Tales from the Captain's Table Page 7

  Applying starboard thrusters to fine-tune his course, he headed for the planet in question.

  Picard was less than twenty million kilometers from the world’s upper atmosphere when he noted the presence of several small, quick ships in the vicinity. At first, he assumed that they belonged to the species on the planet’s surface.

  Then the Nadir’s computer identified the ships, matching them with file data. Picard swore vividly under his breath. Skellig raiders—four of them, converging on the shuttle’s position. No, he thought, as yet another one registered on his screen. Five.

  He had run into their kind before. They ran in packs like this one, preying on anyone who possessed something of value and was less than expert at defending it.

  Had the Nadir been their primary objective, they would have closed with Picard some time ago. More likely, they had entered this system in pursuit of something else. But now that a Starfleet shuttle had fallen into their laps, they would hardly be so foolish as to ignore it.

  After all, there were those who would pay dearly for Starfleet technology—even the modest sort to be found in a shuttlecraft. And if there was a dignitary or high-ranking officer inside, he would fetch the Skellig a tidy ransom.

  Or so they might think. The truth was that Starfleet didn’t pay ransoms, and never had.

  Whatever their motivation, the Skellig came at the shuttle with their weapons pulsing. Green disruptor beams sliced through the void, forcing Picard to weave a precarious path among them.

  Even if he had wanted to battle the raiders, he wasn’t in a position to do so—the Nadir simply wasn’t equipped for it. His only chance was to dip below the cloud layer obscuring the planet’s surface and find a place to hide.

  As Picard made a break for the planet, the Skellig dogged him with bursts of disruptor fire—and scored a tail hit that slammed Picard back in his seat. The Nadir’s impulse engine, which was already on its last legs, fizzled out altogether—just as the shuttle entered the mantle of cloud.

  Unfortunately, it couldn’t conceal the Nadir—not when the Skellig had sensors with which to track their prey. All the clouds did was blind Picard, whose own sensors had gone down at the same time as his impulse engine.

  Just a few minutes earlier, Picard had intended to seek an effective hiding place for his craft—somewhere far from the planet’s population centers. Now, screaming through the upper atmosphere with nothing but thrusters left—and those with limited life in them—all he could reasonably hope for was to survive the impact of what would certainly be a crash landing.

  After what seemed like a long time, the Nadir was still plunging through the cloud layer, unable to find the underside of it. Fearing that it would reach all the way to the ground, Picard activated the thrusters—only to have the dense, gray vapors suddenly tear away from his observation port, revealing a rapidly approaching forest of immense orange-leafed trees.

  Using what was left of his thruster capability, Picard tried to pull the shuttle’s nose up, achieve as oblique a descent as possible. But gravity wouldn’t let him have his way. It sent the Nadir rumbling through a network of thick, hard-cracking branches.

  Picard was jerked out of his seat and sent sprawling across the one beside it. Then the lights in the cabin flickered and he was thrown back the other way. And that was the last thing he knew before the darkness descended.

  When Picard came to, he was stretched across the awkwardly tilted deck of the shuttle, a terrible ache in one of his temples. But he was alive, and felt fortunate to be so.

  Rolling over onto his back, he took stock of his situation. He seemed to be uninjured except for a few bruises and abrasions. However, he couldn’t say the same for the Nadir.

  The control panel looked dead, its lights darkened. Pulling himself up level with it, Picard confirmed the observation—there was no response to his commands. The shuttle was devoid of even emergency power, meaning it was no longer transmitting his distress signal.

  Peering through the forward observation port, he saw a mess of splintered branches above him, mute testimony to the path he had taken in his fall. And yet, he hadn’t perished. Apparently, Van Dusen had done something right.

  Picard didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, but the Skellig wouldn’t need much time to find him. For all he knew, they had followed him down through the atmosphere and were training their weapons on him at that very moment.

  With his external sensors dead, there was but one way to find out.

  Sliding down the incline of the deck, Picard made his way aft to the supply locker and removed one of the three charged phasers inside it—not that it would be of much use against five ships’ worth of Skellig raiders. He also secured a tricorder and affixed it to his uniform. Then he found a medical kit, took out a hypospray, programmed it for a mild painkiller, and administered it—grateful for the relief it brought him. Finally, he climbed up to the hatch and pushed the stud that would slide it open.

  But the door didn’t slide. It just sat there. Apparently, the mechanism had been damaged in the landing.

  Picard scowled. He had contemplated the possibility of all sorts of deaths over the course of his career. Suffocating in a crash-landed shuttle was not one of them.

  Grabbing the hatch’s interior handle, he put his shoulder behind it and pushed as hard as he could. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the door grudgingly began to move forward.

  When the opening was wide enough for Picard to get through it, he stuck his head out and looked around. All he could see were black tree branches with wide orange leaves.

  The ground was a good five or six meters below, but the branches offered him a plentitude of hand- and footholds. Tucking his phaser away, he wrestled himself free of the Nadir and started to make his way down.

  It was only after Picard had dropped the last meter or so to the forest floor and ventured out into a clearing that he caught sight of the Skellig. They had indeed followed him through the clouds and were banking in formation overhead.

