Susquatane
Polar Expedition Site
“. . . really, sir, it’s all math. And geometry and physics—and gravity, of course.” Connolly smiled at Spock. “That’s part of what drew me into this line of work—imagining how the game would have transpired on other planets. Space travel completely transforms everything we know about sabermetrics.”
“Lieutenant, I am gratified that your interest in an ancient human sport brought you to science,” Spock said as he knelt over the data collector. “But I repeat that I have been sufficiently informed about baseball.”
“Sorry,” Connolly said, his breath shimmering in the night. “Here’s the pliers.”
Spock took them. He could not regret including his relief in the expedition, for the most interesting information about life on Susquatane was bound to come from deep under the ice shelf, in places Connolly could locate. Whether fossilized or somehow alive, any beings there would explain much about how stable the planet’s ecology had been over time. Susquatane was a fair-weather island in a perpetual storm; future settlers would want to know how long that weather might last.
Still, Spock had calculated that by working with Connolly’s team instead of the other ones on Susquatane, he would be able to get the lieutenant back onto Enterprise as soon as possible. That would spare the ship any more time without a senior science officer on the bridge—and would have the added benefit of removing Connolly and his speculations about “what must be happening in the winter meetings back home,” whatever they were.
Ghalka brought another tool kit from the stowage on the snow scouter. “How’s our baby doing?”
“The geocorder, which you persist in likening to a living being, is still not calibrated to within acceptable limits,” Spock said. “The magnesite deposits below interfere with its sensors.”
“Magnesite’s not bad for deflecting radiation,” Ghalka said. “In this nebula, it could be good to have some around.”
“The fact remains it is inconveniently placed for this instrument.” Spock’s communicator beeped. He drew it from his belt. “Spock.”
“ Enterprise to landing party,” Nicola said. “The captain informs you that he and Commander Nhan have returned to the ship. Her relief, Ensign Gupta, has been transported to your camp.”
“Understood. We will return there shortly. Polar expedition out.”
Connolly leaned against their vehicle. “Kind of glad there’s only three seats in the scouter. I’m starting to like this idea of no red-shirt babysitters.”
“They are here for our protection,” Spock said.
“Protection from what?”
“Repeating myself would not be productive.” The Vulcan pointed behind him, to where several spars were deeply embedded in the distant snow. “Move each of the probes five hundred meters north. I will attempt new readings then.”
“We can walk that,” Connolly said.
“I’ll bring the power tools.” Ghalka slung a case over her shoulder. As she and Connolly began walking away into the night, she whispered, “Is he always this serious?”
Connolly smirked. “Your first tour, right?”
Spock heard them both as he donned his parka, but it was not worth a remark. Not when part of the reason he had sent them away was to exit the conversation. He wanted to focus on the work and another theory he had developed. A few quick taps on the geocorder brought up the seismometer screen. It was just possible that some of the errors he was seeing came from plate activity.
He stopped when he saw the readings. A quake had rocked the dayside of the planet scant minutes earlier. The instrument couldn’t say much about where the temblor had struck, just that it was far away—and not deep at all. Spock was beginning to consider the possibilities when another tremor was detected, also on the dayside but well apart. Its intensity was identical; it did not appear to be an aftershock.
Something is happening. Spock reached for his communicator.
U.S.S. Enterprise
Orbiting Susquatane
“We’re on it,” Pike replied to the hail. Spock and Connolly’s stand-in, Salvadora Dietrich, was checking the sensors. “What do you see, Ensign?”
“Same as Mister Spock,” the young woman said. “Two impacts, right at the surface. We’ll need to approach to see more.”
“Hail the expeditions.” Enterprise sat in a geosynchronous orbit above the planetside expeditions; the starship had occasionally left briefly to study a moon, but never strayed far. Nicola signaled when Pike was on with all of them. “Landing parties, this is the captain. We’re going to leave station to check something out,” he said. “Enterprise out.”
“Sun’s set on most of the camps,” Nhan said. “We’re leaving them in the dark.”
“We won’t be long,” Pike repeated. “Engage.”
Enterprise’s impulse engines hummed to life, their gentle push enough to send the ship cruising toward daylight. Dietrich began receiving more data almost instantly.
“There’s the vibrations,” she said. “Two quakes, fifteen hundred kilometers apart.”
Pike peered at the main viewer. Their dayside destination was under heavy cloud cover. “I don’t remember the map. What’s the surface like at those coordinates?”
“Open steppe and jungle plateau,” Una replied.
Pike’s eyes narrowed. Something was off with the clouds in those two spots. Oily smears on white, just starting to spread with the trade winds. “Are there . . . volcanoes in those locations?”
“Not that we’d recorded.” Una increased the main viewer magnification of the dayside. “How would two—?”
A bright flash appeared on screen, blazing brilliantly for a moment before Enterprise’s main viewer filter kicked in. “Another quake!” Dietrich announced.
“Fifteen hundred kilometers from both the other impacts,” Una said. She looked back to Pike. “A perfect triangle.”
Dietrich kept reading her scope. “Intense heat . . . radiation?”
As the third cloud formation grew an inky and angry black, Nhan shouted what they all had just realized. “They’re nuclear blasts!”
Troop Module Aloga-One
Approaching Susquatane
It was an old diversionary tactic, one Kormagan had learned back in the first wave she’d served with. The nukes her engineers had armed her stealth probes with weren’t likely to do much to Enterprise, which surely would have detected the threats before they got close. Baladon had told her that unlike Deathstrike, Enterprise was likely to have functioning shields.
But nothing would stop the weapons when directed at the ground—particularly when the starship was on the other side of the planet. It had only remained to see whether Enterprise would take the bait.
It had. The vessel from “Starfleet”—that was the odd word Baladon used—had abandoned Susquatane’s nightside. Kormagan had given the command then for her troop modules to emerge from the nebula. Twenty-four assault transports, just like hers, screamed toward the planet and its camps, unbeknownst to Enterprise’s crew.
Of course, the starship would try to return as soon as those occupants heard there was a threat. They would be stopped. Not by Kormagan, but by the capital ships of her flotilla: the combat module carriers. With their troop modules detached, the streamlined vessels that remained were nimble battleships, awaiting their cue in the nebula over the dayside. Kormagan looked at the synchronized timer on her helmet interface.
All right, carriers, you’re on.
And so was she. “Atmospheric entry in twenty seconds,” her navigator called out over her comm system.
She looked to her troops, lined up before their drop doors and ready to be deployed. “You know the objective,” she called out. “Every target you kill is like wasting one of your own people. They are your own people. So take care of our cargo.” She raised an armored fist. “For K’davu!”
“For K’davu!” the warriors shouted.
Kormagan gave her gear a last check and stepped into her own drop bay. The wavemaster always went with the strike teams; any other practice would be foolish. She shuddered to imagine any military so fearful that it would protect its superior officers like precious plants. No, she had to show her forces the way—and besides, she loved it.
She had ever since the first time she had put on armor and joined her fellow warriors. Different species, all given equal abilities and united for one great cause. Her kind had evolved to live in the desert, seldom entering the cold. Since donning armor, she’d fought in every clime imaginable—and she was about to set foot on an icecap.
“Starfleet,” Kormagan thought as air buffeted the ship. The word sounded so arrogant. They certainly think a lot of themselves. She would soon make up her own mind.