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The Pit
USS Nautilus, Shuttle One Crew, Senior Science Officer Carlin Agran's Log, Supplemental:
Madness.
That's what this place is. The leader of the Solarii, Matan, thinks that the wind that prevented him from burning Sam alive was some kind of sign. He seems to think that Himiko's spirit is keeping us here and that Sam can appease her. That's not possible...it's not possible!...but he is so beyond crazy that maybe he's come right back around to some kind of sane.
Something we've never seen before is happening on this planet. No starship and no shuttle is getting us off. I know that in my gut. I just wish I knew why and how to change it. I wish I could tell the others. I wish I had a chance to rescue Sam from the Solarii, or Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey from the shuttlepod where they're being held. I wish I could be with them all, especially Antori.
But all I have is wishes now. Two of the Klingons, Durtlhor and Nikora, are leading me away now, alone. They're going to kill me soon to get revenge for their brother Vamdar, the Klingon who tried to kill and rape me, that I barely fought off. It isn't fair...but I learned that a long time ago. It's no surprise.
I just don't want to die...
Carlin was dragged away from the ritual chamber in a daze. Her face and body were bruised and battered. A sharp pain in her side told her she had an injured rib from where they'd kicked her, and she could feel the hot stickiness of drying blood on her eyebrow, cheek, and lips. She could taste the bitter tang of it in her mouth. The injuries weren't very serious by modern medical standards, certainly not fatal, but they didn't have to be. The Klingons who were dragging her through the tunnels would see to that.
They came to a wooden catwalk over a dark chasm. The wiry Klingon - Nikora, she thought - stopped suddenly, wrenching Carlin's arm. "This is far enough," he said. "Let's kill her now!"
"We will keep going," said Durtlhor. "I want to kill her in the Mountain Village and sprinkle her warm blood over our brother's bones."
Nikora scowled and spat. "I will not drag this Sli-Vak all the way across the island! I say we kill her here!"
"I am the elder brother now, and I decide where we take our vengeance," said Durtlhor. His grip on Carlin's arm tightened and his free hand bunched into a fist.
If the other Klingon perceived the threat, he didn't acknowledge it. Instead he sneered. "You speak like an old man, Durtlhor," he taunted. "Are you really that afraid to draw blood from this little be'Hom?"
Durtlhor growled openly now, and his grip felt like it would crush Carlin's arm at any moment. "Hold your tongue, petaQ! When the time comes, I will rip out her heart with my bear hands!"
"blHnuch!" Nikora retorted.
Carlin had no idea what that meant, but Durtlhor evidently did...and whatever it was made him lose his temper entirely. He threw Carlin aside and took a swing at his brother. Carlin found herself falling backward, away from the fight and over the edge of the catwalk. Her arms pinwheeled. Her left hand caught the edge of the catwalk. Her shoulder strained and she could feel her fingers slipping. Her right hand reached for her climbing axe, still secured against her leg. She didn't make it in time. She had only just grasped the handle when her fingers slipped from the wood and she found herself falling into the chasm.
She tumbled downward, arms swinging. She screamed. Then, her ax caught something on the side of the chasm and stuck fast. Her arm wrenched painfully, then the ax tore free from her grasp. She fell a short distance further and landed in shallow water. Rocks bruised her, but she was otherwise unharmed - at least from the landing.
"petaQ! Look what you made me do!" Durtlhor roared at the other Klingon, half a dozen meters overhead.
"Made you? You did it yourself, qoH!" Nikora shot back. Then he laughed. "Well, at least now we don't have to drag the Outsider across the island. She's dead for sure now!"
"Is she? I can't see anything down there," said Durtlhor.
A palm beacon flashed against the dark surface of the water and rocks a couple meters from where Carlin lay. She shuddered as the light revealed that the water was bloodstained and that some of the "rocks" were gnawed bones. The light danced around, searching the chasm. Carlin knew if she tried to move she'd only give away her position with the noise. Instead, she curled up, making herself as small as possible and lay very still. The light swept toward her, then cut off abruptly about half a meter away only to appear again on the other side. She looked up and realized she had landed directly beneath the catwalk, shielding her from view.
"I don't see her," Durtlhor said again.
"That chasm goes all the way down to the Pit," said Nikora. "Either she's dead or she will be soon. The Unholy Ones will eat her alive."
"Maybe they will and maybe they won't: she's killed enough of us, and we're better than those animals," said Durtlhor. Footsteps sounded from the catwalk then, retreating back toward the ritual chamber. Echoes still carried the Klingon's voice, though. "I'm not willing to take the chance. We'll have to search the Pit."
"Fine, but I'm not going down there myself. Let's send some of the others," Nikora replied. After that, the echoes faded and Carlin was left alone.
