Survivors - Jean Lorrah [68]
How could they operate that way? Not all nights were as clear as this one; that tiny landing site would be inaccessible to most pilots much of the time without a guidance system. Might there be sensors here neither the flyer’s nor his own equipment could detect? The people stood or walked casually about, seemingly unaware of him. They were too far away for even Vulcans to hear the soft swish of the flyer’s antigravs, and he had turned off the running lights as soon as he passed through the perimeter defenses.
He kept his distance, studying the layout of the buildings and grounds … and the Starfleet shuttlecraft inside a wooden shed, hidden from normal vision but not infrared. So Nalavia had not moved the shuttle; Tasha’s captors had.
Giving the impression that Tasha had left on her own.
Or … was it only an impression?
No-Data had seen the signs of her struggle, and she was far too good an officer to leave without reporting to him. The presence of the shuttlecraft confirmed that Data was not on a “wild goose chase.”
Still, there were personnel watching the skies, and some rather wicked-looking anti-aircraft weapons in one of the outbuildings. Data dared not circle Rikan’s castle closely; he would have to leave the flyer and go in on foot.
Go up on foot.
Data found a clearing in the forest and set the flyer down, pulling the light craft in as close under the trees as he could, then piling branches over the parts still in the clear. If he and Tasha could not recapture their shuttle, they would have secondary transport.
But he had to find Tasha first.
It was a steep climb up to Rikan’s castle, difficult for humans but not for an android. Data watched for surveillance devices, but no infrared glows indicated cameras, light beams, or other sensors. Rikan probably anticipated attack by air, this approach was hardly suitable for an infantry assault.
Data finally reached the top of the plateau, and saw the castle through the trees. He crept forward, drawing his phaser as he approached the clearing—
And was suddenly grasped from all sides at once, enmeshed and entangled and lifted into the air, to the accompaniment of raucous clanging!
Netted!
It took only microseconds for Data to realize that a net of natural fibers, the same temperature as the ground cover, had been hidden under leaves and twigs. It triggered when he stepped onto it. Bells attached to the ropes made the awful clangor when he moved.
Data’s weight held the springy trees bent over, but he was nonetheless helpless as their motion dragged him to and fro.
Hopelessly tangled, Data flopped onto his back and struggled to bring his hands to grasp a section of rope and tear it apart. It was amazingly resilient, but could not hold against his android strength.
When it parted, though, it made only one tiny hole in the net-it would take too long to tear through the strands necessary to make a slit large enough to crawl through. He would have to phaser it.
His phaser was lying on his chest, the springy net hindering his attempt to grasp it. The bells clashed and clanged with every movement. Even as he tried to escape, people converged on him, weapons pointed.
He was surrounded by six people, male and female, armed with phasers, disruptors, and similar hand weapons. One of them of a Vulcanoid race, presumably the same man who had helped capture Tasha, moved in front of him. “I’ll take that phaser now-and don’t get no fancy ideas, Robot. You might get me, but trussed up like that you ain’t takin’ out nobody else before my friends get you. Don’t know what yer made outta, but I’d bet it can’t take a blast from five weapons.”
“It cannot,” Data admitted, allowing the man to take his phaser. He was intensely annoyed at his ineptitude in eluding their trap … and yet he did not see how he could have possibly detected the net. In daylight, perhaps, if he knew what