The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [9]
Beverly Crusher was another matter; her anticipation had soured into apprehension when she learned the results of the sensor scan.
“Beverly?”
“At least before I had a chance of helping my patient,” said the doctor under her breath so only Troi could hear her. “Now …” She lifted the medical field kit off her lap and slung its strap over one shoulder in preparation for the Away Team’s departure.
“Landing coordinates confirmed,” announced Data as the flow of sensor information to the computers finally slowed. “The campsite appears intact.”
Captain Picard’s silent nod released a storm of movement.
Riker shot out of his chair, finger stabbing at the two helm positions. “Ro, Data, with me.”
Dr. Crusher was already ahead of him, striding up the ramp to the aft turbolift.
“Energizing.”
At the sound of Chief O’Brien’s warning, Crusher braced herself for the frisson of the transporter beam. Seconds later, a whistling shiver rippled its way through the cells of her body, and when the shiver faded, the bright glare of sunlight stabbed her eyes. She dropped her head down, blinking furiously to clear away the dancing hot spots on her retinas. When the doctor’s vision cleared, she could see her boots resting on a ground cover of orange moss.
She could also see a dead body lying at her feet.
Crusher lifted her gaze and counted three more bodies of Vulcans in the campsite one stretched across the threshold of a field tent, two others fallen in a tangled heap onto the ground in the center of the compound. More bodies were probably hidden amidst the ancient, weathered blocks of stone that had tumbled from their foundations.
“Well, that accounts for four out of the ten,” she said, pulling out her medical tricorder. She passed the instrument over a Vulcan male in his middle years, but the scan was little more than a formality since the cause of death was all too obvious his chest and face were charred from a close-range phaser blast.
She proceeded on to the intertwined bodies.
Dropping down to a crouch, she started another scan.
At Riker’s direction, the rest of the Away Team kept moving, spreading out to survey the area around the landing coordinates. Their progress was slow as they skirted crumbling walls and broken columns and sought firm footing over piles of debris.
“There’s someone over here,” called out Ro.
Crusher glanced up to watch as the ensign stepped over a moss-covered ridge to inspect her discovery. Whatever she saw on the other side sent the Bajoran stumbling backward. “Also dead.”
The doctor bent back down to complete her inspection. The man and woman appeared to have been struggling over the phaser locked in the grip of the man’s hand, then both had been killed by its activation.
“Some of the equipment was also damaged by phaser fire,” said Commander Riker when he had circled back to the starting point. “But the wreckage is haphazard and nothing of value appears to have been taken.”
Just their lives, thought Crusher, as she snapped shut the scanner.
Riker sighed as he surveyed the carnage.
“We had outbreaks of violence on the Enterprise when Ambassador Sarek was on board; could T’Sara’s illness have triggered a mass homicidal rage among these Vulcans?”
“Please, Commander,” protested the doctor, as she rose to her feet. “It’s far too early for me to speculate on—” “Over here!” Data rarely raised his voice; she and Riker whirled around at the android’s shout. “I detect life-signs ahead … extremely faint.”
Crusher broke into a run to follow Data down a twisting path, rushing past more dead bodies, ignoring everything but the call of the living.
It was a very weak call indeed.
When Crusher fell to her knees by the side of the elderly Vulcan woman, she feared that Data was mistaken or that T’Sara had loosed her hold on life only seconds before their arrival. The shadows of a looming tower had shielded the archaeologist from the full heat of the planet’s sun, but the phaser wounds on her side and shoulder should have killed her long