Just like Vlisora planned, Kirk realized.
He passed out.
FIFTEEN
“Fifteen minutes to sunset,” Chekov reported.
Uhura watched nightfall creep across the hemisphere, approaching the location of the Institute. The day-lit side of Ephrata IV was rotating away from its sun, bringing Sulu ever closer to his scheduled execution.
“Gravity at three hundred percent,” Masters said. “And—”
“And rising,” Uhura finished impatiently. “I know.”
She instantly regretted her snappish tone, but figured she could be forgiven for feeling a little stressed. The slow-motion gravity torture was wearing hard on all of them. Her back and joints ached from the extra weight. She was starting to feel out of breath and light-headed. Her heart labored to pump her blood to her head.
“Sorry to bark at you, Charlene. Keep me informed.”
Masters didn’t seem to take it personally. “Aye, sir.”
Uhura studied the bridge. Nobody was standing anymore. Even the security officers on duty had collapsed into seats around the outer perimeter of the bridge. People were winded, gasping for breath from even the smallest exertion. Hearts and muscles strained against the unrelenting gravity. Uhura wondered how much longer they’d be capable of running the ship.
Nor was Maxah immune to the insidious effect of the gravity barrage. He leaned against the back of her chair, letting it help support his weight. His smoky aroma kept fooling her, making her think a fire had broken out on the bridge. His spines sagged toward the floor.
“If you will allow me my mace,” he suggested, “I may be able to relieve your discomfort, if only for a time.”
She hesitated. After observing his heated debate with Sokis, she was more inclined than ever to trust the younger Ialatl. Still, returning his weapon to him would be a real leap of faith—and she was feeling way too heavy to leap at the moment.
Then again, she thought, maybe defying gravity is exactly what we need to do right now.
“All right.” She turned slowly toward Masters, feeling like she was weighed down by neutronium shackles. “Please return our guest’s property, Lieutenant.”
Masters paused as well. “Sir?”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Lieutenant?” Chekov asked. The brash young ensign was more comfortable questioning Uhura than Masters was. “Remember what he did with that wand of his before?”
She didn’t blame him for being wary. For all she knew, she was making a big mistake.
“I haven’t forgotten, Ensign.” She nodded at Masters. “Do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Masters produced the baton, which was obviously much heavier than before. She needed both hands to lift it. Grunting with effort, she struggled to rise from her seat.
“Stay where you are,” Maxah urged her. Letting go of the captain’s chair, he lurched across the bridge, shuffling feet that were almost too heavy to move. Watching him fight the supergravity, grabbing onto consoles and railings for support, Uhura wasn’t sure he was going to make it all the way to Masters’s post at the engineering station, but, gasping for breath, he finally dropped into an empty seat beside Charlene. The chair sagged noticeably beneath his weight. He reached for his mace. “Thank you for holding this for me.”
The apprehensive engineer handed over the baton. “Don’t make me regret this, mister.”
“I would not dream of it.”
Like Masters, he needed both hands to support the baton’s augmented weight. Grimacing, he twisted a ring on its shaft and an effulgent green light radiated from the baton.
The effect was immediate. Sighs of relief broke out across the bridge as the debilitating weight slackened to a noticeable degree. Uhura suddenly felt more comfortable than she had in hours. It still wasn’t standard gravity, but it was more bearable than before. She actually felt like she might be able to stand up if she had to.
“That is a relief,” she told Maxah. “Thank you.”
“Bridge gravity at one hundred sixty percent,” Masters confirmed. “Compared to three hundred and five percent elsewhere on the ship.” She eyed the glowing baton speculatively. “I don’t suppose we can patch that into the ship’s main gravity generators?”
He shook his head. “The technologies are not readily compatible. Moreover, the range of the baton is distinctly limited. As I explained before, it is intended for personal defense, nothing more. Nor is it capable of counteracting gravity artillery on such a scale.” He gave Uhura an apologetic look. “At best, I can only partially protect a small area for a time.”
She took his word for it. An urgent notion struck her.
