KIRK COULD EASILY remember standing watches more unpleasant than this one.
The captain was actually rather content. Here he was in his favorite place, sitting in an utterly comfortable, custom-contoured chair, a steaming coffeepot to his left and a thick, good book in his lap. The spotlamp he was using did not disturb those sleeping in the room.
It was the middle of a beautifully mild and quiet Centaurian night, and Kirk was home, for the first time in quite a while. The hell with the circumstances; he was enjoying it.
Kirk glanced at the luminous chronometer on the far wall. It read 02:77, and that meant just about twenty-five Centaurian minutes to the end of his watch. Kirk yawned.
He glanced over at the bed. Sulu—like Kirk, still dressed in civilian clothing—was dead to the world. Let him sleep, Kirk decided. Another hour or two of this won't kill me—and Sulu's still got a good dose of that drug, whatever it was, in him. He should sleep it off. Kirk walked back to his chair, poured himself a fifth cup of coffee, and picked up his book. It was one of his oldest: Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, a timeless piece of work Kirk had read twice before.
He got lost in it again, and the next time he looked at the chronometer it read 05:52. Good God, Kirk thought ruefully. The night's almost gone. Well, Sulu, you owe me a couple of hours' sack time, I think. With a little regret, Kirk folded the dustcover flap into the book to hold his place, and put it down next to the now-empty coffeepot. His eyes felt gritty; his mouth tasted worse.
Kirk switched off the spotlamp and stood. The sky was beginning to lighten as firstdawn approached his mountains. Soon the birds would greet the day with song; Kirk decided he wanted to be outside for that. He grabbed his jacket and put it on against the early-morning chill. He opened the cabin door quietly and stepped outside.
ZZZZZSSSSssssss! went past his ear.
Instinctively Kirk crouched and flung himself back inside, slamming the door shut with his booted foot. "Everybody up!" he ordered. "Sulu! Weapons case. Fast!"
The helmsman had risen quickly at the slam of the door. Now he ducked under the bed and retrieved a suitcase-sized black case with an Enterprise insigne on it: a standard-issue shuttlecraft portable weapons case. It looked like leather but was much tougher than that, and any attempt to force it open would result in its destruction—and the destruction of everything else within a radius of fifty meters. Sulu pressed his thumb against a touchplate on the lock; the case decided it was allowed to open, and it did.
Sulu passed phasers, pistol grips and extra power packs to Kirk and Cogley, and kept a set for himself. He relocked the case, slamming it shut.
Barclay and his four associates were awake, now.
"Smith" and "Jones" were sitting on the floor, watching Kirk and Sulu examine their weapons. Cogley was looking at his own phaser, a bit mystified; he had never held one before. Max and Dave were looking warily out the front window. Barclay was reclining comfortably on his bedroll, his arms folded underneath his head; he didn't seem to have a care in the world.
"What's happening, Captain?" asked "Jones." He looked a little mussed.
"We've been shot at," Kirk said shortly. "High-energy-level weapon. We must have a nice char mark on the front of the cabin now." Kirk did not mention that the beam had passed his head no farther away than ten centimeters; otherwise, he would not have heard it. He tagged it as a focused phaser blast, invisible and silent—and deadly.
It was not as efficient as a standard phaser blast, so it didn't have as great a range—which only meant that whoever it was outside was too damned close to the cabin to suit Kirk.
Barclay's eyebrows went up. "So. We've been followed," he drawled. "I don't think much of your hiding place, Captain."
"You can't afford to sneer, Barclay," Kirk said. "You're too close to being dead right now. So shut that hole in your face and stay down on the floor."
"Who fired that shot?" Burke raged, not far away.
"Dunno, sir," a lieutenant colonel in the Security Service replied. "Coulda been anyone in that stand of trees over there." He pointed; about fifteen troops in camouflage gear had taken shelter there, preparatory to raiding Kirk's cabin.
"When this is over, Colonel, I want a full investigation," Burke said through gritted teeth. "Your man has blown the element of surprise in this mission. Now we have to capture alive a number of men who don't want to be taken—and they're backed up by one of the toughest men in Starfleet!"
"We'll get 'em, Minister Burke," the lieutenant colonel said, a touch nervously.
"Oh, you'd better," Burke returned, too quietly. Those bastards in there killed my wife and kids, and if you think they're getting a chance to get away because some damn fool punk squeezed off a shot, you're crazier than they are. Who the hell did you lose in New Athens, Colonel?
