Star Trek Discovery: Danger Zone

Chapter Eight

"Something's happening out there," Nilsson said, taking her ear away from the door. Said ear was now flushed red at being pressed against the door for the better part of a half hour.

"They're probably going off to mate with the domestic animals of the god-forsaken rock," Keyla grumped from where the other end of the room, where she sat curled in a sullen ball.

"No, it didn't sound like that," Nilsson replied. "Like, a lot of running and shouting."

"I wonder why the sudden activity," Owosekun said.

"Maybe Discovery showed up, and they're trying to figure out how to explain that they've captured four of their crewmen," Osnullus opined, looking up from the elaborate mural she was drawing in the layer of dirt of the floor of the container.

"I'd think they'd want us for that," Owosekun said thoughtfully. "If only to show Captain Pike that we're still alive and unharmed."

"Mostly unharmed," Keyla corrected sharply.

"Your ego doesn't count," Owosekun shot back.

"The hell it doesn't. I—"

And then they heard the sounds of dozens of boots pounding the ground outside their cell.

"What is going on?" Owosekun wondered. "Are they going to war or something?"

********

Linus shifted in his tree and scanned the small compound with his monoculars, flipping through the various settings and watching the small scattering prefabricated buildings change from wireframes to heat blooms to colored blocks of molecular bonds. None of them yielded any new information: the damn thing was just a thrown together camp with some rudimentary sensors and two guard towers at either side. There was no complicated duct work to crawl through or long-abandoned tunnel network to exploit. There was just, well, a big poly-alloy fence and a vehicle gate.

So, he had to it the hard way.

He climbed down from the tree and set up at its trunk. He was about a quarter of a kilometer away from the camp, and the side with the vehicle entrance was cleared of all vegetation. The westernmost side of the compound, though, only had about three meters of clearing before the woodline began. That was convenient. Apparently, when the Novianis built this base, they only got partially done with the deforesting process before deciding it was too much like work and just left things as is.

Linus sat at the base of three on the wet and cool foliage. The rain had tapered to a scattering of droplets, and the air was growing heavy with humidity. It was perfect weather for a reptile, and Linus imagined he could feel his blood pounding faster and turning a richer shade of red in his veins.

He laid out his remaining equipment on the ground before him: his rifle, seven power packs, a half dozen grenades, his phaser, a med kit, a retooled tricorder, one Starfleet ration pack, and a large, serrated hunting knife he'd found in a scabbard in the boot of one of the Noviani soldiers.

It wasn't much of an arsenal.

Linus scoped the guard towers to be armed with heavy, rapid-fire disruptor cannons, likely supplied by the Klingons. The Noviani soldier he'd spared told him there were upwards of fifty more soldiers (not nearly as elite as his team...he'd stressed that several times) in the base. Even if they were just spear-carriers, it was still a lot of spears.

This wasn't going to work.

Linus snatched the ration pack off the ground, frustrated. He might as well eat something while his crewmates were tortured or executed or Hatchery-knew-what. There's no sense being hungry as well as useless, he thought bitterly as he opened it and rummaged through the MREs. They were all variations on chicken recipes. Linus pondered for the hundredth time why humans liked chicken so much.