Star Trek: The Original Series - 124 - Eugenics Wars 3 - To Reign in Hell by Greg Cox

Author:Greg Cox [Cox, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Adventure, High Tech, Life on Other Planets, Kirk; James T. (Fictitious Character), Star Trek, Genetic Engineering
ISBN: 9780743457125
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 2006-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Khan Agonistes

14

A.D. 2268

They spent nearly a week underground, hiding from the cataclysm. Violent aftershocks rocked the caverns, resulting in frequent rockfalls and tunnel collapses. The shell-shocked survivors were forced to constantly relocate in order to keep one step ahead of the cave-ins, while their escape route back to the surface was soon sealed off by tons of collapsed granite and limestone.

Khan barely slept, relying on his superhuman stamina to sustain him while he tended to what remained of his followers. He moved restlessly from chamber to torchlit chamber, checking on the wounded and offering whatever encouragement he could to the beleaguered refugees. “Take heart!” he urged a cluster of huddled colonists, including Harulf Ericsson and his pregnant wife, Karyn. “We shall come through this trial, this I promise.”

Ericsson stared back at Khan with malice in his icy blue eyes. He held his tongue, however, so Khan left the Norseman behind to comfort Karyn as best he could in these dismal circumstances.

Conditions were brutal, not to mention claustrophobic. The forced evacuation of New Chandigarh had been rushed and disorganized, with no time available for planning or provisions. The fleeing colonists had brought only whatever weapons, implements, and articles of clothing they had managed to grab on to while running madly from the tremors and falling lava. Blankets were in short supply, a serious problem given the coolness of the lower caverns, where the temperature seldom climbed above twelve degrees Celsius. Even with their genetically enhanced immune systems, many of the survivors found themselves succumbing to disease; fevers and hacking coughs were soon common.

Food and water had become an issue, too. With their rations left behind, doubtless lost in the blaze that had consumed the camp, the starving colonists were forced to scour the crumbling catacombs in search of cave-dwelling beetles, millipedes, spiders, salamanders, and even the occasional Ceti eel. Khan watched in dismay as a handful of bedraggled men and women dug through piles of accumulated bat guano looking for the pale, colorless worms and insects living in the dung. (The bats themselves were long gone, having presumably fled the cavern the night Ceti Alpha VI exploded.)

How the mighty have fallen, he thought, where once we lived like princes of the earth. He found himself pining for a raw bison steak, dripping with blood, or the barbecued haunch of a freshly bagged sabertooth. Even the processed blandness of Starfleet rations sounded like caviar compared to the squirming vermin they were forced to subsist on.

Their water supply was limited to the paltry moisture that trickled down the cavern walls or dripped from stalactites, which was not nearly enough to slake the thirst of so many trapped men and women. Khan’s own mouth felt as dry as the Great Thar Desert where he was conceived. His skin felt like sandpaper.

We cannot stay down here much longer, he realized. Soon enough they would have to brave whatever awaited them on the surface of the planet. I can only pray that the worst of the disaster has passed.

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