"And let me remind you of your orders, Colonel," Burke continued, scathingly. "You are not to take any, repeat, any offensive action against Captain Kirk or Lieutenant Sulu. I don't care what they're wearing—Starfleet uniforms, civilian suits, or your Aunt Mabel's kitchen apron—you know what those two men look like; I showed you the pictures myself. I'm warning you, Colonel: Be more careful. Your force may defend itself if Kirk and Sulu resist—but Kirk and Sulu are Federation officers and will be treated as such. They are not the enemy! Your men will not take potshots at them, as if this were some Thanksgiving Day turkey shoot! Got that?"
"Yessir!" the lieutenant colonel said, his jaw clenched. "Permission to proceed, sir?"
"Go." The man saluted and went.
Perez strolled over and stood beside Burke. "Sorry for the foul-up, Nat. Deerfield's a good man, though; I think you were a little hard on him."
"Oh, really?" Burke said coldly, still looking toward the cabin. "He may be your man, Dan, but it's my operation. Take some advice: Don't forget it."
After a moment Perez went away, too, leaving Burke alone with his vengeance. Nobody dared bother Burke again after that.
* * *
Crouching below the front windowsill, Kirk watched the hills. Once in a while he thought he could see some movement of the foliage against the wind. The presence of a few infiltrators indicated the presence of many; from what Kirk knew of standard encirclement tactics, he guessed there must be a force of seventy or eighty in the area. Well, we can eliminate the notion of running for it, he thought. We're surrounded.
"Well, Kirk?" Barclay demanded. "Just what are you going to do to ensure our safety?"
Kirk ignored him.
"I'm talking to you, Captain. I demand the courtesy of an answer."
"I'd advise you to be a little more quiet, Mr. Barclay," Sam Cogley said from his position at the other window. "The captain is rather busy."
"When I want your advice, Cogley, I'll tell you," Barclay snapped. "Kirk, if you're thinking of surrendering us, let me tell you this: Don't do it. You wouldn't like the consequences." Barclay smiled nastily.
"Keep your client quiet, Sam," Kirk advised. His mind was on other things. Tactically, their situation was desperate. Kirk had two men to protect five other men, none of whom could be trusted with a weapon. Kirk knew these woods far better than the members of the invading force, but that knowledge was useless as long as Kirk was confined to the cabin. The cabin had no secret exits, no arms cache, no transporter pad, not even a flying carpet.
All that the infiltrators had to do was storm the cabin; three men could not hold off nearly a hundred—not for long, anyway. An infantry combat phaser on heavy stun would do the job. That assumed, of course, that Burke—Kirk knew it had to be Burke out there, and maybe Perez, too—was interested in taking them alive. He wasn't sure about that, but the fact that the cabin and those in it still existed was a good sign. If Burke wanted them all dead, then one plane dropping one "smart" bomb could have done the job during the night. The assumption that Burke wanted them alive severely limited what Burke could do to capture them—as long as Barclay and his boys didn't try to leave the valley.
That meant they had time—a little, anyway. "Watch the window, Sulu," Kirk ordered as he took his communicator from his belt. He flipped it open; the initiating signal went out, but there was no answerback. Communications were still out.
Kirk's only alternative to voice communication would have been a ground-to-space laser signaler—and Galileo didn't have one aboard; a signaler wasn't standard equipment, according to the book. That was an oversight Kirk would remedy within one minute of his return to the Enterprise . . . assuming he did return. Under these conditions Kirk could have simply poked a hole in the roof, stuck the nozzle of the signaler through it and fired a beam of coherent light into space. Visible light would pass through the tachyonic interference barrier as if it were glass; the Enterprise's sensors would then quickly find the laser beam and trace it back to its source. They did have phasers, but the weapons could not fire a powerful enough beam to be detected from orbit.
Thinking of his ship again, Kirk looked up—and saw a swarm of jeeplike military flitters and, above them, several fixed-wing jet aircraft. They've got the sky covered, too, Kirk thought. He discarded his half-formed plan of creating a diversion while Sulu hustled everyone else into Cogley's flitter and took off. No matter what Kirk did, the sky forces would easily target Cogley's civilian clunker and bring it down—possibly gently, with tractor beams … but perhaps not so gently, with a pair of air-to-air missiles.
Kirk ran it through his mind again. We're relatively safe as long as we stay in here, as long as Burke knows where we are and feels he's in control. If we leave, Burke will think he's losing control, and we're dead. But we've got to leave. Now just how the hell are you going to pull this one off, Jim?
Kirk was frank enough with himself to admit he could see no way out, short of abject surrender to Burke—and the surrender of his prisoners to planetary authority. That was strictly against his orders … not to mention Federation law. Kirk was more stubborn than to give in. He had arrested these weasels; he was responsible for them. He'd see this thing through, and he'd beat Burke.
But he was damned if he knew how.