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Fire on the Mountain
USS Nautilus: Shuttle One Crew, Senior Science Officer Carlin Agran's Log, Supplemental:
Doctor Mor and I have been captured by a group of survivors working together for unknown purposes. They're a motley group…armed, strong, violent…led by a Klingon who seems to delight in causing pain.
I have to get away from these people! I have to meet up with Antori—whatever it takes…supposing he hasn't been captured as well…
The Klingon forced Carlin up the path about a kilometer, continually pulling on her bound arms. She struggled, but there was not much she could do to resist him without hurting herself. Behind her, the Nausicaan and the skinny Romulan prodded Doctor Mor up the path, laughing when the Ferengi squealed in terror or pain. The Klingon did not seem so amused though. He kept muttering under his breath in Klingonese. Carlin found herself wishing she'd taken Antori's advice to learn Klingonese herself: maybe then she'd know what her captor was saying. Then again, maybe I'd rather not know!
Just then, her captor uttered what sounded like a particularly vile oath and dragged Carlin into a small clearing lit by torches and under-powered palm beacons. Half a dozen men stood around. There was a Human, a Deltan, two Romulans, a Ferasan, and an Orion. All of them were thin, well-muscled and raggedly dressed. Carlin's face flushed as she felt her body respond to the pheromones of the Orion and the Deltan. Focus, she scolded herself, These men are also all armed, and clearly associates of the Klingon who's been pulling your arms off for the past fifteen minutes. They were armed, though their weapons were as eclectic a mix as their species, including everything from knives and bows to what looked like a reassembled Cardassian phaser.
"Who are you people?" Carlin demanded. "What do you want from us?"
"Silence!" the Klingon behind her growled. He shoved her aside and stepped toward the leader of the new group of survivors, which looked to be the Human. "What are you doing here?"
"Father Matan said there was a third crash survivor hiding out in these ruins," said the Human, grinning. "I thought you could use a hand, Brother Vamdar, so I called together a hunting party of my own."
Matan! Carlin's stomach went cold. The odds weren't good of two men of the same name being on an island of multi-racial crash survivors like this. So these are the people who have Sam…
Meanwhile, the Klingon, Vamdar, snarled at the Human. "Fine, Brother, watch these two while we find the last Outsider." He pushed Carlin over. "If they give you any trouble, kill them. We'll do the same when we find their friend."
Wait, the last Outsider—he means Antori! Her mind whirled in pain and panic. "Don't hurt him, please!"
Vamdar turned on her, dragging her roughly to her feet by jerking on her arms. "I said silence, be'Hom!" He shoved her back against a tree and struck her with a backhanded blow. Then, he stepped in closer, placing one hand on her neck. He muttered something to her in Klingonese, and Carlin was suddenly very glad she didn't understand the language. The way he was tipping up her chin gave her the shivers. She tried to pull away, but he seized her shoulders roughly and slammed her against the tree. For a stunned second, her eyes met his, and mix of lust and hatred she saw there terrified her. If she hadn't been dazed from the blow, she might have screamed.
"Let her go!" she heard the Deltan say. "You know the Father's orders. He wants them unharmed!"
Vamdar growled. "Nobody tells me about Matan's orders!"
"Let her go!" said the Deltan.
Vamdar drew his disruptor and turned in one smooth motion. He kept Carlin pinned against the tree with one hand and casually shot the Deltan in the face with the other.
For a moment, everyone was frozen. Mor started screaming. Carlin would have screamed herself, but the blow seemed to have knocked it out of her. Instead, she saw the shocked faces of their captors and recognized an opportunity to escape. "Mor, run!" she shouted. She tried to run herself, but couldn't break free of Vamdar's hold. No one was restraining the Ferengi, though. Mor went into a half-crouch and bolted, shrieking, into the ruins.
Vamdar cursed and fired at him. Two disruptor bolts went wide, shattering stone and wood. He waved to the other men. "After him!" he shouted. "Brother John, if you have any more friends, now would be the time."
The Human nodded, pulling out a heavily modified communicator. "The Ferengi makes two Outsiders in the ruins. They'll be difficult to search."
"Then burn them out!" said Vamdar. "Burn them out and kill them!"
The Human smiled and rushed into the ruins, shouting orders to the other men, who followed him.
Vamdar turned to Carlin and struck her hard. Carlin fell headlong and spat blood. "Don't you move, jay'!" Before she could even think about recovering, he turned and stalked into the ruins, his disruptor drawn. "ChaH HoH! Kill them all!"
Carlin struggled back to her feet. Already, she could see fires spreading among the wooden structures of the ruins. The occasional beam of a beacon gave away the presence of the hunting party. I have to get away! Her mind raced. Antori was somewhere in these ruins, further up the mountain. She could see the outcrop he'd picked out as the rendezvous point through the rising smoke. It was less than a kilometer away—but between her and it were the blazing ruins and the hunting party.
"Hey, bring up the prisoner!" she heard someone shout.
"Yeah, I'm on it!" said another voice.
Carlin looked for a place to hide. There were plenty of bushes, but they'd expect that, and the only direction a chase through the woods could lead her would be away from Antori-and with her hands bound like this, the chase wouldn't last long! Instead, she settled on a short stone wall running along near the edge of the ruins. She saw the beam of a beacon descending the slope toward her and she dashed to the opposite side of the wall and pressed herself against it. Boots crunched the rough soil on the other side of the wall. Don't make a sound! She told herself. The footsteps passed on, heading down the slope, toward the clearing and the treeline beyond.
