Serpents Among the Ruins Page 2

  Around the corner, the smoke had surged forward, the length of the street left visible shorter now. “Hello!” Sulu called, cupping her hands around her mouth. She strained to listen for any voices, then called out twice more. When she heard nothing, she started forward, reaching an arm out to the side of the nearest building, intending to use it as a guide once she entered the dark clouds. With her other hand, she stripped off the belt that cinched her traditional Koltaari tunic at the waist, then pulled the hem of the yellow garment up to cover her nose and mouth. Drafts of heated air pushed past her exposed midriff.

  She plunged into the maelstrom of smoke and ash, and at once visibility dropped to almost nothing, as though a light had been extinguished in a windowless room. She moved along the building quickly but cautiously, alert for any Koltaari she might encounter. “Hello!” she called out again, briefly taking the makeshift filter from her mouth. “Can anyone hear me?” The only reply was the ravenous cry of the fire’s fury.

  She kept moving, slowing her pace, but continuing to call out. Despite holding the bottom of her tunic over her face, she breathed in traces of smoke, and finally she began to cough. Soon, her throat burned as though she had inhaled a mouthful of smoldering gravel. A series of deeper coughs racked her body, and she quickly dropped to her hands and knees, bending her head low in search of breathable air. Her eyes stung and watered, and she closed them against the relentless smoke. As she brought her face within centimeters of the street, though, she found a shallow band free of the foul clouds. She gulped at the clear air, and fought to bring her hacking under control. She knew that she could go no farther.

  Then an image rose unexpectedly in her mind: a woman lying on an infirmary biobed, her delicate features glistening with perspiration, her long, straight black hair in knots, her body convulsing from yet another coughing jag. Sulu thought of her mother frequently enough, but not usually from those final days on Marris III and Starbase 189. She most often remembered her mother in one of her sleek, ultramodern outfits—a woman vibrant and confident, her impossibly green eyes threatening mischief—or in one of the traditional gowns she had occasionally worn—still vital, still strong, but her eyes instead promising mystery. Right now, though, those cherished recollections could not chase away the specter of her mother in that infirmary, in that biobed, her body ravaged by Sakuro’s disease, set afire from within.

  Sulu opened her eyes, an attempted defense against the unpleasant picture in her mind. She saw the pavement stretching away from her beneath the roiling sea of smoke, the brick of the wall she had followed visible just a meter or so away. She inhaled deeply, then stood and retraced her steps along the building. Even as she pulled the hem of the tunic up over her nose and mouth once more, another bout of coughing rasped her throat, but she concentrated on keeping her legs in motion, and on reaching air that had not yet been poisoned by the fire.

  Five steps. Ten. And still the smoke engulfed her. She began to feel lightheaded, and she feared that she might not make it out into the open air. She tried to maintain her focus on following the wall, on the rough-hewn texture of the brick as her fingers passed over it, on the—

  She tripped.

  She went down hard, her hands scraping along the street, her knees striking the unyielding pavement. Pain shot through her limbs, sharpening her attention. Instead of rising, though, she reached behind her, to whatever she had fallen over. Cloth and something beneath it gave way to her touch: a person.

  Sulu climbed back to her feet, then stooped down and walked her hands along the body until she located its arms. She hauled the victim to their feet—they seemed slight, perhaps no taller than a meter and a half, more than a dozen centimeters shorter than Sulu—and then up onto her shoulders in a classic rescue carry. After wrapping an arm around a leg and arm, Sulu reached for the wall with her other hand. She couldn’t find it, but decided to trust her bearings and started once more through the smoke.

  Beads of sweat slid down Sulu’s brow and into her eyes. Her Koltaari garments had soaked through and clung tightly to her body. Her breathing came in gasps now, and she wondered how many more steps she would be able to take. She stumbled once, almost overbalancing, but somehow retained her feet. She continued stubbornly forward, but worried that she might have lost her direction when she had fallen, that she now headed deeper into the smoke rather than out of it.