Carlin remained where she was for a moment, huddling in the darkness. It was hard to believe that the Klingons were really gone. It was hard to believe anything that had happened in the past two days, really...especially what had happened in the last twenty minutes.
She could believe that a sudden gust could come down the vertical shaft and through the waterfall in the ritual chamber. That such a gust might extinguish a large fire was certainly possible. But that it should happen to gust like that at exactly the right moment to save Sam from being burned at the stake was too much to be a believable coincidence.
Matan thinks it's a sign, Carlin remembered. He thinks that Himiko saved Sam because she can set her and the Solarii free. It was madness, surely. Himiko had been dead for millennia: Carlin had scanned the remains herself. But all the same, maybe there was a kernel of truth to Matan's madness. After all, Himiko was said to have had the power to control the weather, and if there was any truth at all to that legend, it meant she'd had some sort of device for controlling the climate, maybe even influencing local weather phenomenon. Such a device could have caused the gust, and it might be connected to a sensor network capable of timing the wind to coincide with the fire. All of that could have survived Himiko and still be carrying out her orders, she thought. Of course, that didn't explain why such a device should care to save Sam, nor what the Solarii planned to do with her now that it had.
Nor is it particularly helpful in my current situation, Carlin told herself. She had to admit she was trying to avoid thinking about that, though.
She was unarmed, alone, and with no means of communication in a dark chasm in a Solarii-occupied cave. Also, if the Klingons were to be believed, this was a part of the Pit. She remembered overhearing some of the other Solarii talking about it the night before. It was a prison of some sort where the Solarii threw new recruits and left them for weeks, starving them into submission - which apparently caused a lot of them to resort to cannibalism. She shuddered at the thought and curled up tighter. She wanted to hide, to close her eyes and wake up from this horrible nightmare, but she knew she couldn't. We deal with the reality we have, not the one we want...except on the holodeck, and most times not even there, Antori had told her once. She knew he was right. She steeled herself and opened her eyes.
There was a very faint light coming from the Solarii tunnels above, just enough to make out the features of the chasm's walls and floor as vague shapes. She reached into her uniform pockets and pulled out her tricorder and palm beacon. She ran a general scan with the tricorder, muffling its speakers with her hand and shielding its lights with her body. When it was done, she took a peek. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the results. There were no other lifesigns within a ten meter radius. The tricorder couldn't penetrate the polaric radiation any further than that, but it at least told her that the immediate area was clear.
Of course, clear didn't mean safe or - what was that human expression? - out of the woods. The scan also revealed that the shallow water she was kneeling in was loaded with biological contaminants. The fall had no doubt gotten more than a few of them into her wounds. She needed to get out of the water and treat her injuries before any of them became infected. She switched on her palm beacon. Shining it at the wall revealed her climbing ax still embedded in the stone, within easy reach. She tugged it free and waded out of the pool of water. There was an upward slope at one end of the chasm and once she reached it she was able to walk on dry stone. She continued up the slope a little way until she found a level place where she could sit down. After a second general scan revealed no other lifesigns in the area, she pulled open her medkit and set to work.
A quick medical scan revealed that her wounds felt worse than they actually were. Her rib was bruised, not broken, and most of her other injuries were superficial. A few passes with the vascular and dermal regenerators healed most of them. She added a painkiller for her rib and her head (which still ached) and a broad-spectrum antibiotic for whatever she might have picked up from the water. Then, she was ready to face the Pit...or at least as ready as she could ever be.
She rose and continued following the tunnel upward. She could hear sounds from up ahead. Something darted across the path in front of her. She swung her light to follow it while her free hand went for her only weapon: the climbing ax. She saw nothing at first. She remained very still and kept searching the tunnel with her light until a small squeak caught her ear. She pointed the palm beacon at it and caught sight of a small mammal, a rodent of some sort, from Earth, she thought. A rat. After all she'd seen, she was not about to be scared off by a rat. It's appearance was significant, though. It looked to be in good health, which meant that there was a source of food and water nearby. It also blinked in the light and showed other signs of being un-adapted to life in the lightless caverns. That meant there was a way out of the Pit somewhere nearby - or at least one big enough to accommodate a rat. She turned her back to it and continued through the tunnel, in the direction it had come from.
The tunnel continued sloping upward. In one place it narrowed and she had to duck and turn sideways to get through. She found herself in a small chamber, damp and dark with a putrid smell hanging over it. There were several side passages covered over with rusty metal grates and makeshift bars. Her light landed on the lean, naked figure of a Romulan, crouched in one corner like an animal. The Romulan hissed and shielded his eyes. "You! Stay away!" he shouted, his voice horse. His skeletal fingers reached for a heavy metal pipe. Carlin saw old bloodstains on the end of it. "This is my home, mine!"
Carlin started backing away, toward the tunnel where she'd come in, but the Romulan rose and shrieked in protest. "No! That is mine! I can't - I won't - let you down there!" She thought he would have charged, but the light of the palm beacon shining in his eyes still seemed to have him disoriented.