"I can't find her, she's gone!" came a shout from the clearing a second later.
"Well keep looking! She can't have gone far," said the first voice.
A quick glance over her shoulder showed beacon-light sweeping the forest in the direction she'd come from. Just like I'd expected, she thought, but there was no time to congratulate herself. She scrambled up the slope and into the ruins, keeping low.
She saw beacons up ahead and she ducked behind another stone wall. There were two men there, scanning the ruins. One of the beams swept her hiding place and she barely ducked in time. Even so, the man must have caught a hint of movement. She could hear him stepping closer.
Then, she heard Vamdar shout, "There! We found him!"
Carlin heard a Ferengi squeal, followed by someone shouting, "We've got a runner in the trap!" The two men in front of her turned and raced away. She heard disruptor-fire from that direction, and she could only hope the shots were misses. For the moment, she had to concentrate on herself.
She dashed around the corner and up a path between two ruined stone foundations. There was a hut up ahead, partially collapsed, and she saw beacon-light further up the path. She ducked into the hut. A moment later, a pair of hunters passed on the other side.
"This smoke is playing tricks with my sense of smell," one of them said. From the growl in his voice, Carlin guessed it was the Ferasin.
"It's not the only thing playing tricks tonight," said the other. "Did you see that Ferengi move?"
"Yes…this group's got some fight in them. We're going to have to kill most of them," said the Ferasin.
"Too bad," said the other hunter. "We could have used some new recruits."
"The Ferengi?" the Ferasin snorted. "You must be joking!"
"Not all of them are Ferengi," said the other.
Carlin didn't care to listen to the rest. The pair was past the hut and their back was to her now. She ran out of the hut and further into the ruins. She glanced up to make sure she was still headed for the outcrop. She was. The path sloped upward through the ruins, and she followed it.
"Hey, the girl's missing!" someone shouted from below. "Keep an eye out!"
"Check the huts!" shouted Vamdar. She heard crashing in the ruins behind her and to her right. "Ha' jay'! Come out!"
Carlin dashed forward, away from the Klingon, but she caught sight of torchlight ahead. The Nausicaan and one of the Romulans were searching a collapsed hut, kicking down the walls. Carlin shrank back around a corner.
"This one's clear!" the Nausicaan declared after a few moments. "Keep moving up the mountain!"
Carlin waited a few moments longer, but the crashing behind her warned her that Vamdar was not far behind. She rushed around the corner and slipped herself sideways between the damaged boards of the hut the two hunters had just left. I should be safe here. They won't think to search here again. At least, she hoped not.
No sooner had she thought that, than she heard Vamdar stalking toward the hut. She could hear him, swearing confidently in Klingonese. She could see his outline in the firelight through the numerous gaps in the wooden walls. She closed her eyes and tried to squeeze herself against the stone wall behind her, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. His boots crunched in the gravel, stopping, turning. She thought for a moment he'd left and allowed herself to open her eyes. She couldn't see him. She let herself sigh in relief. She should have known better.
"No one escapes!" said a voice that was almost beside her. Vamdar was there, at the entrance where she'd squeezed in. His disruptor was drawn, pointing at her. "Out, petaQ!"
Carlin swallowed. She had no choice. It was either go out to him or be killed where she stood. She stepped slowly out, squeezing through the boards as she'd come in.
Vamdar kept her covered with disruptor until she was out, then holstered it with practiced ease. He pushed her back against the wall with one hand on her shoulder, while the other hand wandered down her side. "I always find them." He smiled, showing teeth. The same mix of lust and hatred he'd seen in his eyes earlier was there now.
Carlin had no desire to find out what that meant. She didn't think she'd survive if she did! Her legs were between his, though, so she brought her knee up, hard. Klingon reproductive anatomy was as sensitive as that of most humanoids—some said even more so. Vamdar's was no exception. The blow made him grunt and double over. Carlin used the momentary distraction to make a run for it, but the Klingon was too fast. He grabbed her arm from behind and slung her back into the wall. For a moment, the blow stunned her. Vamdar leaned close, hissing into her ear in Klingonese. Judging from his tone, it was not something she wanted translated.
Carlin's mind whirled. She remembered training with Antori. When your options are limited, use whatever weapons you have and look for your opponent's weak spot, he'd told her. Even unarmed, no one is defenseless. Nails and teeth are two weapons evolution has seen fit to give most humanoids from birth. If you're in a life or death situation, don't hesitate to use them!
Right now she could feel Vamdar's hands closing around her neck, steadily increasing pressure. It was getting hard to breathe. He was still whispering in her ear, and that put his own left ear mere centimeters from her face. External ears were sensitive and made of mostly soft tissues—a weakness on any humanoid who possessed them. Carlin exploited it, biting down with her teeth till she tasted blood.
Vamdar screamed and pulled his head away, releasing her. He staggered backward, feeling his ear for damage. Carlin spat, disgusted. In a second, he'd be back, and then he'd finish her. When your opponent is off-balance, try to keep him that way, Antori had told her. She took his advice literally, charging at the larger Klingon, driving into his torso with her shoulder. Together, they fell to the ground. His disruptor clattered free of its holster, tumbling away. The movement caught her eye. She rolled off of Vamdar and dove for the weapon. He grabbed at her arms, but only managed to catch her bindings, tearing them. A moment later, she wormed her right hand loose and grabbed the disruptor.