  And then she passed back into daylight. The clouds of smoke had advanced nearly to the intersection now. She rounded the corner, then lowered her charge to the street. It was a young Koltaari woman, she saw, unconscious, perhaps twenty years of age. As with the man Sulu had helped to safety, the woman had dark patches around her mouth and nose, clearly the effects of respiring the smoke.

  Sulu rested a moment, gathering her strength. Sunlight dappled the street, obviously the effect of the smoke rising haphazardly into the sky. The sirens had grown much louder now, implying that the emergency vehicles would be here soon. Still, she wanted to get farther from the fire and the encroaching smoke, and she would try to carry this young woman at least another couple of blocks.

  As she set herself to lift the woman again, Sulu spotted a figure in her peripheral vision. She peered over at the intersection and saw a Koltaari man standing there. He turned quickly away, but then reversed direction and headed toward her. He was lean and fit, and stood not much taller than she did. He had a narrow face and angular features, appearing to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He carried a small satchel over one shoulder.

  Only when the man had neared to within a few meters did Sulu recognize Grayson Trent, Enterprise’s chief computer scientist and a member of the landing party. Thank goodness, she thought. Trent had gone to another part of the city—his mission, beyond simple reconnaissance, had been to scan Koltaari computers for any hints that they had been infiltrated or compromised—but he had obviously come back here to the power plant to help the victims of the fire, just as she had.

  Trent marched up to Sulu and raised a hand to her neck. She could not hear any hiss above the cacophony, but she recognized the pressure of a hypospray. Trent leaned in, bringing his mouth close to her ear, though he still had to speak loudly for her to hear him. “Tri-ox,” he told her, identifying the medication with which he had injected her. She nodded her acknowledgment, pleased that he had somehow managed to secure a medkit, and then she pointed to the Koltaari that she had carried here. Trent reset the hypo, then ministered to the young woman.

  When the lieutenant rose, Sulu leaned in close to him and asked, “Have you contacted the rest of the landing party, or the ship? Does anybody know what’s happened?”

  “No,” he told her. “There’s a dampening field in the city blocking communications and sensors.” That explained Sulu’s inability to raise anybody on her communicator. It also supported the captain’s suspicions, since the Koltaari didn’t possess the technology required to project such a field.

  Beside them, the young woman stirred, the tri-ox compound evidently taking effect. She looked up with an expression of confusion and fear. Sulu squatted down beside her. “There’s been an explosion and a fire,” she said, yelling the words so that she could be heard; the sirens seemed extremely close now. “You have to get out of here. Can you walk?”

  Sulu saw the woman say, “Yes,” but the word did not carry above the sounds of the fire and the wails of the sirens. Sulu reached out and helped the woman up. Once on her feet, the young Koltaari swayed once, but then seemed to steady herself.

  Just a couple of blocks down, a connected series of four egg-shaped vehicles, bright blue, turned around a corner, hovering just above the street and heading in this direction. Several Koltaari, clad in protective gear—also blue—hung from the sides of the fire-control machines. The string of vehicles slowed as it neared, its sirens piercingly high as it passed. It turned at the intersection onto the road that led to the power plant. The sirens suddenly shut off, and Sulu guessed that the firefighters had stopped to make t
heir stand.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she called out, placing a hand on the young woman’s back and gently urging her forward. Along with Trent, they started down the street.

  As they walked, the sounds of the fire diminished behind them, and Sulu hoped that was more than a function of distance. She intentionally lagged behind the Koltaari woman so that she and Trent could speak without being overheard. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Trent told her. “A little singed around the edges, but I’m okay.” Sulu studied him for a moment and was pleased to see that he at least showed no visible signs of injury. “What about you?” he asked.

  “I’m all right,” she said, knowing that Dr. Morell would ignore such a statement in favor of a thorough examination. “I inhaled some smoke,” she said, the throaty tone of her voice underscoring her words, “but I’ll be okay.” She rubbed at the side of her mouth and felt a grainy texture there. When she looked at her fingers, she saw that the tips had come away stained an ashy gray. She shook her head absently, ignoring thoughts of her own condition and turning to more important matters. “Let’s try to contact the others again,” she told Trent. “If we can’t, if the dampening field is still in effect, then we’ll head for the beam-down point,” she said, citing standard procedure for circumstances such as these.

