CHAPTER 10
A STEAMY MAZE ... vertical, diagonal, horizontal tubes, bridges ...
Archer fought to stay conscious. One of the Suliban must’ve landed a blow on his head or neck. He strained to see Hoshi. She was behind him, but no longer safe there.
They had succeeded in making their presence known, whether that would turn out to be good or bad. Rather than finding someone, they had succeeded in being found. He took that as progress.
They were being pushed right along at a daunting pace for his aching thigh. He forced his leg to keep moving. Couldn’t let it freeze up on him. Might have to run.
One of the two Suliban who pushed them along had his plasma pistol. He caught glimpses of it, just enough to tempt him every few seconds. He wanted the weapon back, and pummeled himself mentally for losing it to them. He had handed his enemy an advantage. Rule number one broken.
Sweat drained down his face. The surroundings were getting hotter and steamier, though the Suliban didn’t seem affected at all—
What was that? An energy field?
Archer blinked as a fizzing light half blinded him. He fought to adjust.
T’Pol! And Trip—in a box of some kind, with a force field locking them in. Like Hoshi, alive. Now that he knew for sure they were being stalked, Archer got a burst of relief at seeing them. Where were Reed and Mayweather?
He winced as the Suliban operatives yanked him to a stop. Hoshi bumped his right arm. One of the Suliban worked a handheld device that caused the energy field to snap down. Then that same Suliban reached for Hoshi.
Archer tried to get between them, but there was no fighting the strength of the individual who had him by both arms behind his back. This one had figured out that Archer’s leg was hurt and he could be held off balance.
As the Suliban with the device pulled Hoshi inside the chamber and left her with T’Pol and Tucker, Archer noticed that these two weren’t dressed the same as the two who had infiltrated the Enterprise. Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t the same two. He couldn’t tell from their mottled faces, or make out any individuality at all.
Archer waited to be put inside. Instead, the Suliban stepped out and raised the electrical shield again. From inside, Tucker stepped forward toward Archer, but there was no hope to break through the force field. T’Pol gave him no such concern. Instead, she seemed to be saying with her eyes I told you so.
Angry and aching, Archer let himself be led away without further struggle. He sensed a chance for answers now, if not the ones he wanted.
What would be done with his crew? Would they be interrogated? Pressured?
The Suliban pulled him down a conduit to some steps, then down the steps. He had to duck twice, bumped his head once on something he never saw, and was drawn through three locked doors and a small hatch. Thoroughly disoriented by the time they stopped, Archer found himself in a chamber with beds, computers, piles of clothing, tables and chairs, and clutter.
He looked around critically and got an idea about this place. He knew a secret subversive base when he saw one. Were the Suliban dissidents? Against whom?
Or more pointedly, were these, Suliban dissidents?
The two Suliban finally let him have his arms back. Without a word or gesture, they turned and left him alone in this chamber—which probably meant there was no easy way out. Judging from the way they came in, he might be lost down here for weeks before he found his way to the surface.
“You’re looking for Klaang,” a female voice said in perfect English. “Why?”
Archer turned, looked. Neither of the Suliban had come back or spoken. Who had?
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded coldly.
The shadows behind a stack of boxes shifted. A woman stepped out. Strikingly lovely and definitely human, the woman strode toward him, studying him as she came.
“My name is Sarin. Tell me about the people who took Klaang off your ship.”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Archer reversed. “They looked a lot like your friends outside.”
She stepped toward him. “Where were you taking him?”
“How come you don’t look like your friends?” he asked, instead of giving her anything.
She was uncomfortably close now. “Would you prefer I did?” she asked in a sultry tone.
Oh, brother. This dame had seen too many steamy movies. She had the sticky dialogue down pat, not to mention the unoriginal seductive stare and liquid lips. What did they take him for?
Stick to business.
“What I’d prefer,” he attempted again, “is that you give me Klaang back.”
“So you could take him where?”
“Home. We were just taking him home.”
Sarin was now inches away. Less. She seemed to be gauging him. He was returning the favor.
“You’d better be careful,” Archer murmured. “I’m a lot bigger than you are.”
She moved until they were very close and her breath brushed his cheek. “If you’re thinking of harming me, I’d advise against it.”