There was no time then to stand and aim. Vamdar was already back on his feet, rushing at her. Carlin rolled over, raising the weapon as best she could and firing. The blast caught Vamdar in the abdomen, but he seemed beyond caring. He tackled her, grabbing for the disruptor, trying to wrestle it away from her. Carlin held on tight and shoved the emitter away from her face. As she did so, her finger squeezed the trigger and the disruptor fired. The blast caught Vamdar on the forehead, scorching through tissue and bone. He collapsed, and she shoved him off of her, struggling to her feet. She trained the disruptor on him again. He was still breathing—gasping—but he did not move. A few seconds later, even the breathing stopped and he lay dead.
Carlin lowered the disruptor and sank to her knees. Sobs forced their way out of her, becoming coughs as they hit her windpipe, where the Klingon had crushed it. She was alive, and the Klingon was dead—she'd killed him. She'd never killed anyone before, and this…it was too much! Oh, God! Her thoughts cried out. Antori didn't believe in gods, Sam did, and Carlin had always tried to stay away from the question. But if ever there was a time she needed a god of protection or forgiveness…
She shoved the thought aside. Philosophize on the way home, Antori had taught her. In a dangerous situation, you need all your wits concentrating on the here and now, in order to keep yourself alive. She had never quite agreed with his words on the subject, but she saw their value now. She was still in the ruins, fire and enemies all around her, and Antori was still somewhere up ahead, supposing she wasn't the only one left. Judging from the shouts of the continued search around her, she had to guess she wasn't.
Someone might have heard those disruptor shots, I need to get moving. Carlin pulled the holster off of the Klingon's belt and fastened it to her own. Then she continued up the slope, running in a crouch and sticking to cover as much as possible. The path turned and lead to a bridge, then to a stairway of cut stone. This in turn lead to a large wooden archway, set partially ablaze. Carlin made her way through it. There was a courtyard beyond. It was open and well lit because of the firelight. Only a few large stones offered any sort of cover. Carlin stepped out carefully.
Suddenly, something streaked past her. Pain exploded in her right arm. She tumbled and fell behind one of the rocks.
"I got one!" shouted a voice from the other side of the courtyard. "She went down over there."
"Is she dead?" asked a second voice.
"I don't know. Let's find out!" Boots stepped closer.
Carlin checked herself for injury. There was a clean cut in the upper sleeve of her uniform, and a matching cut on her arm beneath. An arrow was lodged in the ground not far from where she'd fallen. Primitive, but effective, she thought. Fortunately, in her case, it hadn't been too effective. The cut was not deep and the arm was still usable—though judging from the ease with which the arrow had cut her with a graze, her survival was probably more due to bad aim on the first shot than any ineffectiveness of the weapon itself. The second shot could well be fatal.
"Outsider! We know you're here!" the archer shouted. "There's nowhere to run!" The steps were coming closer, angling around her to the left. Whoever shot her the first time was intent on getting a second shot—and there was only one way to stop him.
Carlin gritted her teeth, raised her disruptor and rose, pivoting to face her attacker. It was the skinny Romulan. His bow was half drawn, but he obviously had not expected her to rise, or expected her to be armed. "Fvadt!" he shouted, trying to duck and draw his bow the rest of the way at the same time. She fired. The Romulan went down.
She heard something behind her and she spun. There was a second Romulan, less than seven meters away and wielding a knife. "Stay away from me!" she warned, but the Romulan didn't listen. Instead, he charged, counting on his speed to catch her before she could fire. It was a mistake. She and Antori had done a lot of training on fighting melee opponents using ranged weapons. Carlin dove sideways and fired. The Romulan never stood a chance.
Carlin heard shouting behind her. Beacons bounced up the stairway, coming toward her. One of them caught her in its light. "There she is!" someone shouted.
Carlin ran, dashing across the courtyard. The only way out was through one of the sets of ornate wooden doors set into the walls that surrounded the courtyard. She pulled open one of the heavy doors and squeezed inside. The hunters were right behind her. "Kill her!" she heard one of them say.
"Burn her out!" said a second. A bottle crashed against the door as she pushed it closed. She smelled alcohol, then smoke. Her hands flinched away from the heat as the door was consumed.
"You're gonna die in there!" one of the hunters called, from the other side.
At the moment, Carlin had to agree. The flame was spreading quickly and smoke was starting to fill the room. She coughed, searching for a way out. All she could see was a portion of the wall opposite the door that had been weakened at the bottom. She fired a blast with her disruptor, blowing a hole in the wall. She scrambled through quickly, gasping in the night air. Behind her, flames devoured the structure. She moved away from it quickly before trying to reorient herself.
"I don't hear anyone," one of the hunters called out from behind her. "What do you think?"
"She's probably dead," said another.
"Matan will want a body for the girl," said another.
"Then keep looking," said the first. "Check the other huts. We'll come back to this one when it burns out!"
Carlin found the stone outcrop and started making her way up the slope again, through the ruins. Ahead of her, she saw a beacon flash across the landscape. She ducked behind a wooden handcart—too busy for the moment to even be curious as to what it was doing there. The man with the beacon didn't see her.
"Did you find them down there?" he called to the other hunters.
"No, nothing, but keep your eye out! The fires may send them your way!" came the reply.
Carlin peeked around the handcart. The man with the beacon stood at the top of a short stair, his position giving him a good view of the ruins below. His light swept back and forth across the path regularly. She ducked back behind the handcart before it could land on her. She wouldn't have any trouble hiding from him, but getting past him was another matter. I could circle around, but that might take hours—and besides, there are the other hunting parties. This fellow seems to be alone. She would have to take him out.