  But they didn’t seem to be coming after him. They were firing at something else—a cluster of tall, elegant towers that Picard hadn’t noticed previously. Obviously, he had managed to land in the neighborhood of a city.

  So much for avoiding population centers. This was clearly a big one.

  As Picard watched, the raiders lashed at the towers with barrage after barrage of emerald disruptor fire. It was obvious that the Skellig were after something the planet’s inhabitants possessed. But the beleaguered occupants didn’t fire back.

  Naturally, Picard sympathized with the defenders. But without a starship and a crew to back him up, he had nothing to offer them in the way of help—even if he were certain it was advisable which, knowing precious little about the situation, he wasn’t.

  Besides, his own survival was still very much in jeopardy. The Skellig might have been occupied at the moment, but they would eventually come after him with their weapons blazing. Otherwise, he might tell the Federation what they had done, and put a Starfleet task force on their trail.

  Picard looked up at his shuttle, partially hidden in the grasp of the trees’ stout, interwoven branches. If he remained with the Nadir, it would be a bit easier for a rescue mission to find him. But it would also be easier for the Skellig.

  His best bet was to get away from the shuttle and move deeper into the forest, and hope Starfleet eventually tracked him down via his combadge. With that thought in mind, he proceeded in a direction directly opposite that of the towers.

  However, he hadn’t taken twenty steps before he heard a deep, rhythmic hum, like a swarm of gigantic bees. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw a slender, dark flying vehicle skim just above the treetops.

  For a moment, he thought it might miss him. Then it came about and stopped directly above him, making it clear that he had been spotted. And though the craft didn’t look the least bit familiar, it seemed likely to contain a squad of armed Skellig.

  Picard bolted, hopi
ng he could lose his pursuers. He was no longer a marathon runner but he was still fast, and the canopy was too dense for the flyer to penetrate.

  Or so he thought.

  Somehow, the craft found a gap in the branches and touched down directly in front of him. As a hatch slid open in its side, he whirled and ran back the other way.

  Close as Picard’s pursuers were, they could easily have cut him down from behind. But they didn’t fire. All they did was cry out for him to wait—in a voice no Skellig could ever have imitated.

  Casting a glance back over his shoulder, Picard saw two figures standing on the forest floor. But they weren’t Skellig. They were too tall, too thin, and too insectoid.

  The inhabitants, Picard guessed.

  It might have been wiser of him to keep running. However, his instincts told him that the insectoids meant him no harm. Stopping, he turned to face them.

  The insectoids held their arms out, their narrow black hands empty of weapons. Then, their blue-black exoskeletons shining in the muted light, they approached Picard on legs that bent back at the knee like those of Terran dogs.

  “You are Starfleet,” said one of them, the chittering quality of his voice unaffected by the universal translator in the captain’s combadge.

  Picard nodded. “I am.”

  The insectoids stopped, inclined their long heads, and clicked the mandibles that protruded from their jaws. It appeared to be a sign of respect. Clearly, this species had made contact with the Federation at some point, either directly or indirectly. And just as clearly, the experience had been a positive one.

  One of the insectoids turned to the other and exchanged words Picard couldn’t pick up. Then both of them looked off in the direction of the towers.

  It didn’t take a warp-field scientist to figure out it was the insectoids’ people who occupied the buildings, or that these two were concerned about the raiders’ assault.

  They looked to Picard again. “Will you come with us?”

  “Where do you propose to take me?” he asked.

  “Somewhere safe,” they said.

  He shrugged. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Somewhere safe” turned out to be a different concept for the insectoids than it was for Picard. Seconds after his hosts’ craft took off, it headed for the towers the Skellig were battering with their disruptor fire.

  Taking note of the insectoids’ vehicle, at least one of the raiders began firing on it instead of the towers. Seeing the Skellig loom ahead through an observation port, Picard braced himself for a disruptor impact.

  Next time, he thought, I will be more specific with regard to my hosts’ destination. If there is a next time.

  But somehow, the insectoid pilot slipped past the Skellig’s barrage. And though the towers had to be shielded somehow if they could withstand the raiders’ attacks, they appeared to be selective shields, because Picard’s craft reached the nearest tower without incident.

  Dropping down behind it, the insectoids landed in an otherwise empty plaza, surrounded by lofty spires with gaping vents in their sides. “Come with me,” the insectoid in command told Picard.

  Having learned his lesson, the human asked, “Where, precisely, are we going?”

  “To meet our council of governors in their chamber.”

  It sounded reasonable.

  Before they left, however, Picard asked about the vents. He was told that they facilitated the release of radioactive gases from the ore refineries in the bowels of the city.

  “You release radioactive gases into the air?”

  “We have a high resistance to radiation,” the insectoid explained. “The gases aren’t harmful to us.”

  Picard was glad the vents weren’t open at the moment. His hosts may have had a resistance, but he did not.

  Moments later, he found himself in a tall, windowless hall, standing before three wizened insectoids. They introduced themselves as T’torric, Ch’sallis, and K’kriich, governors of the Rhitorri, the first two being males and the third a female.

