LA FORGE DANGLED by four fingertips from the cliff face. He tried to ignore the rock-strewn ground, thirty-odd meters below his feet. Fumbling for his gauss gun, he was acutely aware of a steady downdraft that was thinning the fog. That was good news for T’Eama and Braddock, who would now be able to see far enough ahead to better plan their climb. Clearer conditions, however, would also increase the team’s risk of being spotted.

The trio climbed more or less side by side—Braddock on the left, T’Eama in the center, La Forge on the right—linked by belaying lines connected to climbing harnesses. They had shed their bulky dropsuits in favor of lightweight, camouflage climbing gear. Even in Tezwa’s reduced gravity, every gram of encumbrance mattered. Even more critical, however, were flexibility and mobility. To navigate the perilous vertical ascent would demand agility, caution, and strength.

Steadying his gauss gun, La Forge aimed for the underside of what looked like a fairly solid rock shelf fifteen meters above him. He fired and shot a slender, electromagnetically propelled piton through the ledge. Trailing behind the piton was a microthin line of duranium cable. His fingertips began to ache under the stress of supporting his weight. He thumbed the cable retractor. A few seconds later the line went taut as the piton—now expanded into a miniature grappling hook—caught and held fast on the other side of the ledge.

Holding on to his gauss pistol, he used his free hand to play out some slack in his belaying line, then switched the cable retractor to its stronger setting. Locking both hands around the compact device, he shot upward as it towed him toward the ledge. As he neared the underside of the outcropping, he stopped the retractor and searched for a toehold. Spying one to his right, he wedged the front spikes of his crampons into it and locked his gloved hands around a tiny lip on the side of the rock shelf over his head. He keyed the gauss pistol’s hook release. The grappling hook folded neatly back into its shell and retracted into the pistol, which he holstered.

Ignoring the burning pain in his triceps and chest, La Forge struggled to lift himself up onto the narrow ledge. Below him he heard the gentle fwup of Braddock’s gauss-pistol shot, followed by the crack of its slug punching through stone. La Forge laid his right forearm across the ledge and released his foothold as he prepared to steady his aim for the next shot.

A brittle jangling of broken rock was his only warning.

Braddock’s target surface had collapsed under his weight, and now was falling down toward him. T’Eama gripped the cliff wall in front of her and braced herself. The belaying line that linked her to Braddock snapped taut. He swung beneath her like the weight at the end of a pendulum. The tumbling rocks, of course, fell straight, and missed him as he swung clear.

La Forge was ready to exhale a relieved sigh when T’Eama’s handhold crumbled under her fingers. Now she and Braddock both were plummeting, and depending on La Forge to be their anchor. Realizing he had no time to snap off another shot with his gauss pistol, he locked his arms around his meager chunk of real estate and braced for the inevitable.

Their combined weight wrenched him downward. Jagged edges along the ledge bit into his arms and ribs. His spine felt like it was being stretched in some medieval torture device.

Where his ledge met the cliff, a hairline fracture formed. Dust escaping from the crack stung his sinuses. He glanced down. T’Eama and Braddock scrambled to find purchase on the cliff. Clawing with her slender fingers, T’Eama found a narrow sliver of flat ledge. She latched on to it and pulled herself up. Now she was supporting Braddock’s weight, and the knifing pain in La Forge’s shoulder and lower back subsided.

By the time La Forge had driven a new piton into the cliff, affixed a carabiner to it, and transferred the slack from his harness, Braddock had found a new path up the cliff and resumed his ascent. T’Eama kept pace beside him, and both of the junior officers showed greater caution in securing their lines before releasing their hand-holds. It took them nearly five minutes to recover their lost ground, and another five to climb until they were once again level with La Forge.

“You two okay?” La Forge said while the pair fastened new pitons of their own into the rock face.

“Yes, sir,” T’Eama said, checking her carabiner lock.

“Shook up, but yeah,” Braddock said, securing his line.

“We have to pick up the pace,” La Forge said. “We’re less than halfway up, and the Klingons’ll be here in forty minutes.”

“Sir,” Braddock said. “Even if we reach the top in time, how are we supposed to get inside the base?”

“Just climb,” La Forge said. “Let me worry about the plan.”

“Yes, sir,” Braddock said, and began looking for his next avenue of ascent.

La Forge stared up the next hundred-plus meters of barren rock and was grateful that one of the privileges of command was keeping one’s own counsel—because he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do when they reached the top of the cliff.