"I - I'm not here to take anything that's yours," Carlin tried to tell him. "Please, I just want out."
"You're with them, aren't you? You're one of them!"
"I'm not with the Solarii," Carlin assured him. "I'm a prisoner like you."
"But you use their tools!" the Romulan ranted. "Down here, we have nothing, nothing! They keep all the lights, the sensors, the weapons, the food..." The Romulan pounded the cave floor in frustration, then turned back to Carlin. His pupils had finally dilated and he seemed ready to attack. "Except now I have you! This is my house, and everything in my house is mine - which means you and your fancy tools are mine, too!"
He charged, then, swinging the pipe. Carlin ducked back into the tunnel she'd come from and the pipe caught on the edge, giving her an opening. She knew if she didn't take it, he would kill her, and probably eat her. She lunged and struck his exposed belly with her ax. The Romulan screamed and scrambled back a meter before falling to the ground, clutching his side. Green blood burbled up between his fingers. "You've killed me...murderer...you are just like them!"
"I'm not like them," Carlin replied. "I'm not Solarii." She looked at her climbing ax, stained with green blood, and frowned.
"Liar! You...you killed me," said the Romulan. "I should have...should have killed you first...eaten you...taken your fancy tools...then I would be like them...strong..." His eyes were becoming unfocused and the flow of blood between his fingers was becoming weaker. He was no threat now, and Carlin realized that if she didn't act soon, he would die.
Maybe he is a cannibal, and maybe he does deserve to die, but I trained as a Starfleet medical officer. We don't just leave wounded people lying around until they bleed out. "The Solarii would leave you to die, but I'm nothing like them," she said. Carlin moved toward him. The Romulan twitched as if to flee, but could not. She knelt beside him and opened her med kit. "Lie still. I'm going to help you." She administered a sedative, then applied a deep tissue regenerator and the dermal regnerator to his wound. There was still a good chance of him dying due to blood loss and the overall poor condition the Pit had left him in, but she had done all she could.
She rose and moved to the center of the chamber. Her tricorder had a little better range here, twenty five meters, it seemed. The area ahead was honeycombed with small chambers and tunnels, all of which seemed to feed into a central chamber. She mentally mapped out a route from her own position to there. She would have to be careful, she knew. The scan also revealed were numerous other lifesigns in the area. Most of them were weak, but they all probably belonged to survivors driven mad by hunger and isolation, like the Romulan had been. She needed to be on her guard.
She pried off one of the metal covers the Romulan had used to secure his home. The grate looked like it had already been broken in several places and had simply been roughly reassembled over the tunnel mouth. It came apart in her hands and she tossed the pieces aside. Then she ventured into the tunnel, following it down and around toward the central chamber. She could hear the squeals of numerous rats. Shouts and incomprehensible screams also echoed through the cave. Nearer at hand, she heard a cackling laugh.
The sound seemed to be coming from just ahead. She turned her light on it, but saw nothing. "Oh, another meal, and this one with tools. The Masters are so nice today," said a high pitched voice from the shadows. "Female, too...so delicate, so nice..."
Carlin gripped her climbing ax harder and wondered if she should just go back to the Romulan's chamber and try to get around, but since the madman's voice seemed to be coming from the central chamber itself, there was no point. She would have to face him eventually, no matter which direction she went. She steeled herself and stepped forward, light probing into every shadowy recess, ax raised and ready.
"That's it," said the madman. "Come...come into the dark!"
The voice seemed to be coming from the left. She shone her light in that direction, but saw nothing. She stepped closer. He must be somewhere just outside the tunnel, she thought, and stepped closer to its mouth, almost into the central chamber. "Where are you? Who are you? Show yourself!" she demanded.
"I...I am he, and he is the voice in the dark," the voice cackled. She tried to follow the sound with her light but saw only rocks. "Where is he? Where is he?" the voice taunted. "She can't find him!"
"Look, I don't have time for games," Carlin said. "I need to get out of here. My friends are in danger."
"He doesn't have any friends, and everything's a game!" said the voice. She tried to find the source of it with her palm beacon again, but was only rewarded with further mad laughter. "Oh, he hides, he hides!" babbled the voice. "He hides, and then he strikes! Such a fun game...gets him so much food from the Masters. Maybe someday he will be strong enough to play games with them, too. Games in the light, games for their Sun Queen."
Carlin's grip on her ax was white, knuckled now. If the madman was trying to freak her out, it was certainly working. "I don't want to play your game, I just want out!" She turned her light on the central chamber. It was open enough she thought she'd be protected from the madman attempting to sneak up on her, but she would probably have to get past his position at the tunnel mouth in order to get there. She decided to make a dash for it. She raised her ax, crouched, and ran.