“Get that baton to sickbay,” she ordered. “On crutches if necessary.”
Maxah understood at once. “Your injured.”
“Doctor McCoy’s patients need relief more than we do,” she said. It made sense; if a single baton wasn’t enough to save the ship, maybe it could at least give Scotty a fighting chance.
Chekov rose to his feet. “I’ll do it, Lieutenant. For Mister Scott.”
“I appreciate the thought, Mister Chekov, but I need you here on the bridge.” She beckoned to a security officer, Lieutenant Paul Alvarez, instead. A runner, Alvarez had placed in the Plutonian marathon last year. She figured if anybody could make it to sickbay, he could. “Get this to sickbay right away. Take the turbolift as far as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
Maxah surrendered the baton without complaint. “Careful,” he warned Alvarez. “Do not adjust the settings. There could be negative consequences.”
“Understood,” Alvarez said.
Uhura was impressed by Maxah’s willingness to lend his only weapon to the cause of helping their sick and injured. She was trusting him more and more. Maybe I shouldn’t have clocked him with that data slate before.
“Get a move on, Lieutenant,” she instructed Alvarez, before swinging her head toward Palmer at communications. “Inform sickbay that relief is on the way. Explain the situation to them.”
Palmer nodded. “I’m on it.”
Bearing the glowing baton easily in one hand, Alvarez exited the bridge, taking its benign influence with it. Uhura groaned as the heavy gravity reasserted itself, crushing her back into her seat. She wasn’t the only one. Chekov let out an “oomph” as he plopped back down behind the nav console.
Well, she thought, it was nice while it lasted.
She had no regrets, though.
“You made the right call, Lieutenant,” Chekov said. “I’m sure the captain would have done the same.”
“I’m glad you think so, Ensign.”
Break time’s over, she thought. On the screen, darkness continued to eclipse the solitary continent. “What’s our status, Mister Chekov?”
He looked glumly at his readouts. “Ten minutes to sunset.” Frustration overwhelmed him, and he pounded his fist against the control panel. “We have to do something. We can’t let those Cossacks murder Sulu!”
Uhura sympathized. She felt the same way.
“What about Yaseen?” Fisher asked from the helm station. “Did you see her there, wearing that creepy silver mask? It’s like she’s one of them now!”
Uhura shuddered at the memory of Yaseen brutally striking Sulu down. She didn’t know Fawzia well, but she couldn’t imagine that the decorated security officer had willingly joined the Crusade.
“The Crusade has adopted her,” Maxah explained. “As they did those other innocents on Ephrata IV.”
“But I still don’t quite understand,” Uhura said. “How did the Crusade convert the people on Ephrata so easily?”
“The masks,” he explained. “They do more than just make your faces copies of our own, hiding your unique and unsettling differences. They emit a signal that overcomes the wearers’ ability to think freely, making them more susceptible to conversion. It beams the Truth directly into an adoptee’s mind.”
“A signal?”
Uhura’s eyes
narrowed. Signals were her specialty.
“What if we can jam or interfere with that signal?”
Maxah seized on the idea. “It’s possible, if we can generate a countersignal on the right frequency.”
Uhura grinned. “Now you’re talking my language.”
Masters provided him with a data slate. Ironically, it was the same one Uhura had used to brain him before. He hastily scribbled the relevant data onto the heavy slate. Rather than physically carry the object back across the bridge to Uhura, Masters obligingly transmitted the information to the data reader on the armrest of Uhura’s chair.
She studied the data with a growing sense of excitement. In theory, it ought to be possible to generate a jamming frequency that would cancel out the signal emitted by the masks. The trick was going to be broadcasting it widely enough to affect the hundreds of brainwashed converts on the planet.
“Mister Ferrari,” she said. “Can you rig the subsonic transmitter to blanket the entire Institute and the surrounding area?”
It should be doable, she thought. Mister Spock had once employed a similar technique to counteract the effect of those mind-altering spores on Omicron Ceti III. This was just a significantly more precise signal.