  “We are pleased you’re alive,” said T’torric. “When we saw your shuttle crash in the forest, we didn’t know in what condition we would find you.”

  Picard cut to the chase. “How long have the Skellig been going at you?”

  “This is the third day,” said K’kriich.

  And yet their shields had held. Clearly, they possessed an impressive power source. “What are they after? Minerals?” That was often the raiders’ objective.

  “No,” said T’torric. “We refine minerals here, but none of them is especially valuable. What the raiders want are our people—to sell as slaves.”

  “It’s our resistance to radiation,” Ch’sallis explained. “It makes us valuable as workers in mines and refineries, where there may be significant quantities of radioactive materials.”

  “I imagine it would,” said Picard.

  “Unfortunately,” said T’torric, “the energy that drives our defense systems is nearly depleted. We shut down our weapons some time ago in an effort to conserve power, but our shields won’t stay up much longer.” He looked at the human with desperation in his hooded black eyes. “Can you help us?”

  “I have already sent out a call for assistance,” Picard said, assuming that was what the councillor meant. Obviously, there was nothing one person could do against the likes of the Skellig.

  “How long will it take to arrive?” asked Ch’sallis.

  Picard told him the truth: he didn’t know. It didn’t exactly inspire relief in the Rhitorri, but what else could he say?

  He didn’t have a Constellation-class starship at his disposal anymore. He didn’t have a complement of security officers. He didn’t have anything.

  K’kriich looked at her fellow councillors, then at Picard again. “The shields will not last much longer, Captain. What will we do when they fail?”

  Ch’sallis and T’torric turned to him as well. Their eyes asked the same question.

  Why are you asking me? Picard thought.

  All he could do was fight side by side with the Rhitorri, try to defend their city as if it were his own. But when the Skellig beamed their soldiers down, Picard’s phaser wouldn’t make a difference. The insectoids would fall in the plazas beneath their sky-piercing towers and be—

  “Wait,” he said out loud, an idea taking him by surprise. Perhaps there was a way to stymie the raiders after all—at least for a while.

  “What is it?” asked K’kriich.

  Picard looked at her. “Those vents I saw in your towers, the ones that release radioactive gases from your refinery. How wide can they open?”

  “Very wide,” said Ch’sallis. “Why?”

  “I have a notion…” Picard told them.

  As the council had predicted, the Rhitorri’s shields didn’t hold much longer. Perhaps an hour later, power to the emitters petered out, leaving the city undefended.

  The Skellig ships were too big to negotiate the narrow spaces between the towers. However, their transporter technology could reach anywhere. And no doubt it would have, except something happened almost immediately after the loss of the city’s shields.

  The vents in the Rhitorri’s towers opened and spewed a radioactive white gas, which the breezes spread eagerly from one end of the city to the other. Before long, the air was full of it.

  And with so much radiation in the atmosphere, it was impossible for the Skellig to beam their soldiers down to the planet’s surface. Their vessels crisscrossed above the city impatiently like serpents hungering for their prey. But for the moment, at least, it had been denied to them.

  Picard watched all this through a window in one of the towers. Unfortunately, his vantage point wasn’t insulated from the radiation. But then, given the Rhitorri’s natural resistance to it, they hadn’t bothered to insulate any part of the city.

  He didn’t feel any effects from his exposure yet, but he knew he would eventually. Not that it mattered. He had been responsible for so man
y deaths on the Stargazer, what was one more—especially if it was his own?

  And in the meantime, he had bought the Rhitorri some time—enough to carry out the second part of their plan. After all, the Skellig hadn’t been turned away altogether. They could still dispatch small craft to round up and capture the insectoids.

  Which was why the Rhitorri were descending into a network of tombs below the city, where six generations’ worth of ancestral remains had been ceremoniously laid for safekeeping. According to the council, the Rhitorri had emigrated to this world only twenty years earlier, but they had multiplied at a rate much faster than other species’. In fact, there were only about a hundred of them when they first arrived, and in this city alone they numbered in the thousands.

  “Come,” said Ch’sallis, who was standing beside Picard. “The others await us in the tombs.”

  The human nodded and followed him out of the windowed chamber.

  Picard walked among the living and the dead in the tombs below the Rhitorri city, watching childen and the elderly hunker down amid the burial monuments of their ancestors.

  There were civilizations on ancient Earth that had favored internment in underground chambers. Picard had seen a few of them firsthand. They were somber places, cramped and ill-lit and unadorned.

  Not so among the Rhitorri. Their tombs were spacious and bright with both torches and artificial light sources, celebrating the dead rather than casting them into shadow. And unlike the stark, half-forgotten graves of Earth’s ancient cultures, the insectoids’ were marked by elegant sculptures and festooned with sprays of fresh-cut flowers.

  As the Rhitorri carried blocks of uncut stone to the cavern’s only entrance, hoping to keep the Skellig from forcing their way in, Picard took a moment to examine some of the sculptures. They were beautiful, the pure expressions of artistic souls.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t read the sprightly-looking inscriptions on them. They were rendered in an alien language, and his translator could only work on the spoken word.