The moment she cleared the tunnel entrance, something dropped down on her from above. The madman! Cold fingers grasped at her, closed around a handful of her uniform. She jerked away and a piece of the uniform tore off in the madman's hand. He fell off her. She spun to face him, ax swinging, just as he lunged at her. She sidestepped, and the ax caught the madman in the back of the skull, killing him instantly. His body collapsed on the cold stone floor and Carlin got her first good look at her assailant. He was Bajoran, with ragged holes in his ear to mark where his earring had once been. She shuddered at the thought of what madness could turn a peaceful Bajoran into a deranged cannibal. I have to get out of this Pit quickly, before anything like that happens to me!
Unfortunately, getting out was something easier said than done. She had assumed that the central chamber would contain whatever entrance the Solarii used to throw new victims into the Pit, but there was no sign of any such thing. There were a dozen or so tunnels and chambers branching off in the darkness. She caught sight of furtive shapes darting among them, but none of the prisoners approached the central chamber. There was only one tunnel that seemed different from the rest, but that was because it was cloaked with the telltale clouds of green dust that indicated heavy concentrations of verdenicine gas.
She stepped back from it and her boot scuffed a metal grate on the floor, causing it to rattle. There was a moan from somewhere beneath it. "No, please, leave me alone. Let me die," said a voice from inside.
Carlin turned to see that the grate covered a small hole, only a couple meters across and less than a meter deep. At the bottom a gaunt human with an unkempt beard languished. A rough rope made from pieces of civilian clothing bound his belt to the grate on top of the pit, making it impossible to lift without picking him up too. He blinked in the light of her palm beacon. "You...you're one of them aren't you?" He coughed. "Don't expect me to beg. Just kill me now, and end it. I...I want it to end."
"I'm not with the Solarii," Carlin said. She turned the palm beacon on herself momentarily, letting the man get a good look at her. "I'm Starfleet, Lieutenant Carlin Agran of the USS Nautilus."
"Starfleet," the Human laughed. "I must be getting as mad as the Bajoran. He tried to kill me, you know. That's why I trapped myself down here." He shook his head. "I can't blame him though. He used to be my first officer, and its my fault we wound up here."
"You're not going mad," Carlin assured him. At least, I hope not, her mind added. "I really am from Starfleet and I need to know a way out of here. Can you help me?"
The human shook his head. "No, I can't help. Look out for the Bajoran, though. He'll eat you alive. He's eaten most of them already, except a few who've gone worse than even him, and that damn Romulan up in the side chamber. He killed three of my men."
"The Bajoran is dead and the Romulan has been...neutralized," Carlin said.
The human laughed and shook his head. "No, no, more delusions." He started to turn his face away.
Frustrated, Carlin stomped on the grate to get his attention. "Look, you had to get into this place somehow. What happened? Maybe there's a way out."
"There's no way out, no escape. That's what they tell you, and they're right," said the man. "The only way out is death. If you won't kill me or let me die in peace, there's no point talking to you."
Carlin frowned. He had to know a way out, and he seemed to be the only prisoner in the pit who wasn't going to try to kill her on sight. She needed to keep him talking. "Look, I promise to do what I can for you, after you tell me how you got here," she said, choosing her words carefully.
"How I got here?...Yes, it was my fault, all my fault." Tears shone in the light of the palm beacon. "It was supposed to be a vacation. We were going around the sector with my wife and two daughters...they, they were so lovely. We thought we'd be safe. The nebula never gets pirates, and the war was over in the Arachnis Sector. It seems so far away now. So very far away...like it happened to someone else a lifetime ago."
"How did you wind up on this planet?" Carlin asked, prompting him to continue.
"What? Oh, yes, a storm, a terrible ion storm. We thought we'd see them coming far enough in advance, but we had no warning. I've never seen anything like it. It took out our shields, then our sensors and engines. We were falling. We never saw the planet. We just woke among the wrecks. Then they came." He shuddered and shook his head. "No, no! Make it stop!"
"You have to remember," Carlin insisted. "Who were they? What did they do to you?"
"Who were they? I don't know," said the man. "Children of the Sun...that's what they called themselves. They captured us, then they took them away: my wife and daughters, all three of them." He shook his head again. "Please, don't make me remember! I can't...no...I-" But Carlin didn't have to make him remember. His own mind must have supplied the horrible details of its own accord. "They killed them! Oh, God, they burned them alive!" Fresh tears streamed down his cheeks. "But, you...you're going to help me, help me, then I'll be with them, and I'll see them again, yes? I'll see them soon..."
Carlin frowned. This was bad, but she still needed more answers. "I can't promise you anything," she said. "I still need to know how you got into this place."
"They threw me in here, with whatever was left of the crew," he shuddered. "There was this green fog. It killed most of my men, the ones that couldn't run fast enough. The rest of us wound up trapped down here. No food, no water...we started going mad one by one...Some of the men, the meanest ones, the Children of the Sun came down and took away."
