CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Perhaps it's guilt. Perhaps he's seen enough casual cruelty for one mission. Perhaps the events of the past few hours mean he needs to cling ever tighter to the tattered remnants of civilised conduct because, goddammit this is who he is.
Whatever the reason, as he tightens the packing tape around the guard's slack wrists he finds he's trying to avoid the adhesive sticking to the dark hair under red sleeves. Because, Kirk thinks, that will hurt when he wakes up and tries to pull it off. If he wakes up. The man's skin is clammy, his breathing harsh and he hadn't put up much of a fight in the end. Which was just as well. Kirk's uncomfortably aware of his own limitations right now.
He checks his captive's fastenings one last time then sits back on his heels blinking away the black spots in his vision. He's not particularly proud of himself for succeeding with the oldest trick in the book. After all he'd barely had to feign the illness that persuaded the guard to lower the forcefield to investigate.
Jake is standing at the door, head swivelling.
"Anyone?"
The look out shakes his head and beckons impatiently. "Coast's clear. Let's go."
They step out into the passageway and into pools of light that flicker irregularly into shadow. The warm air shifts around them, scented with burning plastic. Down the centre of the tunnel rails gleam through black dust but there's no sign of the mining carts they're designed to carry. Yet these tracks have been used, Kirk thinks, and recently.
"This way." Jake starts in the direction that will take them up to the surface. But Kirk stops him with a hand on his upper arm.
"No. We need to go back."
"Back? Back to that room? Why?" A mutinous glint in blue eyes and perhaps just hint of panic. Kirk knows he's already lost some of his flagship commander gloss in the Jake's eyes. Watching someone collapse in a heap and then seeing them on their knees retching their guts out will do that. He bends to bring himself down to the boy's eye level, fingertips on shoulders, and addresses him man to man. Starship captain to son of starship captain.
"Listen, Jake. I need my communicator. It's there - in the control room, hidden, and I think I can fix it. We need to tell the Enterprise where we are." He glances up the passage into the shadows. "We don't know what's going on up on the surface. And we're unarmed."
A hesitation then Jake nods and turns.
"This way then. That's where they dragged..." he quirks an eyebrow, "that's where we came from."
He sets off with a determined stride but Kirk pulls him back and behind.
"Nice try. I'll lead."
Jake glowers at that but reluctantly falls back.
Kirk has never liked tunnels; has never felt the urge to go caving, to fold himself into underground spaces and learn a world by torchlight. It's not that he's claustrophobic, he tells himself, it's just that given the choice he'll always opt for a sky full of stars, an open rock-face and a view. He feels vulnerable here in this shadowed world of dark sludge and curving corners in a way he never does suspended over the void. And it's not just the absence of a phaser in his hand, or the pressure of gravity compressed rocks above his head where there should be space and sky. The fact is there's a small boy where his First Officer should be and he's never felt more exposed.
He's long ago given up trying to justify his preference for taking Spock along on almost every away mission - and it's been almost as long since Spock stopped quoting the regulation that cautions against both senior members of the command crew absenting themselves from the bridge at the same time. If challenged he would have pointed out that their results speak for themselves. But he's rarely challenged, at least not by anyone who holds command rank outside the Enterprise's sickbay. Success is apparently its own cloaking device in the upper echelons of Starfleet.
And now a voice is whispering in his ear that it's over. That the Vulcan shaped vacuum at his shoulder is permanent. That even now his friend's molecules are dispersing in the solar winds above a poisoned planet. Kirk closes his eyes against a pain in his chest and a gnawing hollow in the pit of his stomach, neither of which have anything to do with broken ribs or the after-effects of a toxic hypospray. And opens them again.
Nothing is certain, he reminds himself, including escape from their current predicament. And that, at least, just might be within his control. There will be time enough for regrets and recrimination.
