Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours by David Mack

Author:David Mack [Mack, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2017-09-26T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

The city below the capital was like a foreign land to Kolova. She had always known that dozens of kilometers of utility passages sprawled beneath the city she called home; that had not prepared her to roam those dim pathways with barely any idea of where she was. As she and a few dozen of her fellow colonists retreated deeper into the city’s infrastructure, she had to put her trust in the engineers and mechanics who made their livings in this shadowy undercity.

“How much farther?” she asked Floyd Tanzer, the man at the front of the group.

The broad-shouldered fix-it man answered without looking back. “A ways. Not far.”

She chewed on the ambiguity of his assessment. “A ways” had seemed to imply a significant distance, but “not far” negated that interpretation. After careful consideration, all she could say she had learned from that exchange was not to ask Tanzer for updates.

Behind her, the rest of the group marched single file. No one spoke above a whisper. There were few active surveillance devices in the sublevels, but Bowen, the rig foreman, had suggested the group keep a low profile in case Starfleet sent security personnel into the tunnels to stop them. It was a sensible suggestion, though their hushed transit of the tunnels had begun to make Kolova feel like a fugitive on a world where she was supposed to be the head of state.

Who am I kidding? I became a fugitive the moment I fled the bunker. She bit down on her resentment of the Federation and its oh-so-righteous meddling. We’d have been an independent planet if they hadn’t laid prior claim to this rock. But if the Federation didn’t want to settle it themselves, why should they get to make the rules for those of us who did?

There were no obvious answers that Kolova could see. So she stewed in silence and plodded onward through the confines of dark tunnels whose walls were lined with parallel rows of pipes and seemingly endless runs of multicolored optronic cables.

Her mind was still wandering when the claustrophobic passage opened onto a wide platform beneath what looked like a gigantic spherical tank suspended from the ceiling grid of duranium girders high above. Through the metal-grate floor panels of the platform, Kolova saw a deep pit with several layers of crisscrossing pipes. Gathered on the platform were a couple of dozen more colonists, including a handful of officers from the local police force. Everyone waiting on the platform had come with lightweight personal armaments: stun pistols, shock guns, and a few melee weapons. It wouldn’t be enough to win a prolonged stand-up fight against the crews of two Starfleet starships, but that had never been Kolova’s intention.

The rest of her group from the bunker filed out of the passageway behind her and spread out onto the large platform. As soon as she was sure they all were accounted for, she moved to the center of the platform and raised her voice to be heard over the background rumble and hiss that permeated the undercity.

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