Star Trek: The Original Series - 094 - Vulcan's Forge by Josepha Sherman;Susan Shwartz

Author:Josepha Sherman;Susan Shwartz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Star Trek (Television Program), Space Opera, Contemporary, General, Romance, Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780671009274
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 1997-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

TEN

Obsidian, Deep Desert Day Unknewn, First Week, Menth of the Shining Cilar~, Year 2296

Dr. Leonard McCoy was having a rotten day. Or night. Or whatever you wanted to call time on this benighted ball of black glass circling a star with the spectroscopic analysis of a serial killer. One moment, Captain Rabin’s ten-ton Farsi security chief was manhandling him out of the shuttle teetering on a damn precipice and frog-marching him into a cave. His face still ached from being pelted by grit and black glass, which was bad; he hadn’t been able to tend the others, which was worse; and not five minutes later, the fact that three men even stronger than Ensign Kavousi had jumped him meant that he was now a weapon in someone’s hands. And that was worst of all.

He had fought, of course, but it had been three against one. His captors had taken communicator, phaser, tricorder, and medical kit from him. Someone, veiled against Obsidian’s disastrous environment, had stomped his tricorder into uselessness—except as a lure for Spock and the others.

Then they had stashed him in one of the caves that seemed to honeycomb this range until the storm subsided. They’d stored him without food, water, or a clue about what was going on until, in the last howlings and lashings of the warning storm, he had been hauled outside, blindfolded, and spirited off in some rough, whining vehicle for far too long to wherever the hell they were now. Another damn cave.

At least, this time, they’d left him a tiny light, a primitive little candle flame, so he could see his prison. It wasn’t encouraging. The rock faces weren’t rough stone, they were obsidian (lava tubes? he wondered, and hoped that the volcano that had created them was at least dormant), and the volcanic stuff had been polished so he could see himself—sorry-looking imitation of an officer and a gentle-man, son?—but not break off a chunk to use as a weapon.

Footsteps padded toward his cell. Can’t say I think much of the hotel staff, McCoy groused, working himself up into a fine rage. If he could find a use for it to annoy his enemies, so much the better. If not, it relieved his spirits. $pock, he thought, $pock, damreit …

Tall figures swathed in desert robes and protective face veils circled McCoy. Their posture wasn’t just military, he realized. It looked Vulcan.

Just when he thought things couldn’t get much worse! Vulcans were the last people he could hope to manipulate. He rubbed his hand over his face, where a growing beard and tiny cuts itched abominably. “Here. Eat.”

The wrapped bar that the arrogant figure tossed in front of him bore the blocky glyphs that passed for lettering among Klingons. McCoy couldn’t read them, but he knew the Klingons ate as much meat as they could as often as they could. As opposed to Vulcans, whose code of nonviolencem hah!—made them vegetarians. This unappetizing cube was sure to be mostly protein, possibly animal in origin.

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