She hefted the disruptor pistol. Already, she had killed three men with it tonight. She didn't want to think about it—not now, not ever!—but she did know that when she'd killed them there'd been no time for alternatives: it was either kill or be killed. This was different. The guard at the top of the stairs wasn't going anywhere, and while he'd probably try to kill her if he could, he didn't even know she was there. I may have a clean shot, but taking it isn't self-defense: it's murder. She couldn't justify that, not even against these people. She turned the disruptor on its side to access the fire-selector like Antori had taught her, but found it was smashed. Great, so it's stuck on "kill" or whatever this setting is. That meant the disruptor was out of the question.
There has to be an alternative! Suddenly, she felt a weight on her back. She reached around and produced her medkit from the shuttle. She had forgotten all about it! That's right, the Klingon only took my weapons when he tackled me back by the gate. Apparently, he hadn't been interested in the medical supplies in her kit. He'd also left her tricorder and her combadge—though given how much trouble the polaric radiation was giving those two, she could hardly blame him for the oversight.
The medkit might give me a chance at a non-lethal option. I've got plenty of sedatives in here, she thought, opening the kit and removing a hypospray. I'll need to know the man's species, though, or I could easily poison him on accident. Just then, the wind shifted, blowing down off the mountain, and carrying with it a musty scent from not far away. The embarrassing tingle she felt in response to that scent gave her all the answer she needed. Orion male: definitely an Orion male. She risked a glance up the path at the top of the stairs, trying to judge the height of the beam off the ground, and from that, the Orion's height and approximate bodymass. Fifteen ccs of ambizine, she decided, loading the hypospray and adjusting it. Twenty to be safe.
She ducked back behind the handcart before the light could reach her. She closed the medkit, holstered the disruptor, and held the hypospray ready in her hand. Now, all I've got to do is find a way to get close enough to hit him with this—preferably without being caught and killed by him. She forced herself not to tug on her hair. His sweeps with the light were still pretty regular, though he seemed to be spending more time looking off to her left down the mountain. Judging from the shouts and smoke coming from that direction, that was where all the action was. If I dash in while he's looking over there, I can get behind that rock wall just beneath the stairs. From there, I might be able to sneak up and inject him while he's distracted.
It was the only plan she had. So, while his light was lingering over the left side of the mountain slope, Carlin rose and dashed forward, hiding herself behind the rock wall. The light swept toward her, as though the Orion had caught sight of her, but she managed to stay out of it, below his field of view. The light lingered near her for a few more seconds before sweeping on, resuming its normal pattern, Carlin peeked out. From here she could see the outline of the guard in the firelight. He might not have seen her, but he wasn't taking any chances. No matter which way he looked, he kept his body facing the stairs, and that made him impossible to sneak up on. I need a distraction. She looked around, but the only things she could find were some small, lose stones. She picked one up. Antori always did say that when it comes to diversions, the simpler, the better! She hoped he was right. She peeked around the corner and threw the stone at the rock wall behind the Orion.
The Orion turned, raising a machete. Carlin ran up behind him, hypospray ready. Before he could turn back to her, she pressed it to his neck. The hypospray hissed. The Orion lurched sideways and collapsed at her feet. She left him where he fell and ran on. The flames were spreading, coming closer to this part of the ruins. She could see a wooden scaffold nearby, and above it, a rope ladder that went at least halfway to the top of the outcrop. That's what I want. She headed to the scaffold and started to climb up. Before she reached the top, though, she heard voices.
"You really think they'll come this way, Brother John?" asked the first voice.
"The flames'll be driving them, and this is the only way up," replied the other man. "Wouldn't you?"
Carlin froze, clinging to the scaffold, out of sight from the top.
"So what came in? Another freighter?" asked the first voice.
"Nah, some kind of shuttle. A Starfleet design's what it looked like."
"Should be some good stuff then," said the first.
"Yeah, but like as not we'll never see it. She went down off the coast in deep water."
Carlin wracked her brain. Her solution with the Orion was not going to work here. There was no way she could just sneak up on two alert men who were talking to each other. One of them was bound to notice. The best she could do was a diversion, and she'd need something bigger than a rock for that. She squeezed into the interior of the scaffold, balancing on one of the support crosspieces and moving back into the darkness against the cliff-face. The voices were just above her.
"Think we'll get any recruits out of this bunch?" the first voice was asking.
"I don't know, man," said John. "Better for them if they just die now."
"What do you mean?"
"Well…how long's the last batch been in the Pit?"
"I don't know…a few weeks."
"Yeah, and they're probably starving by now," said John. "Nothing to eat or drink for days…Come on, what do you think would happen if we threw one of those new ones in there?"
"Oh…," was all the reply the other man made.
"Yeah, eaten alive," said John. "So keep your eyes peeled and that phaser ready. Shoot to kill, and you'll be doing them a favor."
That was not what Carlin wanted to hear. She had no idea what any of the business about a Pit and recruiting meant, but she did know that the phaser was going to be a problem. The voices were right above her and she couldn't pinpoint the sources. But that meant that they'd also have trouble finding her, if she stayed where she was. Time for that diversion, then. She picked out a support beam on the scaffold opposite of where she was. It didn't look too vital—to the untrained eye, at least—but it should get their attention. She fired two quick bursts, one shattering the beam and the other lancing down toward the corner of a building down below—one the fires hadn't taken, yet. The men on top would have only a glimpse of the second burst, and see nothing at all of the first. What they did see lead them to believe exactly what she wanted them to believe.
"Someone's shooting at us from down there!" A yellow beam of phaser-fire struck at the corner of the building, where Carlin had fired.
