Tales from the Captain’s Table (13 page)

I rerouted all power to the thrusters, trying to shore them up from the control panel, as Soleta clambered across the floor and belted herself into the copilot’s seat. She glanced at what I was doing, but if she had any second-guessing about how I was handling it, she kept it to herself. Instead she simply inquired, “Do you require assistance?”

“I’ve got a handle on it, thanks.” I risked a fast glance at her. “How are you holding up?”

“I’ve had far preferable days.”

“Yeah. Me too. Hold on!”

“To what?” she inquired.

I braced myself as I tried to force the helm to heed my commands. “I don’t know! It’s what we say at times of stress!”

“Humans,” muttered Soleta. “You always have to say
some-
thing.”

My annoyed response was to say nothing, which likely suited Soleta just fine.

We plunged down, down, and then all too fast we were right there, crashing through what looked (as near as I could tell from my brief glimpses in the dark) and sounded and felt a lot like the tops of trees. We’d come roaring into some sort of heavily forested area, and the trees cracked and splintered and collapsed under us as we created an extremely impromptu landing strip with the weight and speed of the runabout. I was certain I heard things breaking away from the ship—vital pieces of the warp nacelles, no doubt—and we were both slammed back and forth in our seats as I did everything I could to slow or steady us. Truthfully, my efforts added very little to the proceedings as the thrusters gave out entirely and we continued to annihilate a considerable chunk of forest real estate. Always a great way to introduce yourself to the local flora and fauna: Destroy a portion of it.

Then we hit something and I heard a horrifying crack. I think we glanced off the mother of all the trees, and the impact sent us tumbling. It slammed me backward against the seat and then forward so hard against the belt that I thought it was going to bisect me. I cried out in pain and fear. Yes, fear. Soleta said absolutely nothing. I didn’t see her, but there wasn’t so much as a whimper out of her. How the hell she managed to do that, I couldn’t begin to guess.

The runabout hit the ground, flipped over and righted itself and flipped again, rolling over and over, and I had no choice but to white-knuckle it and pray that we came to a halt before we rolled over the edge of a canyon or something. Smoke billowed from everywhere, stinging my lungs, causing my eyes to water. I started coughing violently and dwelt on the irony of surviving the landing, only to burn to death or suffocate, and then decided that it wasn’t irony at all, it was just lousy luck.

And then finally, finally, we stopped rolling, but I didn’t realize it at first because my head was still spinning. Suddenly Soleta was right in front of me, shouting, “Captain! Can you hear me?” I forced a nod, and she grabbed at my restraining harness and pulled it open. She was standing at an odd angle and when I tumbled from my chair, I understood why. I could see that Soleta was clutching what appeared to be a small box under her arm, and then recognized it as the emergency homing beacon that usually resided in a panel under the control board.

I staggered, trying to keep myself upright, as Soleta triggered the emergency manual override and forced open the escape hatch.

“We haven’t checked the atmosphere,” I managed to say, my voice hoarse.

“This is Alpha Omega IV. Class-M, no intelligent life…unless you count us, and the jury is still out on that.” She held me by the elbow and aided me in climbing out of the sideways runabout. Before she followed me out, she handed the beacon through to me, then foraged about the interior of the ship and emerged with two phasers—which were all the vessel was equipped with—and a lantern that had, miraculously, not been shattered upon impact. She also had a sack filled with emergency rations, and a tricorder clipped to her belt.

Rain was cascading down upon us. Naturally. Not only had we landed in darkness but in rain. I leaned against the runabout for a moment, coughing violently and letting the smoke clear out of my lungs. I suppose I should have been grateful that we survived, but ankle-deep in mud and already soaked to the skin, swatting away annoying bugs that seemed to have materialized from nowhere, I wasn’t exactly awash in gratitude. Still, there was no reason I couldn’t count our blessings.

“They say any landing you walk away from is a good one,” I said.

Soleta stared at the overturned, crumbled vessel, and replied, “They lie.”

I forced a nod. Then I picked a direction at random and started walking. Soleta followed me without a word, for really, what was there to say under the circumstances? I had taken the lantern from Soleta and held it up, casting light in front of us. The energy cell powering the lantern was enough to give us light for a good thirty days, so I wasn’t concerned about using it up.

The broad leaves of the trees whipped against us, and several times I used one of the phasers to cut us a path. Soleta did the same, taking care to call out a warning each time she fired so I wouldn’t think we were under attack.

“They’re going to be after us, you know,” Soleta said.

I nodded, my face grim. There was no way the Orions were going to let us out of our predicament that easily, although it was difficult to categorize what we’d endured thus far as “easily.”

Finally I could see that the forest, or at least the part we were in, was thinning out. I paused, holding up the lantern to cast as much light as possible on our path, and saw what appeared to be shelter: a small cul-de-sac of rock in front of us and the darkened entrance to a cave. The rock stretched up in front of us and to either side. It appeared to be the base of a mountain.

“Shelter,” I said. “Provided something isn’t inside the cave, ready to eat us.”

Soleta was as soaked through as I, her long, dark hair plastered to either side of her face. The IDIC pin she wore in her hair was sideways, barely managing to hold its place. “I cannot say that I am overly enthused about the positioning,” she said. “If the Orions find us, we would effectively be trapped in there, presuming there’s not an exit out the back.”

I nodded, but then pointed out, “On the other hand, the entrance is defensible, so we might be able to hold out there for some time. And if we stay out here, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to catch my death of cold.”

“Can humans die of a cold?” she asked. She seemed to be genuinely interested in the biological realities of the question.

