Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [16]
No one said anything. Nobody wanted to interrupt with the ambassador talking.
Glad they didn’t say anything… that would’ve been even harder. Hearing their voices…
Spock… a half-dozen Starfleet officers rolled into one. An ambassador of high standing and galactic respect. A name known in the farthest reaches, on the tiniest colonies, on the lips of every Federation enemy. Spock and Starfleet were almost the same word. He could’ve insisted on a rescue attempt. Stiles would’ve backed down, let himself be rescued. Looked like a dopey kid being pulled out of the water because he’d showed off and fallen in. Was he refusing rescue to avoid that moment?
Spock didn’t press him. Stiles knew what that meant-he was being given something. Spock wasn’t countermanding Stiles’s decision to sacrifice himself. Ensign or not, Stiles was in charge, even if only in a token way. Nobody thought this would be a hard mission. He felt a little silly that Spock was giving in to him, handing him some kind of lollipop. On the other hand, was Spock going out of the way not to take something away from him? Maybe…
A hard bump made the mountainside vibrate. He felt it, through the Frog’s skin, through the snow, through his jacket.
“There’s somebody outside,” he spoke up. “Something just landed near me… it’s got to be them! They’re here-they found me!”
“Yes, we have them on sensors. A Pojjana jump-jet just settled on the mountain near you.”
Stiles’s mouth went suddenly dry. “How long… do you think they’ll take to get through to me?”
Spock didn’t answer him. Maybe he was busy up there, steering that coach into space, avoiding the three Pojjan moons that looped the planet so far away, so much farther than Earth’s moon.
“I didn’t know the coach could take that much stress;’ he sighed. “You put a lot of angle on it. Why didn’t it stall? How do you do that?”
“Simply, but the Academy prefers not to teach the trick. I forced the P/T levels over tolerance so the thrusters had more power.” “Why didn’t the tanks blow from the extra pressure?” “Tolerance levels are standardized at point of safety. Going over tolerance only means that measurement becomes unreliable.” “You mean you were just taking a chance?” “Exactly.” “Wow …”
Listening to thumps and thuds from the deep outside, Stiles saw a picture in his mind of the transport coach, piloted by Spock instead of himself, angling more steeping into the late day sky than Stiles thought it possibly could. He never guessed a ship like that could take so much lift stress. He wouldn’t have known to take the chance of added stress, wouldn’t have been able to get the coach up fast enough to make use of the eleven seconds.
“I can hear them outside.” He gazed up, only seven inches, to the snowed-over canopy. ‘They’re looking for me in the snow. They’re digging through… I hear the shovels… Maybe they’re putting explosives on me. Maybe they’re not going to dig me out at all. Why should they?” “Steady, Ensign. You will not be killed.” “Respectfully suggest you don’t know that, sir”
“Of course not. Ensign, this sector is now red. Some time may pass before the Federation can negotiate for your release. Do you understand?”
A tremor ran down Stiles’s spine. “You mean… it might take a couple of months?” “Or longer.”
“Well… six months?” His hands chilled even beyond the cooling temperature in the cockpit. Sweat broke out on his brow in spite of the chill.
Spock didn’t answer him. That meant something. Longer than six months? “Sir, tell my family… tell them I didn’t… or just say…” “I will, Mr. Stiles. Be assured of that.”
With a sudden groan, Stiles shut his eyes. His request suddenly seemed silly, melodramatic. But more than anything else it was pointless. He reviewed in his mind the faces