the armor covering his thighs. He felt both heavy and light, burdened and weightless.
Uirick seemed to be looking for more words.
Kirk said, "We need to send someone to meet up with the other team. Pick three. The rest will spread out along the canyon here in small groups."
She stared down at Kilpea as she nodded.
Hummer headed a fireteam that headed off. Uirick hadn't chosen herself to go as Kirk had expected.
Kirk sat beside Kilpea, forced him to drink nutrient water every half hour, stilled him with a tight hold on the back of his neck when he began chanting or keening. The bulk of the team rested or did inventory, or minor repairs on equipment or bodies. The hum of their conversation rolled around Kirk, not despairing or frustrated or even scared, just present, doing what was necessary without strain or complaint.
Kirk watched Bark out of the corner of his eye for a time. He was smiling at something Ranran was saying. They could be at base camp. They certainly didn't seem to be trapped inside enemy territory stuck under a commander with no plan.
Huey came over, crouched opposite Kirk. "Sure you don't want to T him?"
She meant a tranquilizer, Kirk assumed. "We might need him aware enough to move fast."
Huey's hands drooped between her knees. She stared at Kirk's hand on the back of Kilpea's neck. "I tried to save Hungren, sir. Did what's in the procedure. But I wonder if I could have tried longer to revive." She paused. A breeze ruffled her collar. "I could have stayed with him when we retreated. I tried to. I didn't have to obey."
"All you can do is promise to do your best next time. But don't over-learn from one incident. That's just as dangerous. Every situation is different."
"I'm assigned to medic, but I'm not one, really. But it's still on me."
Kirk adjusted which of his legs were bent, tried to get comfortable. He noticed the other conversations had quieted. Kirk dropped his voice. "You do the best with what you have, Ensign." Kirk couldn't resist voicing what he wanted someone higher up to say to him, were that person available.
She nodded vaguely and stood up. The medkit and other life-saving equipment had been stowed on the stretcher with the corpse. She stared down for a time before unstrapping everything with deliberate movements.
Conversation resumed. Team members settled in. Taking his time so as to not be caught doing it, Kirk watched each of them. The general mood didn't match their situation, at all. Where was the overwrought stress, the exhaustion, the lack of immediate hope for improvement? How could he be failing to understand something this important?
"Bark, Ranran. Over here."
Conversation stopped, and the two ambled over. Kirk studied faces. They were smeared with gray mud, lined with stress, but neutral, if not easy going.
"I want to talk this out," Kirk said. He wasn't sure what he'd intended to say. He had to cover. He needed a plan. "The base over there . . . It doesn't make sense."
Kirk looked down at the back of Kilpea's head, wondering if he could draw the distraught young man out since he was the expert on local politics.
"Why attack us?" Kirk said. This had been bothering him for a while.
"Sir?"
"I don't mean just now, I mean days ago. We were fired on from an emplacement controlled from this base. But this base is, we have already supposed, being held in reserve for when the Federation gives up and goes home." Kirk squeezed Kilpea's neck, but he remained silent. "Right?"
The two of them stood with the expressions all soldiers got when asked for an opinion beyond their current, far more important, concerns. Hummer's views Kirk trusted, but he'd gone off with the fireteam.
"So…" Kirk said. "I wonder if it's not automated, this base. By walking in, on foot, we appeared to be their old enemies, not Federation. If they detected Skuttles or other ships approaching, they'd have remained silent, invisible as possible."
Ranran toed the dirt. "Makes sense, I guess."
Kirk drew in a breath. "Does make sense. But what's it mean for us here. That's the question."
"Someone could Rock Bust the base for us. Tunneling torpedo."
"They could, but they'd risk hitting us doing it." Kirk said. "We're in the way." Kirk shook his head. "I have to assume the enemy base didn't make a rational decision because there wasn't anyone there to make one. Just a simple AI, deciding we weren't Federation and trying to repel us."
"You suggested a ground assault because no one would expect it." Ranran stood straighter. "Sir."
"I did. I was wrong. It triggered the base to come alive."
Their eyes drifted to Kilpea, there on the ground. Kirk patted his armor, looked up at Ranran and Bark. "Need anything from me?"
"No, sir." Again, that strange easy going tone, like they were old friends and would forgive a lot.
The pair moved off to where one fallen boulder propped on another provided some cover.
Kirk waved an insect away from Kilpea's ear and toyed with strategies to get them out from under the shield. They may have to retreat to the edge and signal their location so an attack could happen without putting them too much at risk. Retreat and rely entirely on help, with a body and a psych breakdown in tow. But still alive and that was what mattered.