They haven't gone far when they hear it - an explosion, muffled by the rock above them. Kirk stops, his hand against the tunnel wall to feel the vibration through his fingertips. Not close. But not far enough away either. He nods to Jake and they increase their pace, hugging the walls.
The second whumpf is close enough to shake clouds of black dust from walls and ceiling. And now he can hear voices directly ahead but out of sight.
He takes stock of their surroundings. It's just their luck that the lights in this part of the complex have chosen that moment to respond to the unseen percussive force by flickering to full intensity. But further ahead the rails curve into a shadowed side passage.
"This way."
They make the opening and swerve out of sight just in time. Kirk's none too gentle as he pushes Jake down into a crouch beside him, face first against the wall. Which means he can only estimate the numbers that pass as a blur of shouts and red shirts and running boots - twenty, twenty five? He wonders how many that leaves on the surface and what sort of state they're in.
As the noise recedes he keeps a hand on Jake's twitching shoulder.
"Wait..."
A last shout, the dying echo of footsteps. The air stills and his eyes become accustomed to the gloom in their side tunnel refuge. Which, he realises, isn't quite as gloomy ahead as it should be given there's no apparent light source above them. When his eyes follow the rails snaking away from the main passageway he's left with the strange impression of heat, of metal glowing red in the dark. He sniffs. There's an odd smell here, a unpleasant sweetness that reminds him of the decay they found in the warehouse. It's like chemical toffee at the back of his throat.
Jake coughs and the noise echoes off the walls making them both wince.
"Sorry," the boy mouths, but there's no reaction from the main passageway. Kirk gives a small reassuring shake of his head and stands slowly, still focused on the mystery ahead. Jake follows his gaze.
"What...?"
Kirk raises a finger to his lips and steps slowly forward. Not heat, he realises, light. The glow is a reflection. And he has a suspicion there's a reason the rails lead in this direction. He motions Jake to stay where he is as he moves further down the tunnel, but the crunch of boots behind him tells him he's been ignored. He's really going to have to work on restoring some respect for command ranks round here.
The first sign is the change in air temperature, a cool breeze on his cheek that hints at open space ahead and then, as he rounds the corner stepping carefully over the debris that litters the floor, the red glow is suddenly all around him, bathing him in bloody light.
There's a gasp from over his shoulder but he can barely draw breath, can only stand open mouthed, slowly tilting his head upwards and blinking as he tries to make sense of what he's seeing.
A cave, the height of a cathedral and the length of... well, he can't even begin to estimate the length because the far wall disappears into grey shadows. The deep red crystals are everywhere, hanging in cuboid stalactites from the roof, embedded in walls of fractured grey rock, smashed in fragments across the floor. Dangling cables link arc lamps set at crazy angles among the rocks and their light refracts and reflects in red and magenta shafts of varying intensity so it almost looks like a set for a stadium concert, with the main act being a reconstruction of Dante's Inferno. As his vision adjusts he can see the evidence of a mining operation interrupted – abandoned carts, the powerful teeth of a gem drill half buried in one wall. He remembers their journey to the control room, a warm Vulcan grip and a whispered warning. "Jim, I do not trust..."
Oh, Spock. You knew. Even then you knew.
"What... what's that red stuff?" Behind him Jake's awed voice brings him back to the now.
What indeed? In the absence of a tricorder, or a science officer at his shoulder all he has to go on is his own internal database and a jigsaw of memories.
He thinks back to the background notes for Deneb III, to the preliminary reports from the survey team, breathless excitement buried between the strata of dry geological data, to a briefing room screen, a deep voice and flickering graphs of spectral analysis. To the half truths told in an underground control room humming with static and menace.
"The surveys were correct - if anything they'd under-estimated the mineral wealth here."
And finally to an open briefcase and a hard face reflected in a red glow.
He looks around him at a world of grey dust and scarlet crystal and inhales a scent that takes him back to long forgotten chem labs.
"Beryllium. Beryllium crystal. Of course. We should have known."
-oOo-