"How did they come in?"
"Through the green fog," said the man.
"The green fog..." Carlin repeated. She swung her light around, back to the tunnel that was blocked by verdenicine gas. "That must be the only way in or out, though, but how to do the Solarii get through the gas?"
"They wear masks," said the man. "Masks for the gas and guns for the madmen. A couple of my men tried to take the masks by force, but they killed them..." The man in the hole whimpered. "Now, please, I've told you everything I know. Please, just end it. Let me be with my wife and children."
Carlin shook her head. She knew that some races practiced euthanasia, but the Trill were not one of them. "I can't do that," she said.
"But...but you promised!" the man said.
"I promised to help you, and I will." She used her climbing ax to cut through the rope that was holding the grate closed. Then, she pulled the grate off. "I'm getting you out of here." It was the least she could do. "Can you walk?"
"I...no. It's been so long." He tried to push himself to his feet but wound up slumped against the side of the hole.
Carlin knelt down beside him and fished out a hypospray from her medkit. "This is a stimulant," she said, injecting him. "It should help you move temporarily, but we still need to get you fed soon." She put a hand around his shoulder and helped him up. "Try standing again," she instructed. He was surprisingly heavy and even with the stimulant his muscles didn't seem to remember how to support him. Nevertheless, after a couple false starts, Carlin was able to get him standing on his own. "You're doing better," she said, smiling.
"What does it matter?" the man asked. "I'll never make it through the green fog."
Carlin's frown returned, and she felt a temptation to touch her hair. "There has to be a way through," she said. She remembered the lab where she and Antori had encountered verdenicine gas before. "We can ignite the gas if we get it to a high enough temperature," she said, thinking out loud. "And to do that..." She pulled off what was left of the casing of her palm beacon. "I think I can make this thing short-circuit."
The human man was silent for a moment, simply staring at her. "You...you do?" he said after a moment.
"I do," said Carlin, fishing a wire out of the insides of the beacon with her fingersnails. It was hot. She thought that was a good sign.
"You...you have given me something I have not had in a what feels like a lifetime, Starfleet," he said. "Hope."
Carlin grinned at that. She had to admit hope wasn't something she'd been feeling much of either lately, but now with a little luck, maybe things would start to turn around...
"Got it!" she said at last. The palm beacon sparked and a low hum built in the air. "Get behind something," Carlin instructed. "If this works, there's going to be a large explosion." And it better work, because I only have one shot at this, her mind added. Then she aimed the overloading beacon at the opening of the gas-flooded tunnel and threw it.
For a second nothing happened. Carlin ducked into the hole she'd rescued the human from and waited, covering her ears. She wondered if this would be an appropriate time for prayer. Then, the whole cave seemed to shake as a huge fireball lit the area with red-orange light. As soon as it settled down, Carlin grabbed the man's arm and pulled him up out of the hole. She ran with him toward the tunnel, using her tricorder to guide them. Rocks fell around them and the other denizens of the Pit shrieked in terror. They left them behind, following the tunnel upward. Carlin could see faint light up ahead, flickering and artificial. It was the first sign that they'd found an exit to the Pit. A few seconds later, they came upon a metal gate, blown outward by the verdenicine explosion. Carlin and the bearded man stumbled through the gate and into hiding places behind some stalagmites on the other side. They were in a large chamber lit by a floodlight at one end. She didn't need her tricorder to tell her there were Solarii ahead. She could hear them.
"What the hell was that?" one of them demanded.
"I don't know," said another. "It came from the Pit."
"Well check it out!" the first ordered. "And hurry, I want to finish this game."
"Yeah, yeah, it's probably that gas again," said one of the others. "I hate this place."
"We should cap that leak for good," said another. "If the Unholy Ones ever figure out how to ignite that stuff..."
"Yeah, yeah, yea, just be quick about it," the first interrupted. "And you: you say Nikora wanted you to check something out down there?"
"Yes, he...he wanted me to check for the corpse of an Outsider," said a new voice.
"Your funeral, Brother," said the first voice. "You might as well go in now, though, while we've got the gate open."
A trio of palm beacons lit up and headed toward the gated tunnel at the entrance to the Pit. The men moved right past Carlin and the bearded man's hiding place, but they could not fail to notice the damage they'd caused. One of the Solarii swore. "Hey, I need some help over here!" More Solarii headed in that direction. One of them even started swinging around the spotlight to point at the gate, but then the ground trembled and the light went out.
"Fuck, what was that?" asked one of the Solarii, the first voice.
"Must be a chain reaction from the first explosion," said another. "We should tell Father Matan."
"So, what? The power's on the fritz. We'll worry about that later," said one of the Solarii by the gates. "We've got to make sure the Unholy Ones don't get loose. Come on!"