"I saw it! Way to give away our position, too! You realize this thing's unstable, and there's no cover?" John berated the other man. "Let's get down, now!"
The two men scrambled down off the scaffold, missing Carlin, who crouched only a few meters away in the darkness. They rushed over to a stone wall and crouched behind it, occasionally firing toward the corner of the house. Carlin smiled. Just as she'd hoped, the glimpse of disruptor fire had been mistaken for the origin of the beam that hit the scaffold instead of the target of a second beam. The trick wouldn't keep them busy forever, though. She hurried back onto the scaffold and climbed the rest of the way to the top, then started up the ladder. About halfway up she heard a shout from behind her. A phaser whined and the rock exploded half a meter to the right of her. She used the toe of her boot to push off the rock face and set herself swinging across it. It made climbing marginally more difficult, but it also made her a much more difficult target. Two more blasts scored the rock around her, but both of them went wide.
"Idiot! Up the ladder!" John ordered.
"It's swinging too much down here."
"Then climb the rock! How do you think we got that ladder up there in the first place?"
Carlin doubled her efforts, reaching the top after only a minute longer. Once there, she blasted the ropes supporting the ladder, sending it tumbling down the cliff. The cliff face still isn't unclimbable, but there's no point in making it any easier for them.
She started to turn away when suddenly, her combadge chirped.
"Antori to Carlin!"
She tapped her combadge eagerly. "Yes! Antori, it's me!"
"I can see smoke coming from the ruins down below. Are you okay?"
Carlin shook her head. "I'm in trouble, Antori! They're trying to kill me, and they may have already killed Mor."
"What? Who?"
"Men…I don't know why," she said. "All I know is they're with the Cardassian I met, Matan."
"The one who helped you?"
"Yes, but he disappeared, and he took Sam with him—by force: she was unconscious." She grimaced, reliving the memory. "These men call him Father, and he's obviously been in touch with them…leading them. They know about us."
"That's bad…"
Carlin nodded. "I had to kill some of them. I had no choice…"
"That can't have been easy for you," he said.
Carlin shivered, remembering Vamdar and the two Romulans. "It's scary just how easy it was," she said. "They know you're somewhere in the ruins. You have to get out of here."
"Don't worry about me right now," he said. "You just do whatever it takes to get to the rendezvous point. I'll meet you there. Promise?"
Carlin tugged her hair over her shoulder. "I'll try." The signal faded to static after that.
Carlin deactivated her combadge and looked around. She was on a terraced ledge about a hundred meters wide and just as deep. Ancient wooden buildings stood on stone foundations here, a continuation of the ruins below. A stone pathway led through the ruins, up toward the outcropping. She followed it by the light of the fires below. She hurried, but kept her head down and her disruptor drawn. She didn't have much time, and she didn't want any surprises.
There was firelight up ahead, some sort of campsite just around the corner of a switchback. She heard voices from that direction. More men.
"I heard there were Outsiders down in the Lower Forest," said one man. "Is that why Father Matan ordered us to keep out?"
"Your speculation is correct," said an even voice that could only belong to a Vulcan.
Carlin shivered and crept off the path, sticking to the shadows. What's a Vulcan doing with these people? This is madness!
"Do you think he's found another girl for the Ritual?"
"It is impossible to say," said the Vulcan. "We should know more by morning."
Ritual? Carlin's mind went back to the corpse of the woman in the swamp. Is that what they plan to do to Sam? She couldn't let that happen! But in order to prevent it, she'd need to meet up with Antori and form a plan. And to do that, she needed to get around this camp. She started looking for a way. There was a stone wall to her right, and she thought if she climbed over it she could get to the other side of the switchback without going through the camp. The question is, will they notice me?
But apparently, they had other things on their mind. "Look at the ruins burn!" one of them said. It was a new voice, high and nasal. "Beautiful!"
"It's got to be a bloodbath down there," said the first voice.
"That is to be expected," said the Vulcan. "Vamdar is in charge. He enjoys it." The tone carried not the slightest hint of disapproval or condemnation: just a simple, casual statement of fact. It chilled Carlin, and she almost lost her first handhold on the wall as a result.
"And what does Matan have to say about that?" asked the first voice.
"He says nothing," said the Vulcan. "Father Matan trusts the Klingons. They've been with him the longest of any of the Brothers."
"So they get to break the rules?"
"On the contrary, they make the rules, Brother Pratak," said the Vulcan. "The sooner you become accustomed to that, the better."
Carlin hoisted herself over the top of the wall. She glanced toward the corner, where the camp was, but the men had their backs to her. She slipped down to the flagstones on the other side and continued soundlessly on.
It wasn't long before she heard the sound of shouting behind her, starting at the cliff, but spreading quickly to the camp at the switchback. "Brother John" and his friend with the phaser must have made it to the top. She knew it wouldn't take them forever, but she'd been hoping for a little more time. Now, she needed to find a place to hide. There was a collapsed wooden structure just ahead, blocking most of the path. There was an opening about a meter and a half up, which might have once been a window. It was just large enough for her to squeeze through. She pulled herself up to the lip and through, tumbling down onto a wooden floor on the other side.
It was not a moment too soon. A minute later, she heard shouting and footfalls just outside the wall. "Check inside!" John's voice ordered.
"Capture or kill?"
"Kill her," said John. "She's armed, and she's too much trouble."
"We should just burn her out," said the one with the nasal voice.
The firelight outside suddenly brightened and Carlin could hear the wood pop. Carlin tugged at her hair and fought a rising panic.
