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Spock’s voice. Stiles clung to the low steady tone. It was the last thing he heard as his craft smashed into a snowy crevasse, as if the boot of a giant had scuffed a sandcastle. As the Frog plowed through fresh snow at flight speed, the impact ‘knocked Stiles roughly left and fight, held in place by the straps he almost hadn’t bothered putting on. He saw only a spray of white pitted with rocks as the Frog’s nose drove itself into the mountainside. The din of contact with mountainous matter and hard-packed snow muffled his helpless shouts and gasps. He crammed his eyes closed and waited to die. Pain raced up his left arm so hard, so sharp that he tried to turn away from it. His left arm tingled, went numb. Had it been cut off?.

And suddenly, sharply, like a flat stone dropping, there was silence.

No… not quite. He could still hear the skitter of bits of ice and rock settling outside. He opened his eyes.

Nearly dark… the Frog was completely buried in snow. Entombed… and where? On top of an Alp? Even if he could get out, he could never survive.

Blood ran down the side of his face. Into his eye… and stung a little.

He was lying nearly on his back, with his knees up before him and the cockpit controls where the open sky should be. Just lucky to have landed on his ass instead of his head… could’ve been worse, could be hanging here upside down with the blood rushing to his head, looking dopey and unable …. “Spock to Stiles. Can you hear me, Ensign ?”

The voice from the comm unit jolted him as if he’d been stricken bodily. He flinched. “What… ?”

“Ensign Stiles, this is Spock. We’ve reached escape velocity. Sensors indicate you’ve crashed and are stationary, but intact. Is that true? Are you down?”

Stiles coughed and tried to focus his aching on the instrument panel. Yes, he could still see… tiny emergency lights cast a soft red glow, just enough to see by.

“Yes, I, uh… I’m crashed” he muttered, coughed again, then winced at the searing pain in his arm. “Down behind the lines….” “Are you stable?” “No idea.”

Above him, the canopy was completely darkened to a severe gray by a ton of snow and ice and dirt, only the tempered windshield preventing him from being crushed or suffocated.

How much fallout was he buried under? No way to know. Should he try to push out? Would it hold him here or let him slip down into a fissure? Was snow heavier than soil?

“Snow….” he murmured, perplexed. Then a gurgling laugh rose in his throat. “I’m from Port Canaveral.”

The sound of his voice drummed in his ears. Should he be doing something? Trying to get out?

There was no getting the canopy open under that much weight, and he sure couldn’t do it with only one arm. Still numb?

3(up.

“All wings, come to stratospheric formation. Transfer to space thrust.” “Coach, Brazil. Copy that. All wings comply.”

“But I can still get down there. ! can land on that mountain-“

“Don’t take action until I get a fix on him. These readings aren’t steady.” That was Travis’s voice. He sounded strange ….

Several seconds went by, long ones. Almost a minute. Well past the time when the coach should’ve been clear of the mountains. What was happening?

Then Ambassador Spock’s smooth words broke through the crackling sounds of the pilots. “The pursuit aircraft are moving away. They have given up. The coach is no longer in danger, Mr. Stiles.”

Stiles cleared his throat and muttered, “Thanks for telling me, sir.”

“One of the wings can now break formation and effect rescue with relative dispatch.” “Rescue?… oh… me….”

With a grunt, Stiles pushed off his helmet, surprised to see a crack in it, and realized his head had been driven into the canopy’s side support strut. No wonder his head hurt.

“They may want us to try that,” he decided. “There might be other hostiles out there. One ensign against five pilots and thirty-five dignitaries… Leave the fighters where they are, sir. I’ll just… stay here.”

It was all bravado. If Spock insisted, Stiles knew he wouldn’t stand up to him. He could