She ran her hand along his jawline.
“What’re you doing?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
“Why were you taking Klaang home?”
“Y’know,” he said instead, “under different circumstances, I might be flattered by this, but ...”
Sarin came up on her toes and pressed her lips to his, forcefully and with purpose. Archer coolly accepted what was happening and bothered to relax enough that she might get discouraged sooner. With his ship on the line and his crew in a cage, he didn’t much care how seductive she wanted to playact.
She got whatever she wanted—or didn’t—and stepped back rather abruptly. Her face began to melt.
A moment later, she was Suliban. Archer grimaced in disgust.
“That’s never happened before,” he offered.
“I’ve been given the ability to measure trust,” she said, “but it requires close contact.”
Maybe next time they could just shake hands. He tried to imagine her smooching T’Pol, and shook that image away before it took hold.
“You’re Suliban,” he said, giving her a pretense of the shock she was probably going for.
“I was a member of the Cabal,” Sarin said, “but not anymore. The price of evolution is too high.”
“Evolution?”
Carefully, she moved away, no longer meeting his eyes. “Some of my people are so anxious to ‘improve’ themselves that they’ve lost perspective.”
“So you know I’m not lying to you,” Archer vectored back to the point. “Now what?”
“Klaang was carrying a message to his people.”
“How do you know that?”
“I gave it to him.”
“What kind of message?”
“The Suliban have been staging attacks within the Klingon Empire,” she told him. “Making it appear that one faction is attacking another. Klaang was bringing proof of this to his High Council. Without that proof, the Empire could be thrown into chaos.”
“Why would the Suliban want that?” Archer asked, following her and keeping her from turning away. He knew guilt when he saw it, and was determined to get answers before she changed her mind or had an attack of regret.
“The Cabal doesn’t make decisions on its own,” she went on, more anxious to tell him things. “They’re simply soldiers fighting a temporal cold war.”
“Temporal? You’ve lost me.”
“They’re taking orders from the distant future.”
The announcement stopped Archer in his tracks. He ended up leaning on his bad leg, enduring shots of pain through his hip, but the strange concept held him still. “What?”
In his periphery he saw a movement on the ceiling and flinched. Only a shot of steam from a crack.
Temporal cold war ...
Sarin turned fully to face him, now firm with conviction. If she had harbored any doubts, they were gone.
“We can help you find Klaang,” she said quickly. “But we don’t have a starship. You’ll have to take us with you!”
A blinding flash of blue light discharged between them. A computer station at Archer’s elbow exploded into shards and drove him sideways. He reached for Sarin and pulled her out of the blast area.
Another weapon blast struck even closer. Two Suliban skittered across the ceiling, firing weapons at them!
It didn’t take a genius to understand that the secret base had been breached and these weren’t the same two Suliban who had brought him here.
Sarin’s Suliban came streaking in from a doorway, firing as they ran, but the other Suliban seemed to have physical advantages. They skimmed the walls and ceiling like insects.
All hell broke loose. Archer dragged Sarin toward the way they’d come in, assuming she would have the sense to lead him out through those tubes—
“Get us out!” Archer choked.
In fact, she had a shortcut. Five seconds later, they were out in the main access level, being sprayed by geothermals and burned by the fritzing electrical screen that blocked off the Enterprise landing party. Behind them, the battle raged—Suliban against Suliban.
One of Sarin’s operatives fell dead just inches behind Archer, while the other exchanged hand-weapon fire with the two attackers. Sarin raised a weapon now that Archer hadn’t even known she possessed, and began returning fire, blocking blast after blast that might’ve taken Archer’s head off.
Sarin’s other operative followed them out, rushing frantically along a bridge, firing as he went. He blasted one of the two attackers, but was caught in crossfire and killed by the second invader.
That left Archer and Sarin on their own—and Archer had no weapon! His team was armed, but they couldn’t get through the force field. He had to break that force field!
The Suliban attacker, the remaining one, had the same idea. He drove Archer and Sarin into hiding with his wild firing, then opened on the force field with the Enterprise crewmen behind it. They dove for cover, but there wasn’t any. All they could do was crouch with each other as the field disrupted in blinding displays of free energy.