"Stop! We don't want it getting out of control," said John.
"Agreed," said the Vulcan. "We only need enough to smoke her out of the corners while we search the interior."
Carlin had a bad feeling that their plan was going to be successful. Already tendrils of smoke were beginning to curl up through the floorboards. She could also hear the footfalls of the hunters, clambering up the debris outside and into an entrance higher up the building. She needed to get out fast, and without being seen.
She crept forward, crawling under a pile of debris. The floor sloped forward from there and she could sense cool air from that direction. Everything was darkness that way, though.
"You two, check down below!" came a shout from above. A moment later, two pairs of boots thudded down onto the boards nearby. Carlin withdrew, pulling her head under the cover of the debris pile. A beam of light swept past her hiding place, then another. Carlin held her breath.
Moments later, a pair of patched boots passed her hiding place. A Romulan in baggy clothes walked by and turned the corner, shining his beacon toward the downward slope of the floor ahead. He grunted in surprise. Less than a meter in front of him, the floor dropped off into empty space. "How far down does it go?" he asked.
"Nearly two hundred meters," said the voice of the Vulcan, coming from the location of the second beacon, which was sweeping the opposite wall. "These holes lead directly to the sea caves."
"Fvadt," said the Romulan. "Do you think she fell?"
"Given Brother John's previous encounter with this Outsider, I do not think it likely," said the Vulcan. His beam vanished and she heard his footfalls moving off in the opposite direction.
With the Vulcan moving off and the Romulan still staring at the hole with his back to her, Carlin knew she'd been given an opportunity she had to seize. The disruptor would make too much noise, and she wasn't any more prepared to kill these men than the Orion. Fortunately, all three species had similar body chemistry, so ambizine would be an effective sedative for all of them. She produced the hypospray and set it, then slipped silently out from under the debris.
The Romulan was still facing away from her, leaning over the hole and trying to peer down it. The Vulcan was down the hall a dozen meters, searching the empty corridor that way. Carlin stepped up behind the Romulan and injected him. He started to fall, but she caught him, lowering him soundlessly to the floor. Then, she tip-toed over to the Vulcan. He hesitated, and Carlin froze, afraid he'd heard her. After a second, he started moving forward again. Carlin didn't take a chance on him hearing her again. She reached up and injected him, lowering him to the floor as she had the Romulan.
She looked around for where to go next. The smoke was rising through the floorboards making her want to cough. She forced herself not to, though. Instead, she grabbed the beacon from the Vulcan. It was an old model Starfleet palm beacon, probably from the mid 24th Century, and part of the casing was missing, but it still worked. She swept the darkened corridor with the light, searching for a way out. A few meters further the corridor ended in a massive pile of debris. The only way out seemed to be a partially collapsed stair to the upper levels and the corner she'd crawled out of. The latter was out. Smoke was beginning to pour out of it. That left her with upstairs, and whatever hunters might be there.
There was the man named John, and his friend with the phaser, she thought as she switched off her beacon and crawled quietly up the stairs. Then the Vulcan and the Romulan down here and at least one more. So, that's me… against three men, one with a phaser and another with pyromania. If she hadn't been climbing over a splintered stair at the time, she would have pulled her hair out.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she found herself in a loft hanging over the dark abyss, connected to another loft on the opposite side of the building by a plank bridge. She could see beacons combing the darkness on that side. She hid behind a pile of rubble.
As she'd expected, there were three of them, and they were all clustered near the entrance. There was no way she was going to be able to sedate them and end this peaceably. That left her with the disruptor. Carlin forced herself to push her hair behind her back and slowly drew the disruptor. If I don't do this, I'm not getting out of here alive, she reminded herself. And if I don't get out of here alive, Antori may be caught and Sam may be burned alive—and no one back on Nautilus will ever know what happened to us.
She took a deep breath and peeked out from behind the debris, disruptor in hand. If possible, always eliminate the most threatening target first, Antori had told her. She squinted into the smoky darkness until she caught sight of the glint of a Cardassian phaser in the light of one of the hunter's beacons. There! She took aim and fired.
Her first shot knocked one of the hunters off his feet and into the pit. His phaser misfired on the way down, scoring the wall. Chaos broke out. Someone shouted, "It's the girl!" Beacons turned to her, blinding her.
"How'd she get past Pratak and Sovar?"
"Who cares? She's got some fight in her!" Carlin heard a thump and ducked just in time to avoid an arrow.
"I've lost her!" someone shouted.
"I'll burn her out!" said the nasal voice. A bottle shattered behind Carlin, releasing the smell of alcohol as its contents splashed everywhere. Then a fire roared to life. Carlin scrambled away from it.
"There she is!" An arrow hummed past her. Beacons tracked her. Carlin fired two bursts at one and somebody screamed. A light toppled and rolled across the floor.
"This isn't good!" said one of the hunters. "She's killing us all!"
"I'll kill her!" cried the man with the nasal voice. Another bottle smashed against the wall behind Carlin. She ran onto the plank bridge and across as flames enveloped everything behind her. She fired her disruptor blindly as she ran.
"You idiot! You'll burn the whole building down!" said a voice, John, she thought. One of the beacons retreated toward a patch of night sky, away to the left. The other beacon was replaced by the blaze of a torch.
"I'll get her! You'll see!" the alien shouted. He carried a large container of liquid fuel and splashed it toward her. Carlin dodged, stepping around him— though she barely managing to keep her footing on the loft. She fired at the first thing that caught her eye: the jug itself.
