Sorak pointed at the screen. “This much is clear: the landscape slopes downward to the north. It is reasonable to deduce that the river therefore continues in that direction.”
“Agreed,” Nassir said. “Assuming she survived the fall, the river’s our best hope of finding her. If she makes it to either bank, and she’s able to walk, she can follow the river back to us. If not, it’ll give us something to follow.”
Niwara said softly, “I volunteer for the search mission, Captain. I was the one who lost her; I should go find her.”
“You didn’t lose anyone,” Nassir reassured her. “Accidents happen, you know that. And considering what we were up against, things could have been a lot…” Words failed him as he saw Tan Bao emerge from the tree line, supporting McLellan’s weight while she hopped along on her one remaining foot. Her right leg had been cut off just below the knee, and the severed limb protruded from Tan Bao’s backpack.
Tan Bao’s voice cracked with strain and exhaustion. “Little help?” Razka and Sorak both ran to his aid and relieved him of McLellan’s weight. The two scouts draped her arms across their shoulders and swiftly spirited her back to the circled landing party. The bedraggled medic jogged behind them and dropped to one knee beside McLellan as the scouts carefully set her down.
“Report,” Nassir said to Tan Bao, who was busy scanning McLellan with his medical tricorder.
“The Shedai…whatever it was, it did this,” Tan Bao said, gesturing at McLellan’s leg. “I can’t explain what this glasslike substance is, or why it seems to happen to every living organism the Shedai attacked. The good news is that it cauterized her wound, so she hasn’t lost much blood.” He packed up his tricorder and looked anxiously at Nassir. “We need to get her to sickbay, sir.”
Nassir plucked his communicator from his belt and opened it with a flick of his wrist. “Nassir to Sagittarius.”
Terrell answered, “Go ahead, Captain.”
“Raise the ship. We have wounded. And grab two full packs—I need you to lead a search and rescue.”
“Understood,” Terrell said. “Stay clear of the north bank; we’re coming up.”
The rest of the landing party began backing away from the riverbank. “Acknowledged,” Nassir said, following the others.
Seconds later the sepia-colored river boiled with white foam. Large waves formed in the middle and radiated ashore. The narrow bulge of the secondary hull emerged from the froth, followed by the rest of the oval-shaped primary hull. The ship hovered a moment, as if it were afloat. Then it drifted slowly toward the landing party until the port side of the primary hull scraped against the sandy bank and came to a halt.
A mechanical whirring and a loud hiss accompanied the opening of the top hatch. Terrell climbed out, followed by Dr. Babitz. Ilucci and Threx handed a stretcher up to Babitz, passed two large backpacks up to Terrell, then followed the two officers topside and began inspecting the hull.
Babitz ran to McLellan and set down the stretcher. She and Tan Bao spoke to each other in a quiet but steady stream of medical jargon. Terrell strapped on one pack and carried the other toward Nassir and the landing party. Setting down the second pack, the first officer said, “Orders, Captain?”
“Proceed downstream with Lieutenant Niwara and find Ensign Theriault,” Nassir said. “Niwara has the coordinates where Theriault went into the river. She’ll lead you there.”
Niwara nodded to Terrell and tucked her small pack inside the new, larger one that Terrell had brought.
From several meters away, Ilucci called out, “Whoa! What happened to Vanessa? I mean…to Ensign Theriault?” The engineer balked at Nassir and Terrell’s matching glares of reproof, then added in an apologetic tone, “Sirs.”
“I’ll brief you later, Master Chief,” Nassir said, allowing his chief engineer to save face. “Right now, we need to move.”
Terrell asked, “How long do we have to find her?”
“Until we get some antimatter,” Nassir said. “Or until something else goes wrong.”
The first officer flashed a disarmingly wry grin. “Not long, then. Understood.” He stepped quickly toward the river and called out, “Niwara, with me. Double quick-time.” The Caitian woman fell in beside Terrell, and together they jogged briskly along the riverbank, headed downstream.
Nassir turned to see Sorak and Razka helping Babitz and Tan Bao carry McLellan back aboard the Sagittarius. He fell in with zh’Firro and followed the stretcher bearers as they marched up onto the hull of the ship toward the topside hatch. The engineers were the first ones back inside the ship. At the edge of the hatch, the captain and zh’Firro took over for Babitz and Tan Bao while they climbed back inside the ship. Then the stretcher team carefully lowered McLellan into the waiting hands of the medical staff and engineers Ilucci and Threx.
Nassir watched the sky and the jungle for movement while the rest of his crew descended the ladder to the top deck. He grabbed the rungs and slid back down, the last one back inside. “Seal the hatch, Master Chief,” he said. “We’re taking her back down.”
In the span of just two hours, Ming Xiong had concluded that Tholian shipbuilders must be very fond of nooks, crawlspaces, and tight areas. Aside from main engineering, the compartment housing the miniaturized Shedai artifact, and the bridge, most of the interior spaces aboard the Tholian battleship were cramped and difficult for him to navigate.
Following the loss of contact with the Sagittarius, Xiong had spent his first hour of solitude on the Tholians’ bridge. Sending a message had been his first intention. Unfortunately, all the duty stations had looked alike. For all I know, he had reminded himself, they might be identical until configured by their user for a specific purpose.
Accessing the ship’s command and control systems had proved all but impossible. None of the apparent interfaces had responded to his poking and prodding. He had worried that he might accidentally fire the weapons or initiate a self-destruct mechanism while trying to send a distress signal to Vanguard, but his complete failure to make any of the consoles acknowledge his input had relieved him of that concern. His best guess was that the Tholians employed biometric security measures, ensuring that their systems could be operated only by Tholians.
After leaving the bridge, he had begun a methodical search of the ship, one compartment at a time, looking for anything that he could recognize as useful. Most of the ship’s passages narrowed into dead ends. He had probed several compartments packed with rows of honeycomb-like cells. Based on similar structures he had seen in the diplomatic habitat on Vanguard, he surmised that those were quarters for the crew.
An hour of mind-numbingly repetitive search protocols had brought him to a passageway lined with narrow, hexagonal apertures. Confident that the openings were wide enough to permit passage of his bulky pressure suit, he floated through one into a compact space that led to another dead end.
Tumbling awkwardly forward, he was instantly aware that the confined area had zero gravity. Eyeing its glassy black surfaces, he saw that they bore numerous small protrusions. He looked more closely at the edges inside the hexagonal opening. Multiple layers of what resembled hull plating and recessed mechanisms gave him the impression that this was an escape pod.
He decided with a satisfied smile that this was useful. Now I just need to figure out how to release it from the ship, control its descent to the planet, and escape from it once I get there. His hands glided over its various contours and raised surfaces. As on the bridge, nothing reacted to his touch. Stymied again, he let himself float while he formed a plan of action. Two ways to make this work, he concluded. Trick the ship into thinking I’m a Tholian so I can access the controls, or bypass the regular interface and make one of my own.