One by one, the lights from the far end of the chamber made their way to the gate, then went down into the Pit. Carlin could hear the sounds of weaponsfire from inside. She shuddered and checked her tricorder. The way ahead was clear and she thought she even recognized where they were from the sensor data collected by Shuttle Two. She helped the bearded man back to his feet. "Come on," she said. "There are some friends of mine I have to rescue."
They continued through the tunnels, heading upward, using Carlin's tricorder to guide them. Occasionally, they could feel the ground tremble beneath their feet. Carlin resisted the temptation to tug at her hair, but only because she needed one hand to hold her tricorder and the other to support the man she'd rescued. She hadn't realized the pockets of verdenizine gas would be that extensive, or that they'd be connected enough to support chain reactions at all. But if the Solarii have started tapping them for power, they probably connected most of the pockets, she realized. They would have also put safeguards of some sort, no matter how primitive, into place to prevent the whole mountain from going up, even if the fires did spread to a few pockets beyond the first. But if something were to happen to compromise their safeguards...She shuddered and put the thought out of her mind. Right now, she needed to concentrate on finding and rescuing her shipmates.
It wasn't long before they reached a chamber lit by filtered daylight. Though the daylight was fading into twilight quickly, Carlin could still make out three Solarii guards, and hanging above them, an old shuttlepod. Her tricorder confirmed the presence of two human lifesigns inside. There they are! I found them! Now, she just had to free them.
She propped the bearded man up behind some stalagmites and motioned for him to keep quiet. Then she peeked out. One of the guards was starting a small campfire and the other was already trying to warm himself by it. The third was watching the perimeter. He wasn't looking at her at the moment, so she risked a wave toward the shuttlepod turned cage. She was rewarded, after a moment, with a wave back. Then, the guard turned her way. Carlin ducked back behind the stalagmites, but evidently not fast enough. She could hear footsteps coming closer.
Suddenly, there was a shout from the shuttlepod. "We need medical assistance up here!" said Doctor Howard. "This is an emergency!" After a short delay someone - Ensign McKensey, she supposed - obliged the doctor with a forced coughing fit.
It seemed to fool the Solarii, though. The guard's footsteps stopped, then reversed. "What's going on up there?"
"This man has a severe case of halitosis!" Howard said. "It could be fatal. Please, I need something to treat it with!"
"What, exactly, do you expect us to do about it?" asked the Solarii guard. He had their attention now. Carlin decided to take advantage of it. She drew a hypospray loaded with sedative from her medkit and snuck up behind him. While Howard kept him distracted by listing a long string of medical supplies and drugs he would need - which amusingly included theragen, impedrezene, an isotropic restraint, and a 100 CCs of tricordrazine - , Carlin was able to inject him with her hypospray. He collapsed, but his fall drew the eyes of the other two Solarii. They went for their weapons, but Carlin had already pried a disruptor pistol off the fallen guard's belt. She fired twice, then the room was clear and she turned her attention to the shuttlepod.
"Well, done, Carlin," Doctor Howard said, his tone appreciative. Then he turned to the other occupant of the makeshift cell. "You can stop coughing now, Alex."
The Ensign obliged and stood up beside the older man. "What did you say I had, anyway?"
"Bad breath, but I'm sure you'll make a full recovery," the Doctor said dryly. Then he turned to Carlin. "It's good to see you. I assume your presence here means the cavalry's arrived."
Carlin shook her head. "No cavalry, I'm afraid, but Antori is waiting inside with a sniper rifle and Sam is somewhere upstairs. You're the only two left, except for Doctor Mor. I know he was captured, but I have no idea where he is."
"From the way the guards were talking, I gather he managed to trade some first-class accommodations upstairs for his research," said Ensign McKensey.
How very Ferengi of him, Carlin thought, then berated herself for it. Like Sam had said, not all Ferengi were as bad as Mor had been, and there was no evidence that his move up had been anything malicious or that he truly intended to help the Solarii. She turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "We need to get you down from there. When Sam was in there she rigged the atmospheric thrusters to fire automatically and wreck the shuttlepod once they finished charging from her tricorder. That should be any minute now."
"We'd noticed the power buildup, but couldn't localize the source," said McKensey.
"There's not enough time to stop it now, even if we knew what we were looking for," said Howard. He pointed to a set of stalagmites across the chamber. "There's a crank behind those rocks. It'll lower the shuttlepod, and then you can cut the door off with your disruptor."
"Or if she stops us about half a meter of the ground we can just jump on this bottom plate here and it'll come off," suggested McKensey. "It's probably faster."
The Doctor shrugged. "Either way, we have to act now. That power buildup is getting stronger, and there's no telling when more Solarii will get here."