At Archer’s side, Sarin took the initiative and stood clear. She fired openly at the attacker’s body and blew him off his feet. With that window of opportunity, she rushed to the control panel of the force field and worked it with some kind of code.
The field fell! The crew flooded out, Tucker first. T’Pol pushed Hoshi before her.
Sarin yanked open a panel that turned out to be a locker. She started handing the crew their plasma pistols!
Archer briefly connected with Tucker—just a reassuring glance—and they were off running.
“Where is your vessel?” Sarin asked.
“On the roof! Docking port three!”
“Captain!” Hoshi cried, and pointed at the underside of a diagonal conduit high over the ground. Two more Suliban, defying gravity, crawled along the pipe!
“This way!” Sarin called.
As she led them in a completely confusing direction, one of the Suliban dropped and landed only a pace from Archer.
He lashed out, and the Suliban sprang out of reach and out of sight with a heightened agility that startled even Sarin.
But here were two more Suliban—dressed like Sarin’s associates. On our side? Yes! They were firing at the other Suliban!
How many people were in Sarin’s subversive splinter group? Right now Archer wanted dozens, hundreds.
Flashes of weapons fire illuminated the distance. The Starfleet team plowed forward after Sarin, ducking and running, navigating the wild jungle of pipes and buttresses.
Sarin reached a massive vertical tube, hit a control, and opened a hatch that Archer was relieved to see, because there was no way to climb this monolith. A large pipe opened before them. Inside was a circular platform a few feet above the deck. Archer spun to pile Hoshi into the hole while Tucker acted as rearguard.
What about Reed and Mayweather?
He reached for T’Pol.
Weapons fire streaked in from hundreds of feet away.
“Trip!” Archer called, and shoved the engineer onto the platform, then piled in after him. Under them, the platform began to rumble and shift with the rush of thermal energy. Sarin was doing something with a control box. Was this an elevator?
“Come on!” Archer waved, but his voice was snatched away by a thermal rush.
Sarin moved toward the platform. She reached out to climb aboard. A blast struck her square in the back.
A Suliban stood across the area, his weapon trained on her. He fired again just as his eyes met Archer’s.
Sarin fell hard. The points of impact on her back glowed and sizzled as they burned their way through her writhing body.
Archer launched off the platform, followed by Tucker. Tucker provided covering fire and drove the Suliban back while Archer knelt at Sarin’s side.
The Suliban took cover behind an outcropping of twisted pipes, but he was more persistent than the others and didn’t run. Archer’s mind flashed on his moment of contact with the single Suliban, and he recognized something in this individual’s eyes, his manner, his drive. Unlike the others, who had ducked and hidden with more relish than they had fought, this one had a stake in whatever was happening.
Archer glanced over again and memorized the patterns of dappling on this Suliban’s face.
But beneath his hands, the female Suliban was dying.
“Find Klaang,” Sarin murmured raggedly.
Mercifully, she lost consciousness as the wounds in her body continued to glow, burn, and grow, eating her from the inside out.
“Trip!” Archer bolted to his feet. He hoped it would be quick for Sarin. He could give her no more now.
He motioned for Tucker, and together they jumped back onto the trembling platform. Archer slid the hatch shut.
The moment he did that, the platform blasted upward through the shaft, driving them to their knees, propelled by a rolling pillar of steam.
In seconds the hot steam was blown away by an arctic blast. Archer forced his eyes open and saw snow blanketing the landing dock. They’d made it!
The platform shot up and stopped a full two feet over the dock. The Starfleet team was thrown into a pile, but alive. Steam blasted out in all directions under them, billowing into the frozen air.
Still covered with sweat, Archer pulled his team into the frigid snow. “Let’s go!” he called over the whine of wind and blowing ice.
“Where’s the pod?” Hoshi called.
“Over here!” Tucker waved and pointed.
T’Pol, though, called louder over the wind and pointed in a different direction. “No, this way!”
Archer weighed the two options, then picked T’Pol’s direction. She was the only one who had ever been here before. He made the bet and pointed. “Come on!”
