Latik Kerjna, Drema IV

Bottom of Dilithium Mine Alpha

Day 2

Gold fiddled with the tricorder’s settings for the fiftieth time.

Thus far, all he’d been able to do was take a basic set of sensor readings on himself, Liankataka, and Kajana. He tried adjusting every setting he could think of, even briefly considering a multiphase pulse in an attempt to let those on the surface know they were still alive, but he didn’t want to risk inadvertently doing any more damage.

When he finally decided to stop and admit that the tricorder was going to serve them best as a light source—that was when he heard it.

“Hello?”

They weren’t alone.

At first Gold thought he was hallucinating, that he’d banged his head in the fall and the damage was just now surfacing, but when he got a look at Liankataka and Kajana in the faint light from the tricorder’s display, their reactions suggested that he wasn’t imagining things.

“Hello?” Gold called into the darkness. “Who else is down here?”

For a moment, the blanket of darkness that rested just outside the tiny glow from the tricorder display seemed to grow a little more oppressive. A rock fell somewhere in the distance.

Or was it right beside him? Not even the Doppler Effect seemed to be working properly. It was either that or his ears had blown out in the fall. In his mind, one was just as likely as the other.

A faint voice called out from the darkness. “Guardian?”

Liankataka tried to prop himself up with his arms. “Yes? Who’s there?”

There was a faint rustle that sounded almost like paper, and then, “Name’s Eijeth, sir.”

“Eijeth?” the Guardian replied, recognition in his voice. “Didn’t you get the evacuation signal?’

A pause, and then, “We did sir, but Kajkob here, he fell going up the shaft. Hurt his ankle something awful. It was slow going, so Jakara and I stopped to let him rest, but something exploded up top.”

“It was a bomb, Eijeth,” Liankataka said, putting on the most consoling—no, Gold realized, it was actually placating—tone possible. “The last gasp of the Exiles.”

“Exiles?” That seemed to panic the voice more than calm it. “Guardian, they’ve come back?”

“No, Eijeth,” Liankataka said, still trying to comfort the man with his voice. “No, they haven’t come back. They merely left a few things behind.”

“Scorched earth,” Gold absently said.

“What, Captain?”

Gold shook his head, not quite sure he wanted to believe how universal some concepts truly were. “It’s an old battle tactic that was also used on Earth centuries ago. Destroy anything useful to an invading enemy while you’re retreating from them: food, buildings, arable land. The idea was to keep the invading force from being able to set up shop comfortably. If they can’t even grow food, how can they enjoy the spoils of conquest?”

Something that sounded like a snort of derision came from the Guardian’s direction. “It’s the behavior of children, Captain. ‘If I can’t have it, they can’t either.’ Very juvenile. Not at all surprising. The Exiles were a very childlike people in many ways.”

“Aren’t we all, Guardian?” Gold asked. Turning his attentions to the world outside their tiny sanctuary of light, he said, “Eijeth, do the three of you have food? If we’re down here for any length of time, we need to ration every bit of food we have.”

He heard muttering from above, then, “Not much. Jakara hasn’t eaten his lunch, but Kajkob and I did. We’ve got about four chunks of keena bread, some vituwater, and some dried teekir meat.”

“Sounds like a feast,” Liankataka said. “All that for one day?”

A deeper voice—Gold figured it was Jakara—said, “I work hard, sir. And my wife treats me well.”

“Sounds like you found a good woman,” the Guardian said. “You’ll be okay, Jakara. We’ll all be okay.”

Gold wished he could be so optimistic.

“Would you please be so kind as to share some of that food with us, Jakara?”

He heard a creaking like metallic hinges opening and closing, some rustling, and then, “Of course, Guardian. Do you need me to bring it down?”

Gold and Liankataka shared a glance, then they both looked toward Kajana, the only uninjured person in their small group. She was huddled in the corner, leaning against the wall with her legs folded up to her chest. When she briefly raised her eyes to them, Gold noticed that the panic was still there. She rapidly shook her head and then huddled back over her legs. There was a good chance that she wouldn’t be able to help even herself, let alone them.

“Yes, please,” Gold said. “But only if you’re able. The Guardian and I are injured, and Kajana isn’t able to move.”

Someone scuffled their way down the mineshaft, the sound ending in a series of splashes and the entrance of a very large, very muscle-bound Dreman into the circle of light. Suddenly, Liankataka’s use of the word ‘feast’ made much more sense. It would have taken a lot of food to keep a man like this going. What little Gold could see of the man beyond his size showed a face covered in dilithium dust. The whites of his eyes shone in the faint light. “Guardian?” the man asked.

“Jakara?”

The man smiled, “Yes, sir.” He held out a small packet toward Liankataka. “The food. I split what I had in half. You want some water?” Jakara glanced back at the pool of water he’d stumbled through and said, “Maybe not. Looks like enough for all of us here.”

Liankataka thanked Jakara profusely and then began divvying up the packet’s contents. He reached around and handed Gold a hunk about the size of his closed fist of what looked like a kind of whole wheat bread and two strips of dried meat the length of his hand.

Gold’s stomach chose that moment to remind him that, in addition to the pain, he’d managed to ignore how hungry he’d become. He was grateful that he was sitting because a mild wave of dizziness came over him at the sight of the food.

“Has anyone tried to get out yet?” Gold asked—his attempt to keep the dizziness at bay mentally complicated by the fact that doing so only made it more difficult to block out the pain.

Jakara shook his head. “No, sir. We were waiting until we were sure the mine was through collapsing before we tried.”

Gold couldn’t fault him that logic. Trying to dig them out with the tunnel collapsing around them was something of a self-defeating process. He checked the chronometer on the tricorder, just to see how long they’d been down there. Five hours.

Five hours that felt more like five days.

“Jakara,” Liankataka began, “we need your help. We need to begin working our way out of here, but Captain Gold and I are both injured. Kajana isn’t capable of helping right now. We’re going to have to rely on you and Eijeth.”

Jakara nodded. “I understand, Guardian. We’ll get us out of here.”