Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [20]
Kirk grunted as he stood up. “Careful, sir,” Giotto called down. “I don’t want you disappearing, too.”
The captain smiled. The security chief was perhaps overzealous sometimes, but he got the job done. “Give me your flashlight!” he shouted back up.
Giotto dropped it right into Kirk’s hands. The captain waved it around the room. There were large pieces of machinery, but none of them seemed to be on. The walls were lined with the same large semicircles as they’d seen on the surface. He began walking around the base of the tree, keeping an eye on the walls of the chamber. The dirt crunched beneath his feet.
“Sir?” Giotto called down into the hole. “Do you want me to come down there?”
“Hold on, Comm—” Kirk was interrupted by a glint of bright silver metal near one of the walls. He pointed his beam right at it.
It was a Starfleet-issue flashlight. “I’ve found something!” he called. “Yüksel’s light.” He began picking his way over toward it.
“I’m coming down.” A few moments later, Kirk heard Giotto hit the dirt and walk in his direction.
Kirk squatted on the ground next to his find, the only sign that Yüksel had been here. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, but aside from scuff marks from landing on the gravel floor, there was nothing about it that told him anything. “‘Beneath the surface,’ his message said.” Kirk looked over at the large semicircles on the wall. “Those are doors, right?”
Giotto had his tricorder out. “Yes, sir. There are long tunnels behind each of them.”
Kirk handed Giotto his light back and turned Yüksel’s on, walking over to the semicircle to get a closer look at it. Its surface was black and featureless, completely smooth. “What happened down here, Commander? If he was attacked—what did it?”
“We haven’t even seen any signs of large animal life.” Giotto was slowly turning, shining his light on every corner of the room. “If only Chekov had stayed with him—”
“Then we’d likely be missing two men now instead of one,” interrupted Kirk. He flipped open his communicator. “Kirk to Spock.”
“Spock here, Captain.”
“Any word from the Enterprise yet?” The easiest solution to this problem would be using the starship’s powerful sensors to probe the planet from orbit. If Sulu brought her up to maximum warp, she could be here in just over twelve hours, not two days.
“The only signal I have received is my own, approximately six minutes, thirty seconds after transmission. An unknown phenomenon is reflecting all subspace communications.”
“Dammit, Spock,” hissed Kirk, “I need the Enterprise. What’s Sulu doing to my ship?”
“Unknown at present, sir. We have, however, located a powerful energy source and are en route.”
“What is it?”
“Also unknown, sir.”
“Well, find out.”
“Affirmative. Hofstadter out.”
Kirk turned to Giotto. “I’m not wasting any more time trying to find a way to open those things. Half-power should do it.”
Giotto nodded, and both men drew their phasers from their belts, turning the dials up. Kirk momentarily felt a twinge at the idea of destroying an ancient alien artifact. The captain stepped back from the semicircle he was examining, and Giotto stepped over to join him, training his weapon on it.
“Fire!”
Bright blue beams lanced out from their phasers, striking the center of the door and sending sparks flying. The light burned brightly, but the door remained the same black color.
“Full intensity!” Kirk twisted his dial all the way up, and the pitch of the phaser increased drastically, as did the light it produced. But despite the fact that the noise made him clench his teeth, nothing was happening.
Kirk released his finger from the trigger. “That’s enough. I’m calling Chekov and the others down here—we’re finding a way in.”
THREE
Stardate 4757.5 (1147 hours)
McCoy untucked his legs, reaching tentatively