  She pulled out her communicator, opened it, and used both hands to hide it as she raised it to her mouth. “Sulu to Captain Harriman, Sulu to Captain Harriman.” She waited a few seconds, eventually tried reaching other members of the landing party, and then finally the ship. No responses came.

  As she replaced the communicator at the back of her hip, beneath her tunic, a gloom settled suddenly along the street. Unlike the inconstant murk thrown by the smoke, this darkness did not waver. Ahead, the young Koltaari woman turned and peered up, then took a quick step back, recoiling in obvious terror. Sulu turned her own gaze skyward. Dark clouds continued to rise from the fire, she saw, but it was not smoke that blotted out the sun. Hanging above the buildings, a massive expanse of gray-green metal filled Sulu’s view. She could see dark lines and edges and other shapes on its surface, and she distinguished hatches, a shield grid, weapons turrets. Alien characters marched along one section, the identity of the language no surprise to her.

  “Come on,” Sulu said, already starting to move. “We’ve got to find Captain Harriman.” Trent fell into step beside her, and the two headed down the street, rushing along beneath the shadow of the Romulan warship.

  Harriman stopped in the road and stared. Lieutenant Tenger stood at his side. The two had almost reached the city when the air above it had begun to shimmer and shift, like a body of water flash-freezing in sudden and intense cold. And then the effect diminished, the previously empty sky solidifying into the form of a massive starship. Its main body, curving laterally from the tip of its bow back to its linear stern, stretched nearly as long and wide as all of Enterprise. A flat, thick neck reached forward to a smaller, aquiline structure, and two warp nacelles sat atop broad, winglike supports that arched outward and upward from the main section. The design evoked a distinctly avian feel, as of a hawk swooping down on its prey—an image chillingly appropriate in this case, Harriman thought. He recognized the vessel at once as a Romulan ship of the line.

  “Imperial Fleet, Ivarix class,” Tenger said, putting voice to Harriman’s thoughts. “Armed with disruptors, photon torpedoes, and plasma-energy weapons,” he added soberly, obviously focusing on the enormous threat to the Koltaari. The security chief did not offer speculation on the particular identity of the vessel, but Harriman’s instinct told him that it was the flagship. Although it was unusual for a starship to descend so low into the atmosphere of a planet, Harriman immediately understood the reason for the maneuver: the Romulans wanted to instill awe and fear in the Koltarri.

  “We need to—” he started, but a low-pitched hum interrupted him. Similar to the whine of a Federation transporter, but deeper, the drone rose from a point about ten meters ahead, an indication that the dampening field no longer operated here. Electric-blue motes danced across the width of the road, coalescing into shapes and gaining substance. Beside Harriman, Tenger moved with uncanny speed, a phaser appearing in the lieutenant’s hand as if by magic. But as ten Romulan soldiers materialized, each with a disruptor pistol held at the ready, it became instantly clear which side would prevail in a skirmish.

  An officer in the middle of the line stepped forward, lowering her disruptor to her side. Clad in a standard Imperial Fleet uniform—a formfitting black-and-silver mesh reminiscent of chain mail, with a colored strip running down the right third of the top—she distinguished herself from the others both by her manner and by the right arm of her uniform, also colored. The jade hue, Harriman knew, designated tactical operations, and its place on her arm, her position in command of that discipline aboard ship. The stylized starbursts at her throat specified her rank as subcommander.

  The officer closed to within a couple of meters, looking only briefly at Lieutenant Tenger before turning her full attention to Harriman. She stared at his face, seeming to study his features. After a few moments, she said, “Captain Harriman,” her words somewhere between a statement and a question. He surmised that the doctored shade of his skin added some difficulty in identifying him, although the Romulans likely would have expected the use by the Enterprise crew of such camouflage. The officer said no more, evidently awaiting a response.