The explosion was deafening. Flames consumed half the loft and the bridge instantly. Carlin shielded herself with her arms. Even so her hair was singed and her uniform sleeves were scorched. The whole structure was burning now. Carlin ran for the exit she'd seen John use earlier, over to the left. She clambered through it, then quickly down off of the pile of rubble as the flames spread. Looking around, she spotted one of the hunters, the Human, John, standing on the opposite side of the conflagration, but he didn't pursue her. In fact, he ran, ducking behind a low stone wall for cover.
Carlin would have sunk to her knees in relief, but she was far too close to the burning building for that. In her mind, she could still see the bodies of the Vulcan and the Romulan—Sovar and Pratak—lying sedated and helpless as the wood burned around them. She shuddered. I tried to save them, but in the end, all I did was ensure them a cruel death. She closed her eyes and forced herself to walk away from the building. There was nothing she could do for them now, and the man who'd escaped would be returning with more hunters soon. I've survived, and I'll forgive myself eventually, she decided. Right now, I have to find Antori and get out of here, away from all the fires and killing…I have to make it to the rendezvous point!
Author's Note: When it came to writing this chapter, I really wished I spoke Klingonese and Russian. I might just have to learn at some point—Klingonese that is! In the game, Vladimir (on whom Vamdar's character is based) frequently lapses into his native Russian, but translations of his lines are very hard to come by. The only one I could find was of the moment when he's about to attack Lara after discovering her in the hut, when he says, "You're a pretty one; you remind me of my sister" or something like that. Context clues give the meaning of some of the other things he says, but otherwise it's hard to find meaning. I wanted to give Vamdar the same feel (only with a Klingon, obviously), but finding good Klingon translations on the web can be difficult—especially if you're not sure what you want to say in the first place! What I did find came from Bing Translator and a site called "Khemorex Klinzhai," which does a good analysis of canon Klingon swears. I did wind up with the following Klingonese jewels, in order of appearance: be'Hom—girl, jay'—general expletive to intensify a sentence (for example, turning "don't move" into "don't ****ing move!"—which is, incidentally, what Vladimir actually says in the game), chaH HoH—Kill them, Ha'—Let's go, and petaQ—general insult. There was also a Romulan general expletive mixed in there: fvadt.
One thing I found on replaying this level-and something I'd suggest for anyone replaying the game as a whole, is that it was worthwhile to pause and listen to the mooks. Solari MOBs will have all sorts of interesting conversations that add depth to the plot if the player is simply patient enough to wait for them to finish talking. Most of the dialogue in this chapter is actually reworked dialogue from conversing Solari mooks.
As I'm sure you're aware, this chapter contains the so-called "rape scene" of Tomb Raider 2013. If I change the story's rating to M, that's why. Of course, in the game as here, no actual rape was going to occur nor is depicted. In the game, if you do nothing and allow the interaction between Lara and Vladimir to continue (or else fail the stupid quick-time events needed to fight him off-which is incredibly easy to do), Vladimir goes straight from creepy Russian innuendo to strangling Laura to death on the spot (nice guy, huh?), which I hinted at here. However, there's no way to describe the fight that doesn't hint at creepy innuendo and the graphic violence of Laura's fight with him. I tried not to make it too graphic, but there's still a good chance it's too much for the T rating and I'll have to bump it up. *If this chapter is still rated T when you read it and this fight scene offends you or strikes you as inappropriate for the T rating, please contact me and I will adjust the rating accordingly!*
Beacons or palm-beacons are the Star Trek equivalent of flashlights. In fact, I'm not sure why they don't just call them flashlights, since they're exactly like flashlights in every discernible way. However, the canon has gone with the term "beacon" or "palm beacon," so I will too. In the game, Lara never acquires-or even tries to acquire-a flashlight, relying instead on a torch: which makes sense because the torch provides 360 degree illumination and the power to light things on fire to solve physics puzzles, at the minor cost of being somewhat difficult to get and keep lit (which really is not so much of a problem seeing that fire is pretty much everywhere in the game). However, Carlin doesn't have a torch (Mor had one in chapter 11, but it was presumably lost) and would probably vastly prefer a flashlight-*ahem* I mean, beacon-so I had her pick one up.
The races of the Solari (the hunters in this chapter) were picked to be as diverse as possible. That being said, Romulans came up a lot. I justify this with the fact that there have been hints in chapters 3 and 10 that a Romulan ship went down on the planet relatively intact in the not-so-distant past. Still, I tried to balance it out with a good selection from the "Playable Races" page of the Star Trek Online wiki, and a few others. For those not familiar with them, the Ferasan are a felinoid race subject to the Klingon Empire (apparently seen only in the game) and the Deltans are a race of bald humanoids who have been seen serving in Starfleet since they were introduced in the first ever Star Trek the Motion Picture. The others should be pretty familiar. Both Deltans and Orions have pheromones that cause arousal in most humanoids of the opposite sex (except Vulcans: Vulcans are immune to everything), though Deltans appear to have chosen to rise above such passions (or at least embrace them on a more "enlightened" level) whereas Orions exploit them for all they're worth (as in the Enterprise episode "Bound," where they use pheromones to try take over the ship).
Ambizine is a fictional sedative which was used in the Voyager episode "Live Fast and Prosper" to sedate the alien Dala, whose body chemistry is never disclosed to the viewers. Vulcans and Romulans in the canon both have copper-based blood and similar biochemistry. Some non-canon sources (Memory Beta) say that Orions also have copper-based blood, which would result in a reasonably similar body chemistry, at least to my way of thinking.