As the four of them headed toward an obscured shape with two lights that might indeed be the shuttle, Archer bent against the wind, endured the sweat freezing on his cheeks, and brought the communicator up, flipping it as he ran. “Lieutenant Reed, this is Archer! Come in!”
“zzzzzzkkkkkggggaaazzzk.”
“We’re up on the roof! You need to get up here as quickly as possible! Where are you? Emergency evacuation! Reed!”
The communicator buzzed frantically. Someone was definitely trying to get through to him. Where were they? How deeply had they wandered into that steamy maze?
The storm was getting worse. The landing deck was turning into a skating rink. Archer fell twice, Tucker once, and the women stumbled into each other like skittering ducks before the shuttlepod took shape before them in the white fume.
Unintelligible sounds continued to burst from his communicator. He left it open, hoping to hear something that would give him a clue he could follow somehow to get Reed and Mayweather out of the complex, and all of them away from these attacks.
Suliban soldiers appeared only seconds after Archer and his shipmates skidded onto the frozen deck. Time seemed to crawl when a blast rocketed past him.
The wind began to clear. Blowing snow flattened into a sea, and the docking platform opened before them—empty! The obscured shape had been nothing but an approach shield!
“Great!” Hoshi blurted.
“Like I said,” Tucker shouted, “it’s over there!”
Another blast of weapons fire sliced the air. Archer ducked and ordered, “Weapons!”
They had to cross the deck again. And now the Suliban had found them! Even in the now-rising snowstorm, Archer caught a glimpse of his determined counterpart, the one Suliban who wouldn’t be put off, and whose resolve gave substance to the others behind him.
But there was distance between them. Archer was resolved, too, and worked to use the blowing snow as a shield. If it could obscure a whole platform, then he could make it obscure his team.
“Down! Get low, everybody! Form a single file!”
He tried to imagine what the Suliban would be seeing. Lower—lower—and keep moving steadily. Sporadic movement would gain more attention.
They kept searching for the shuttle, this time following Tucker through the storm of snow and weapons fire, firing all the way. Deep red plasma bullets streaked across the platform toward the place where the Suliban shots were coming from. Though the Suliban were moving toward them, Archer sensed they were being held back by his and Tucker’s shots. T’Pol was more reserved, taking shots more carefully, but she, too, was succeeding in driving them back. Hoshi was just skittering like a bird across the ice, intent on their target. She had a weapon, but she also knew she was of little use with it. Probably smart to let the trained officers handle that detail, Archer noted as the moments rushed past.
His single-file trick was working. Suliban shots were going wild behind them. Then they corrected their error forward, and the team was forced to scatter. Hot blue beams cut between them, driving them away from each other.
A darkened form, sheeted and blistered with ice, suddenly flashed with blue energy before them. The shuttlepod! The Suliban weapons fire lit up the skin of the pod and gave the Starfleet team a clear beacon to safety.
T’Pol circled around Archer and pounded on the shuttle window. Why was she doing that?
The emergency hatch began to crack open, popped out a few inches, and swung wider. Air gushed with equalization and temperature change.
Archer tried to reach the shuttle, but a crackle of blue energy raked the hull and drove him back into the swirling snow. His face and hands were numb with cold now. Where was Hoshi? He’d lost sight of her!
The Suliban were closing in. He knew that without even looking. He’d be doing the same thing.
“Hoshi!”
“Captain?” her voice was weak, but not far.
Shivering now, he forced his legs to keep moving away from the shuttle and toward her voice. Behind a wall over there, Tucker was firing steadily at something he could obviously see. The cover gave Archer time to find Hoshi in the roiling white storm. Without saying anything, he took her arm and pulled her along back the way he had just come.
Where were his footprints? He had just come this way, but the trail was already erased.
A mechanical roar directly overhead shook him to his boots. He pushed Hoshi down and tried to see what new method of attack the Suliban had invented. An aircraft—an alien craft launching from the port! Only its running lights showed through the blowing snow. Its great gush of thruster exhaust caused a frozen hell down here.
Archer pulled his eyes away from the transport overhead and squinted through the miasma toward the place where the Suliban shots had come from.