“I don’t know, and I don’t actually care to find out,” I replied. “Come on.”

I made my way toward the cave, and Soleta followed me, crouching low and watching the upper reaches of the rocky entrance cautiously. I paused at the entrance to the cave, and then Soleta stepped in front of me with the tricorder out and used it to study the interior of the cave before we set foot in it. Finally she nodded in approval. “Empty,” she said, “with no indication of previous habitation.”

I entered the cave, holding the lantern high. It was…well, it was a cave, really. Not much to say, except that it went about thirty feet into the side of the mountain, was wide enough to accommodate both of us and high enough that we only had to crouch a little to make our way into it. “This is nice,” I said tentatively.

Soleta glanced around, not looking particularly impressed. “Yes. At last my search for my retirement home is at an end.”

“Would that our clothes were as dry as your wit,” I replied.

For response, Soleta aimed her phaser at several nearby over-sized rocks and fired a steady beam of low intensity. Within seconds, the rock was glowing with heat, suffusing the entirety of the cave with warmth.

We removed our clothes and draped them over one of the rocks, speeding up the drying process. A steady wind whistled by the front of the cave, but fortunately we were far enough in that it wasn’t gusting to where we were. I crouched as near as I could to one of the glowing rocks, warming it once more with my own phaser when the heat seemed to be dissipating. Soleta was on the other side of it, holding up her hands. I have to admit, in the reddish glow of the phaser-generated light, she looked almost Satanic.

“Naked women in a cave,” I muttered. “It doesn’t get more primitive than this.”

“At least a prehistoric male didn’t drag us in here,” she replied, rubbing her hands briskly in the warmth.

“I presume you activated the homing beacon?”

“Of course,” she said. “Ideally only Federation vessels will possess the necessary frequency to detect it. Our best hope is that the
Excalibur
will trace our route once we are overdue and find us here.”

I paused, then said, “I’m impressed that you knew what world this was, and also knew right off the top of your head the specifics of it.”

“Were you?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Yes.”

“Then you are easily impressed.”

I laughed softly at that. “I suppose so.”

We were silent for a time, and then Soleta said softly, “They did not lie.”

“About what?”

“Your landing. It was a good one, considering what it was you were dealing with.”

“Thank you.”

“And you will see him again.”

“What?” I stared at her in curiosity. “What do you mean?”

“Captain Calhoun. You will see him again. I simply will not permit you to die a pointless death in a rocky hole without ever seeing your husband again. It would be…illogical.”

“I appreciate that, Soleta,” I assured her, “and believe me, I have every intention of trying to make it out of here. But I want it to be both of us.”

“As do I,” she said. “However, if it is to be only one of us, obviously it must be you.”

“Why obviously? Because I outrank you?”

“No. Because you deserve to.”

I made no attempt to hide my surprise at her statement. It was as if, naked as she was, Soleta had been stripped bare of any pretense or artifice. Not that she had ever been reticent over speaking her mind, but still…her bluntness bordering on self-pity was confounding. “And you don’t deserve to?”

She just gazed at me for a long moment, and then said, “It is…complicated.”

“Soleta…has something happened? Something I should know about?”

“Many things have happened, Captain. Not all of them—indeed, most of them—are not worth discussing.”

“Does this have anything to do with what happened with the Beings? I know you became involved with them. That you ate that stuff they called ambrosia…”

“Captain, I would prefer not to discuss this now.”

“Something like that can turn your life on its side, I know. But if you—”

“Captain,” she repeated, this time with more force, “I would prefer not to discuss this now.” She was up and moving, and she grabbed our clothing off the rock on which they’d been warming and tossed me mine. “Quickly.” She was already pulling hers on.

For an instant I wondered what was happening, and then I realized. Soleta’s superhuman hearing had detected someone approaching, and the chances were sensational it wasn’t someone we were going to be pleased to see. I dressed as fast as I could, the uniform having mostly dried. “Orions?” I said, although it wasn’t all that much of a question.

“That would be my surmise,” she said briskly, pulling her uniform shirt on over her head. Oddly, she smoothed it so it lay properly. I couldn’t help but find it a bit amusing that she was concerned about how she looked just then.

We crouched back in the cave, keeping our phasers steady. “They couldn’t have traced the beacon,” I said, although I wasn’t a hundred percent certain of that.

But Soleta shook her head. “They would not have needed to,” she said. “Their sensors would have told them generally where the runabout was wrecked. From there, they simply would have been able to track us by scent.”

“By
scent?”
I could scarcely believe it. “What are they, animals?”

She looked at me grimly. “Do not ask questions, Captain, to which you do not truly want the answers.”

I heard nothing outside except the pounding of the rain, but Soleta never lowered her weapon. She kept it focused, rock steady, at the entrance. And suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, she fired. The cave flared with light from the blast of the phaser, and I didn’t know what she had just shot at.

But then I did, for there was a strangled shriek, and I saw the large form of an Orion stagger two steps in, clutching at his chest which was a puddle of melting flesh. Smoke rose from it and he looked blindly in our general direction before falling flat and lying there, arms splayed out to either side.

Very softly, so that only I could hear, Soleta said, “Now,
that
was impressive.”

I had to agree. Her sharp ears had detected his approach even though his footfall was so soft that I hadn’t heard a thing. There was a bend in the cave so that our view of the entrance was not perfect, but Soleta hadn’t needed anything save her hearing to guide her.

Dropping any pretense of not being heard, the remaining Orions conferred just beyond the entranceway in low, angry growls. None of them bothered to drag their fallen comrade away. Obviously they had other matters on their minds, or what passed for their minds.