While I tried to stay as faithful to the gameplay for this harrowing chase/escape level as I could, there were some changes that I made because I had to, and others because I chose to for the sake of staying true to characters. First off among the necessary changes, there are a lot fewer runners and hunters in this chapter than in the game. In the game, Lara is captured with the entire Endurance crew, which extends well beyond the supporting cast of seven or eight. Consequently, the bad guys have lots of people to hunt down and lots of redshirts to kill off (and they do so with abandon). They also, appropriately, have a much larger force to hunt them down with (in the game, Lara must kill almost twenty of them to get through and escape-and even at that it's evident that she barely scratches the surface of the force they have out combing the ruins. However, in my story I have only the four-man crew of the shuttle to work with-down to three with Sam's previous abduction. Of these three characters, none of them can be casually killed off, since they have roles to play later in the story, and one of them can't even be present (I swear, Antori is coming back to the story someday)! With fewer people to chase, there are also fewer people to hunt. One of the odd results of this change, however, was that I couldn't start the chase with the evil henchman killing an innocent bystander (as Vladimir does in the game, shooting one of Lara's shipmates-who was obviously wearing a red shirt under his coat). Since the only "disposable" characters in the scene were actually Solari, I had Vamdar shoot one of them instead.
The second major change was Carlin's preference for non-lethal force. The trait seems to be one that most anyone in Starfleet would have (rarely do we see them shoot to kill in any of the series), but Carlin, as a trained doctor, would be-in my mind-particularly susceptible to this. She has also (to our knowledge) only fired a weapon in lethal self defense once before-and that was on a non-humanoid, where even there she did not land the killing blow. Simply put, I cannot see her as anything but the most reluctant of killers, even when her life clearly depends on it. A side effect of this was that it allowed me to conserve on mooks and even allow some to get away. Other effects on Carlin's character will be explored next chapter.
Before I considered Carlin's distaste for lethal force, I'd considered having Vamdar and the others steal her medkit and tricorder. However, given the situation, I couldn't think of any reason for them to do so. The Solari don't seem to be nearly as interested in medical supplies as they are in weapons-and even those don't seem to arouse huge interest among them. Even if they were, Carlin is, presumably, going to stay their prisoner, so they can be forgiven for deciding to loot her later at their convenience. As for the tricorder and the combadge...well, I've already established that they're practically useless on Yamatai, at least for the moment.
Finally, part of this was written without access to my personal computer, where I keep my game screen and video captures. When it came time to write the final fight scene in the loft, I thought there was a bit of game dialogue I was leaving out, but I wasn't sure. I decided to put some sort of placeholder in my draft, so I could return to it later when I had all my files. However, the placeholder evolved into a silly little sketch of fourth-wall-breaking and investigation of the life of a mook. I present it below in full for your further amusement.
"I know," said John. "Let's have a game-canon-ish conversation while Carlin is hiding over there plotting our demise!"
"Hey! No fair," said Carlin. "You're not supposed to know I'm here-and I am not plotting your demise."
"Of course you are," said the unnamed mook. "You're playing Lara now, and we're the Solari mooks. You kill all of us. It's even in our in-game dialogue: 'She's killing all of us!'"
"That line's situationally dependent, not scripted," the second unnamed mook pointed out. "And anyway, we're not following the game-canon exactly. If we were, I'd be dead."
"Ah, so you're the one with the phaser," said Carlin.
"Um, yes. I'm hoping that doesn't mean you'll kill me first," said the second unnamed mook.
"Well...nothing personal, but it might, yeah," said Carlin. "Sorry."
"Eh, it happens. At least since I don't have a name my personallity can be endlessly recycled," said the mook with the phaser. "It's kind of like respawning."
"Yeah, except you don't get to keep the phaser," said the other mook.
"Do I get the phaser then?" asked Carlin.
"No-definitely no," said John.
"But-"
"Hey, that's the rules. I mean, you're hard enough to stop with just that disruptor stuck on 'kill,'" John pointed out. "If not for your moral restraint, you'd have killed a dozen of us already."
"What if we kill her?" asked a nasal voice.
"Gah! Who's there?" Carlin shouted.
"Geeze, man, you were supposed to be a surprise!" said John. "She thought there were only three of us up here."
"I totally did," Carlin confessed.
"Well, now that the undisclosed alien's out of the bag, can I kill her?"
"For the last time, no! She's a main character, with planned sequels to boot. You of all people should know that mooks can't go around offing main characters left and right," said John.
"Says the antagonist who's undergoing character development and may or may not survive to be come a main character in his own right," said the pyromaniac mook, pouting. "Come on, can't I just burn her a little?"
"No, as I'll tell you in a few minutes: 'you idiot! you'll burn the whole building down!'"
"Fine...if anybody needs me, I'll be over here...playing with matches...and molotov cocktails...and gasoline...and napalm."
"That guy gives me the creeps," said the first unnamed mook.
"Yeah, I'm totally shooting him," said Carlin.
At that point, Sam Hayashi burst in, wielding an awesome bow and clad in white ceremonial robes. "Let's get on with this! We need to get through this chapter so I can get rescued and be more badass!"
"Woah! The lost Belo girl!" said one of the mooks. "I didn't know she was in this story!"
"I am totally your biggest fan," said the other.
Sam screamed in primal rage and shot both mooks, thereby completely breaking the scene. At long last, the author stepped in and persuaded her to go back off-stage while he resurrected the mooks and reset time and reality to the appropriate values, making sure that everyone forgot the last few minutes. Then, he set the story moving again.