Carlin nodded and headed for the crank. She found it easily enough. It was a simple device. She had to apply almost all her weight to the lever to get it going, but once it was unstuck lowering the shuttle was a straightforward - if noisy - affair. She lowered the shuttlepod all the way to the ground, then ran over and cut through the duranium lock the Solarii had put on the cell, unwilling to chance an injury from letting her friends knock the floor out. After a moment, they were free.
Carlin felt infinitely better with them outside of the cell. She gave each of them a friendly hug, then introduced them to the man she'd rescued. "You can call me Captain Crusoe," said the man. "It's appropriate enough anyway."
"Agreed," said McKensey. "Though as I recall Crusoe eventually got off of the island."
"What's that?" Carlin asked.
Howard shook his head. "Human literature reference," he explained. He handed the man, Crusoe, some Starfleet field rations. "These were in my medkit. I was saving them in case we wound up having to stay in that cage longer, but it looks like you need them a lot more than I do."
Crusoe accepted the food gratefully. Carlin thought she even saw tears in his eyes as he unwrapped the rations.
"There's something else you should know," said Howard. "The Solarii were keeping our combadges down here in case anyone else got the idea to use them to try to locate us. I guess they figured this was a secure enough place that they could catch a rescue party on the way in. That guard over there has them in his pocket." He pointed to one of the downed guards on the far side of the shuttlepod.
Carlin headed over and checked the guards pockets. Sure enough, there were five combadges inside. She scanned them to check their IDs. One of them belonged to Lieutenant-Commander Rejes and one to Sam. She pocketed those two, then tossed Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey their combadges. She pinned her own back on and tapped it. "Agran to Drel, do you read me?" she asked.
"Carlin!" came the immediate reply. "Are you alright? I lost contact with you for a while there."
"I'm alright," she said. "The Solarii managed to capture me, but I escaped. I found Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey, and freed them. I even managed to rescue a survivor from a previous crash."
"Sounds good," said Antori. "I'm near the top of the ridge now, and I have a good line of sight. Most of the Solarii seem to be heading for the palace or the warbird. You should be clear if you come out of the lower entrances and stay out of sight."
"Got it," said Carlin. She motioned the others toward the tunnel that led out into the night, while she searched the opposite end of the chamber for a different tunnel. "I'm sending the others out, but I've got to find Sam. She's alive. The Solarii must have beamed her out when she fell, and now they're holding her somewhere in the palace."
"Are you sure about this?" asked Antori.
"I am. I saw her," Carlin insisted.
"I'm not comfortable with you going alone," he said.
"I'll go with her," Alex volunteered. He started toward her when a rising whine from the shuttlepod made him stop in his tracks.
Everyone turned and stared as the old craft suddenly came to life. Its thrusters fired, filling the room with heat in a moment, but that was nothing next to what happened after that. The shuttlepod flew forward, losing its chains and roof together, and slammed into the chamber wall between Ensign McKensey and Carlin. It collapsed into a heap of flames, twisted metal, and fallen stone. Then, Carlin caught sight of a puff of green dust rising from a crack in the wall of the chamber.
"Get down!" Carlin shouted, throwing herself to the floor. A moment later, the world rocked with a huge explosion. Parts of the ceiling fell in and flames engulfed the whole center of the chamber. Moments later a secondary explosion shook the floor, followed by another, and another. The chain reaction Carlin had dreaded was finally taking place.
"Carlin! Are you alright? What happened?" Antori asked frantically.
"I'm alright, but the shuttlepod's set off a chain reaction with the verdenicine pockets under the mountain," she said.
"I believe it," said Antori. "There are explosions and fires going off all over the Palace!"
"Sam's in there!" Carlin picked herself up off the floor. "I've got to get her out!"
"It's suicide, Carlin!" Antori objected.
"It's my only way out," said Carlin, checking the chamber. The flames and partial collapse had separated her from the rest of the party. Already they were scrambling back, preparing to make their own way out via the tunnel to the outside. "I'm cut off," she said. "My only way out is through the Palace, and I am not leaving Sam behind."
"Fine, but be careful," Antori told her. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Carlin managed to smile. "Same here," she said.
"In that case, go, and find Sam if you can. I have only one order, as your boyfriend and your commanding officer: come back alive."
"Aye, aye, sir," she said, then headed up the tunnel toward the Palace.
Author's Note: Carlin's log here at the beginning is based on another of Lara's journal entries. I actually skipped one, but this is the entry that triggers while she's in the Pit level.