  Instead, Harriman slowly looked to his security chief. “Stand down, Lieutenant,” he said with feigned nonchalance. Tenger did not take his gaze from the Romulans, but he lowered his weapon without comment. Harriman then peered past the subcommander to see that the members of her landing party continued to wield their disruptors. The soldiers on the flanks had moved away from the group and now surveyed the surrounding areas, presumably to protect against the unexpected.

  Harriman at last looked back at the subcommander. A greenish tinge had risen in her high, sallow cheekbones, a hint that his disregard had roused her dudgeon. A small advantage, perhaps, engaging the subcommander’s emotions, but Harriman’s experiences through the years with the Romulan military had proven to him that any advantage over them was worth having. “Yes,” he finally told her, “I’m Captain Harriman.”

  She raised her empty hand to her mouth and spoke into a communicator mounted around her wrist. “Admiral Vokar, this is Linavil,” she said. “We’ve located him.”

  Vokar, Harriman thought. He’d been right, then: the vessel looming above the Koltaari capital was the Imperial Fleet’s flagship.

  Harriman heard no reply on Linavil’s communicator, but within seconds, the whirr of a Romulan transporter again filled the air. This time a single figure materialized, appearing between the line of soldiers and the subcommander. The admiral wore a uniform similar to Linavil’s, but with a strip and arm of royal purple, indicating Vokar’s advanced position within the command structure of the Imperial Fleet. His hair had silvered more since the last time Harriman had seen him, and the lines etched into his face around his mouth had grown deeper and better defined.

  The admiral spotted Harriman immediately. Linavil stepped aside, allowing him to approach directly. Vokar paced carefully over, lifting his gaze to make eye contact with Harriman. Of small stature—not even a meter and two-thirds, and thin—the admiral nevertheless projected a powerful presence. His face showed his age, but his flinty gray eyes exposed vigor and a startling intensity.

  “Harriman,” Vokar said, his gentle voice managing to carry with it a subtle dash of contempt. “It has been some time since last we met.”

  Harriman nodded and offered a humorless smile. “Not quite long enough to suit me, Aventeer,” he said, attempting to convey his own disdain by employing the given name of the ever-formal admiral. Vokar seemed unmoved by the comment, but Subcommander Linavil took a quick stride forward and threw the back of her closed fist across Harriman’s face. He felt his teeth dig into the i
nside of his cheek, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He lurched back a step in order to keep himself from going down, then righted himself. In a flash of movement, the subcommander bent and reached her empty hand into her boot, pulling out a long, narrow shape. She flicked her arm toward the ground, and the sheath flew off from the object, revealing an obsidian blade.

  Beside him, Lieutenant Tenger tensed, but did not act. As so often happened, the security chief’s restraint impressed Harriman. Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered and outgunned, many security officers would’ve responded in kind to an assault on their captain. In most cases, such a reaction would simply have proven foolhardy, earning the officer and the captain more physical pain. In this situation, though, such a reaction could’ve had far greater repercussions: what occurred here in the next few minutes might well influence the course of war. Tenger knew that, and his restraint demonstrated his commitment to serving this mission.

  “A Romulan subcommander striking a Starfleet officer, threatening him with a knife,” Harriman said to Vokar. “My crew put in danger, possibly injured or killed.” He gestured toward the city, where the thick, dark smoke continued to rise from the sites of the two explosions. “Those are provocative actions, Admiral.”

  “Your crew are unharmed,” Vokar said. Harriman had expected as much, believing that the Romulans would not commit to battle via direct action against the Federation, but he felt relief at the news anyway.

  “Still,” Harriman persisted, “at a time when your people are negotiating peace with mine—”

  “We do not bargain for peace,” Vokar declared calmly. “We fight to retain our manifest right to live without constraint, and to deny the encroaching imperialism of the Federation. Imperialism, of which your presence on this planet is an example.”