“I think so,” Ferrari answered, a bit uncertainly. He was a competent officer and scientist, but he was no Mister Spock.
He’ll have to do, she thought. Failure was not an option.
“Review the science logs relating to emergency measures taken during the Enterprise’s mission to Omicron Ceti III.” She looked up the specific citation. “Stardate 3147.3.”
His eyes lit up as he recalled the incident. He quickly called up the relevant logs. “Thank you, Lieutenant. That helps a lot!”
She assumed he had what he needed now.
“Lieutenant Palmer, patch communications into the subsonic transmitter. Prepare to transmit a signal on this precise frequency on my command.”
She was tempted to reclaim her usual post and do it herself, but thought better of it. Now was no time to micromanage. Circumstances had placed the crew under her command. She had to trust them to do their jobs.
“Five minutes to sunset,” Chekov counted down. “If we’re going to do this, we need to do it soon.”
“High Brother Sokis is hailing us from the planet,” Palmer reported. “I think he wants us to watch.”
“I’ll just bet he does,” Uhura said. “Ferrari, are we ready to go?”
He made some last-minute adjustments to the settings. “Almost.”
“Palmer?”
“Awaiting your signal, Lieutenant.”
Uhura experienced a sudden moment of doubt. Could she truly trust Maxah after all? What if that confrontation with Sokis had been staged for her benefit? Suppose this broadcast made things worse and only strengthened the Crusade’s hold on the people below?
No, she thought, overcoming her fears. I need to trust my gut, just like the captain would.
“Prepare to open hailing frequencies.”
SIXTEEN
Sulu was about to be stoned . . . literally.
The sun was setting in the east and he was flat on his back in Pearl Square, pinned to the ground by a scintillating green nimbus, while a floating heap of rubble hung weightless above him, slowly descending in synch with the sun. Massive chunks of marble, ceramic, steel, and thermoconcrete, plus jagged shards of transparent aluminum, hovered ominously, including twisted metal beams and pipes, slabs of shattered masonry, joists, railings, plumbing, and even the remains of various vandalized monuments and statuary. A mutilated bust of Galileo butted against the headless torso of what, judging from its sculpted robes, had once been some celebrated Vulcan philosopher. Broken stone and mortar added yet more mass to the accumulated debris. Its shadow stretched across Sulu, who was still clad in the civilian attire he had borrowed earlier. He wished he were in uniform.
“Behold, brothers and sisters, the price of willful ignorance and defiance.” Sokis presided over the public execution. His replacement lance, presumably imported through the rift, held the debris aloft by means of a keening emerald beam. “This vile heretic was accepted into our fold, but chose to betray us even after being given the gift of Truth. Such flagrant ingratitude cannot go unpunished.”
A sizable audience had turned out to witness Sulu’s impending demise. Gathered Crusaders and masked converts looked on expectantly; from the size of the crowd, Sulu guessed that attendance was mandatory. Levitating video recorders captured the scene for posterity, and were no doubt transmitting the awful spectacle to the Enterprise.
“Don’t do it, Uhura!” Sulu shouted, despite the supergravity weighing down his tongue. “Don’t give in!”
“Silence!” Sokis ordered. “Or I will have you gagged . . . and deprive us of the valuable lesson of your final, agonized screams.”
Sulu figured he’d gotten his message across. He had to trust that Uhura and the others would make the hard call and not surrender the ship for his sake. Still, he hated being used by the enemy like this. Uhura had to be going through hell right now.
Adding to his own ordeal was the fact that Yaseen was not just observing the proceedings, but had been assigned a position of honor. She stood at Sokis’s right hand, her lovely face hidden behind a mask. The dented metal around her mouth had yet to be repaired, so that the frozen silver sneer remained. It didn’t suit her.
“It seems,” Sokis taunted Sulu, “that your comrades have abandoned you, choosing rebellion over your own well-being. A pity, but perhaps your dreadful fate will convince them of the error of their ways.”
“High Brother?” Yaseen’s voice held an unexpected quaver of doubt. “Forgive me, but I have to ask. Must we kill him? Can’t he be given another chance to embrace the Truth, as I was?”