Speaking of which, this is the Pit and Geothermal Caverns level of the Tomb Raider game, greatly compressed and with some significant alterations. First off, in the game, Lara manages to break free of Dmitri and Nikolai by fighting them hand-to-hand long enough to steal back her bow. Carlin doesn't have that much skill in melee and doesn't need a bow anyway. I could have given her the phaser, but then that would have made the entire chapter far too easy. So instead I had the brothers themselves push her over in a fight. Second, I changed Carlin's reactions to be slightly less badass than Lara, since Carlin - while she has developed a lot on Yamatai - is still not as accomplished, skilled, or tough as Lara Croft. This is particularly evident in the bloody-water scene. In the game, Lara has an epic moment when, as the Russian brothers are having their "no one could possibly have survived that" conversation on the bridge above, she calmly pokes her head above the blood-red waters, glares daggers at the ignorant fools, and wades off through a pool of floating skulls. Carlin, however, is much more shaken up and not nearly as immune to the effects of gore and fear, so I had her hide and wait the Solarii out.
Not all changes were about making Carlin weaker, though. Some showed a different strength to her character: her mercy and compassion. In the game, as Lara explores the Pit there are two enemies she will encounter if she goes into their areas (which have loot, so why would any self-respecting gamer not go into their areas?), which she will be forced to kill. One is simply territorial while the other gives her a (shorter) version of the madman's monologue in this chapter (he's very creepy if you're paying attention to him). There is no option to simply incapacitate them and give them medical attention, as Carlin did. You can encounter numerous other enemies trapped in cells as well, including the father of Millie and Coco (whose toys are found in the Shipwreck Beach level) who tells you his story in a half-mad (but not at all violent) babble. Lara has the option of killing every prisoner in the Pit - including the Father - , though she gains no experience from doing so. I decided to have Carlin free the father instead. I can't imagine her killing him, or leaving him behind if she had any choice.
Aside from these changes, most of the other changes are compressing the level and cutting out redundant material or material that doesn't make much sense. Mostly this material is there to show and forcibly remind players of something they should already have learned from the relics and documents Lara has encountered, and the mook chatter she's listened to. Among these things are a hapless new prisoner being thrown into the Pit and immediately cannibalized (which was already alluded to by mook chatter in Chapter 12) and a Solarii initiation ritual for recruits just taken from the Pit (which Lara has the amusing option of interrupting by shooting a nearby gas vent, causing an explosion that makes these new Solarii's careers very, very brief). When you think about it, though, neither of these make a whole lot of sense (where did the new prisoner come from? When did the Solarii take people out of the Pit, and how did they get them to stop being ravenous cannibals who'd eat anything that moved and convert them?), and recreating them here would really just be beating a dead horse by telling you readers what you already know. So I cut out those scenes as well as a lot of intervening stealth missions and physics puzzles in order to get Carlin to rescue her friends as quickly as possible.
I also changed the rescue completely. In the game, Lara's attempt to rescue her friends from a helicopter-turned-jailcell becomes an enormous physics puzzle which, while it is interesting in the game, would be inappropriate for the story. Also, there's this random part at the end where, for no apparent reason, the floor of the cavern falls out and sets the rest of the level over a huge pool of lava. Its very dramatic, but I'm not sure what the lava is doing there or why the floor suddenly falls out an reveals it. This of course turns into the whole palace being on fire/exploding for the rest of the next two levels with no real reason for it to do so. I tried to set that up as more believable. As far back as chapter 16, Carlin remarks that verdenicine gas (because natural gas is not green) is capable of causing a chain reaction with enormous destructive potential. Then in chapters 17 and 23, Sam sets up a high-stakes escape attempt, not knowing about the dangerous volatile gases that are everywhere. The last of these two chapters, of course, establishes that physics puzzles are unnecessary because there's a crank right over there. Put it all together, and you have the ending to this chapter, just following the continuity.
Speaking of other types of continuity (with the canon), according to the Memory Alpha page on Klingonese, Sli-Vak means "whore" (DS: "Penumbra"). be'Hom means girl and blHnuch is "coward" while qoH means "fool." These last three translations are all based on the Bing translator. Halitosis is, as Doctor Howard later says, bad breath. Theragen is a compound originally developed as a nerve gas by the Klingons, which was later found to be an effective sedative when diluted with alcohol (TOS: "The Tholian Web"). Impedrezene was a recreational drug that slowed down the brain's higher functions in humans (VOY: "Alliances," "Investigations"). An isotropic restraint is a device used to completely immobilize a patient (VOY: "Phage"). Tricordrazine is a derivative of cordrazine, the powerful stimulant seen in the Original Series episode "City on the Edge of Forever." 25 CCs of tricordrazine was enough to kill a Klingon (TNG: "Shades of Gray"). How the Doctor planned to use any of this to cure bad breath is unclear, but makes for amusing speculation...
The name Crusoe, of course, is a reference to Robinson Crusoe: one of the most famous shipwreck survivors of the literary world. The man Carlin rescued is not actually Crusoe, of course: he just has a dark sense of humor. There is a reference to Robinson Crusoe in the Tomb Raider game (Sam Nishimura finds a copy of the book at one point). That was pretty much where the inspiration for this reference came from.