Myriad Universes 02_ Echoes and Refractions - Keith R. A. DeCandido [18]
Saavik studied them with puzzlement. “But how could they have evolved so quickly?”
Their communicators crackled to life. “Marcus and Saavik, stand by to receive the landing p-” The end of the transmission dissolved into incomprehensible static.
Saavik held her communicator close and spoke loudly. “Grissom, this is Saavik. You’re breaking up. Are you receiving interference?”
Esteban’s voice struggled to break through the noise. “reading an artificial disturbance“
“-energy surge from astern, sir!” came the voice of Grissom’s communications officer.
Additional static. “-God! Red alert! Raise shields!” Esteban’s voice shouted out with marked panic.
David met Saavik’s eyes and they shared a horrified look. “What’s going on up there?” he asked rhetorically.
“Take evasive action! Stand by on-!”
Another burst of intense static, and then complete silence.
“Saavik to Grissom!” she implored. “Come in, Captain!”
No response.
“Oh my God!” David cried out. “What the hell just happened?”
Saavik’s hand shook as she closed the communicator. She swallowed. “It would seem that the Grissom was just destroyed by an enemy attack.”
“Wha-? Then how are we going to get off this planet? We’ve got to call for help!” He fumbled to find his own communicator in his jacket.
“David!” Saavik shouted. “Logically, the only people within range of our transmission would be the ones who just destroyed the ship.”
David stared at her for several seconds, then removed his empty hand from his pocket. “You’re right, of course.” He took a couple of unsteady steps, then leaned back against the nearby rock and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, God…”
He pressed his fingers into his eyes, hoping to somehow blot out the truth of their circumstances-to expose all this as a surreal nightmare and end it swiftly and conclusively. He was brought back to reality by a hand on his shoulder. “David…this planet is destroying itself, isn’t it?”
He dropped his hands from his face, wringing them firmly as he stared up at the sky. “Yeah, I think so.”
“What went wrong?” she implored him.
He sighed. “I used protomatter in the Genesis matrix.”
“Protomatter,” she echoed. “An unstable substance that every ethical scientist in the galaxy has denounced as dangerously unpredictable.”
“It was the only way to solve certain problems.” His voice was racked with guilt. “My mother never even knew. That aspect of the project was entirely my responsibility.”
“I understand your desire to demonstrate your worthiness to your mentors,” Saavik said. “But in this case, your impatience has placed us in an untenable situation.”
David attempted to collect himself. “All right. So…these people who destroyed the Grissom. Are they more of Khan’s men? They already killed all my friends at the Regula One spacelab-the ones who sacrificed themselves so that we could escape with Genesis. Naturally, they would be trying to track down the rest of us.”
Saavik gave him a puzzled look. “That is highly unlikely. Khan was a first-generation augment from Earth’s late twentieth century. His only surviving followers perished aboard the Reliant. Do you not know the history of your own world?”
“History was never my best subject.”
“Indeed,” she agreed. “But whomever they are, we must presume that they will come looking for us. Logically, our best course of action is to avoid capture until Starfleet sends another vessel to investigate.”
“Right. Um…” He lifted his tricorder and turned around, sweeping it across the breadth of the rocky cliffs that loomed up behind them. “We can follow this ridge until it meets higher ground, a few kilometers away. Those hills contain some kelbonite ore, which should help to mask our life signs and block any transporter beams. Maybe we can find some shelter there.”
“Excellent,” Saavik said as another tremor shook the landscape, sending small boulders tumbling down from the nearby precipice. “Let’s proceed.”
The landscape grew much more difficult