Star Trek Into Darkness Page 0,4

thinner material beneath. It gleamed silver in the uneven glare, incredibly lightweight yet impermeable, simultaneously smooth and scaled while possessed of operational characteristics that had nothing to do with the daily needs of a Starfleet officer. To his right, a visibly shaken Uhura was reluctantly shedding her outer attire to expose a similar undergarment that flashed crimson in the increasingly uneven light inside the shuttle. For the last time, the helmsman addressed the comm pickup.

“Captain, we’re pulling out while we still can. Even so, I don’t know if we’ll be able to make it back to the designated drop location for the ship. I’m ditching the shuttle. You’ve got to make it to the Enterprise on your own.”

“Wonderful,” came the response from the open comm. There might have been additional commentary, Sulu reflected, but if so, it was lost in a wash of interference. Like every other system on the shuttle, its communications were failing. Knowing the captain as well as he did by now, the helmsman wasn’t sure he needed to hear any additional opinions Kirk might have had on the subject of his transport’s failure anyway. He could just as easily imagine them.

Despite the damage it had suffered, the shuttle succeeded in exiting the volcano. Though the autopilot managed to put it on course, the rest of the crippled craft was rapidly failing system by system. It was evident to both officers that they weren’t going to make it all the way back-though a dazed Uhura wasn’t sure she cared if they did or not. Conditioning, not determination, forced her through the necessary motions.

As despair and indifference threatened to overwhelm Uhura’s training, Sulu could see the danger. “Uhura-ready to swim?”

Struggling to keep her balance inside the increasingly unstable shuttle, she nodded tersely. “I know you did everything you could. I’m ready.” Her voice strengthened, her professionalism carrying her forward despite what she was feeling inside.

Her thoughts, not to mention her emotions, were elsewhere. If necessary, Sulu resolved to push her out should they have to go down. They’d already been forced to leave Spock behind.

He was damned if he was going to leave Uhura as well.

Kirk was about done. Though fresher than the captain, so was McCoy. The majority of the doctor’s limited athletic capability lay in his hands. From the start of their flight, his legs had protested at the unnatural demands being placed on them. As a physician, he was intimately familiar with the physiological indicators of looming physical failure, and he heartily disliked having to apply them to himself. If only Kirk hadn’t impetuously stunned the domesticated animal McCoy had obtained for them to ride. If only a lot of things, the increasingly exhausted doctor mused. Not that he was surprised. Saddened, was more like it. The entire operation had struck him as a fool’s errand from the moment it had first been proposed. Present circumstances had, regrettably, only confirmed that initial opinion.

Nor did their current circumstances suggest that things were going to get any better, he told himself as he shouted at Kirk.

“Jim—Jim, the beach is that way!”

Something sharp and potentially lethal whizzed past the captain’s head. A glance back showed that the mob of Nibirans was continuing to close the gap. At the two officers’ present rate of retreat, it was only a matter of moments before the next flung knife, or spear, or simple rounded stone brought him and the captain to the ground.

Kirk might be brave, even at times recklessly so, but he was not blind to the reality of their limitations. Besides, they had accomplished his intent—drawing the natives away from the dangerous proximity to the temple. Barely slowing to a stop, Kirk proceeded to drape the parchment over a nearby tree branch. As he released it, the scroll unfurled all the way to the ground, revealing a host of markings and symbols that must have taken some Nibiran scribe untold hours of labor to render so precisely and clearly.

“Jim!” McCoy was nearly out of breath. “This is neither the time nor the place to make a dramatic presentation!” A glance showed that the bellowing Nibirans were nearly on top of them. “Besides which, I don’t think your intended audience is in the mood to listen to anything you have to say!”

Kirk yelled without looking back at him. “Doesn’t matter—we’re not going to the beach!”

“No.” Realizing the import of Kirk’s words, McCoy’s eyes widened. “No no no!”

Whatever the inscribed contents of the scroll, it caused the Nibirans to break off