They’d stopped. The Suliban were driven down by the thruster exhaust. But the exhaust did one favor here and executed a problem over there—T’Pol was directly under the exhaust. The force knocked her off her feet and blew her across the deck. She had been near the shuttlepod and now she was way over there, shifting and dazed, alone, unarmed.
The Suliban soldiers and their leader rose out of the exhaust stream as the big ship moved away from the pad. They saw T’Pol. A clear target.
“Get to the ship!” Archer shouted at Hoshi over the wind.
Luckily she wasn’t the heroic type and did as he ordered.
Archer thrust himself up on his aching legs and made himself obvious. He snapped his pistol up just as the Suliban leader noticed him. Without looking for cover, he ran furiously across the tarmac, directly toward the Suliban, firing as he ran.
One of the Suliban was struck by a lucky shot—lucky only because most of his plasma bullets were being sucked sideways by the wind vortex on these open flats. One more down.
The leader and the other soldier took cover. Archer reached T’Pol’s weapon, scooped it up without missing a step, and kept on with his direct assault.
“Go! “he called to her.
“Enterprise needs its captain!” she called back. “Give me the weapon!”
“I said, go!”
To her credit, she hesitated another moment. During that moment he struck her with a look so forceful that she must have realized she wouldn’t be changing his mind. This was no time for a discussion.
Archer broke the contact, raised the second weapon, and began firing both as T’Pol ran behind him toward the shuttle.
He glanced back to gauge her progress and saw the shuttlepod hatch open again for her. Reed was reaching for her! Archer spotted Mayweather warming up the helm. They were already aboard!
A flush of relief numbed Archer’s whole body. His team was intact!
As Reed pulled T’Pol inside, Archer moved backward toward the shuttle, firing constantly. The pistol in his left hand began to cool. Losing power!
The Suliban leader waved his hand. The Suliban broke apart from each other, forcing Archer to divide his target. The leader had figured out what to do, a simple but effective maneuver.
Archer was closer to the shuttle now, close enough for a good leap if he could only turn around, but he had to keep shooting. He aimed slightly to his left at a moving form.
From his right, a blue shot streaked in. His leg folded under him, burning and quivering. A moment later, the blinding pain struck full out.
A tangle of movement confused him. Reed, right overhead, firing into the snow!
Trip Tucker appeared at his side and pulled him through the hatch. Archer did everything he could to save himself and them from further torment, but he could barely think over the searing pain in his thigh. His thoughts piled together. Nothing made sense. He dug his shoulder into Tucker and accepted the support from his friend, who could do nothing for him, not here, like this.
“The starboard thruster’s down!” Mayweather spat.
“Ignore it.” T’Pol, almost excited. “Take us up.”
Hoshi’s face appeared in his closing periphery. She looked small, distant.
“Open a channel.” T’Pol again.
The surge of acceleration made Archer’s mind swarm like bees in the sky. The lower half of his body sizzled, as if he were being fried in a skillet. He tried to move, to sit up—
“Sub-Commander T’Pol to Enterprise.”
“Go ahead,” the voice on the com responded.
“We’ll be docking in a few minutes. Have Dr. Phlox meet us in decon.”
“Acknowledged. Is someone wounded?”
Archer tried to speak, to protest that he could stand, work, take them back to the ship, and go on with their mission to find Klaang ... the Klingons ... he had to ...
“Your pitch is too low. Bring the nose up.”
The pod rocked and turned in the wind. The port nacelle struck a branch and skidded into the snow. No, it was sand ...
“It’s okay. You’ve almost got it. Try again.”
The ship skittered on the sand and rose over open water, airborne again, wavering.
“I can’t do it!”
Dad, I can’t keep the ship in the air! Why can’t I do it right?
“Yes, you can. Take her up, straight and steady.”
The ship skidded into a sand dune, bruised and lifeless.
“Damn!” Archer gushed.
Dad came to his side.
“You can’t be afraid of the wind,” he said. “Learn to trust it.”
Archer turned and looked up onto the dune. T’Pol stood watching him and his father as they worked the model ship and tried to make it fly. What was she doing here?
“The captain is injured,” she said. “I’m taking command of the Enterprise.”
Dad didn’t seem surprised. Why not?