“But you redeemed yourself by foiling his heinous attack on the fusion generators. His myriad crimes are too great and too numerous. An example must be made.”
Yeah, right, Sulu thought sarcastically. He knew this execution was mostly for Uhura’s benefit, with the added bonus of giving Sokis a chance to get back at Sulu for personally attacking him at the observatory and destroying his fancy lance. For all his lofty rhetoric, the pious warrior-priest was not above holding a grudge.
Yaseen shifted uncomfortably. Her dark eyes implored Sokis.
“But surely he is not beyond saving?”
“The decision has been made, sister. His ending will serve the Truth, and bring countless others to deliverance.” He handed his lance over to her. “Prove yourself once more, sister. Let him meet justice by your own hand.”
She hesitated only for a moment before accepting the lance.
“Yes, High Brother.”
So much for a last-minute appeal, Sulu thought. He appreciated Yaseen’s failed efforts on his behalf, but honestly didn’t know which prospect was less appealing: getting turned into a mind-controlled zombie again, as he’d been on Beta III and Pyris VII, or to be slowly crushed to death beneath a ton of rubble.
He was glad that Yaseen was not sharing his fate, however. At least she still had a chance to be saved. . . .
The sun sank toward the horizon. Bands of luminous violet and magenta streaked the sky; it was an ironically beautiful sight, given that it was also lowering the curtain on his life. He supposed he should be grateful to the universe for giving him one last sunset to enjoy before the end.
That’s a blessing, I guess.
Yaseen had clearly been schooled in the lance’s use. She expertly directed the gravity beam, lowering the hovering debris at a steady, inexorable rate. Watching the ponderous accumulation of junk sink toward him, centimeter by agonizing centimeter, Sulu felt as if he were trapped in a futuristic replay of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Despite his determination to die with dignity, as befitting a Starfleet officer, it was hard not to be terrified by the awful fate descending toward him. Sweat soaked his face, while his mouth was dry. His heart pounded in anxiety. An oppressive sense of claustr
ophobia ate corrosively at his nerves.
Hang on, he thought. It will all be over soon.
Or would it? The rubble was only centimeters above him, blocking out the fading sunlight and filling up his vision. He could practically taste the gritty texture of those concrete slabs, and yet the sinking debris was still taking its own sweet time. It was like watching a Romulan bird-of-prey bear down in slow motion.
Just how long and painful was this going to be? Were they planning to grind him slowly into the pavement? He found himself wishing that they would hurry up and just drop the whole load on him.
Get it over with, damn you!
“Sing, brothers and sisters!” Sokis exhorted his kindred. “Raise your voices in praise of the Truth!”
Crusaders and converts alike began chanting in unison. Even Yaseen joined in, lending her mellifluous voice to the alien hymn.
“Hey!” Sulu shouted over the singing. “Don’t I get any last words?”
“UnTruth deserves no hearing!” Sokis said sharply. “Better you spend your final moments silently begging forgiveness from your worthless ancestors!”
I don’t think so, Sulu thought. I did my duty. I have nothing to apologize for . . . except maybe not saving Yaseen.
The descending rubble began to press against his face and chest. Sulu twisted his head to one side to keep from being suffocated. He braced himself for the excruciating ordeal to come. This was not how he would have chosen to make his exit. A Klingon disruptor blast would be faster and more merciful. This was going to be ugly.
At least I got that sunset.
Then something odd happened. The chanting, which had been rising in volume and fervor, broke off abruptly. Peering out from beneath the rubble, Sulu saw the masked converts reel about, clutching their heads. Confused eyes peered out from behind a sea of silver masks. Fumbling fingers explored the alien contours of the false faces.
Wait a second, Sulu thought. What’s happening?
Sokis was bewildered, too. “Brothers, sisters? What ails you?”
“Trust me,” Yaseen said angrily. “You don’t want to know.” She ripped off her mask, freeing her face. Undisguised fury blazed openly. “Rock this, big brother!”