Star Trek Discovery: Danger Zone

Chapter Three

Official transcription of remarks of the 2162 Annual Starfleet Medical Conference for Health Care Providers

Wednesday, March 5th 1100hrs

Topic: Xeno-biology and the future of Starfleet

Speaker: Physician Phlox

PHLOX: ...which, as I am sure you can imagine, was even more difficult in a zero-g environment.

[audience laughter]

PHLOX: But there is no doubt in my mind that Saurian officers serving in Starfleet will be nothing but an asset as we search further into the galaxy and encounter stranger, and stranger worlds. It is true there are certain dietary and environmental requirements that will need to be met in order to ensure their health, but these are easy to meet and sustain on long-range missions.

And in exchange, Saurians are very hardy. They have extremely durable epidermises—not nearly as vulnerable to abrasion or puncture as most humanoids—and extreme strength owing to their quad circulatory systems. It would seem the pounding of four hearts has other effects than untrammelled romanticism.

[audience laughter]

                                                                                        ********

The blast threw Linus backward off the camping stool, and he shielded his face from the spraying plasticine shrapnel with one arm. Hands grabbed him from behind and threw him to the loamy earth. His vision was filled with the body of one of his assailants. He felt the arm he'd raised being twisted aside and the low whine of a set of restraints being powered up.

"Come on, come on, come on!" A voice snarled from someplace to his left. "Get him cuffed."

Linus grunted and tried to move his arm, but it was pinned fast. A cuff slipped around his wrist. Linus twisted, and managed to get his other arm up and gained purchase on the uniform of the man atop him. He dug in with this talons and felt flesh give way beneath them. The man yelped in pain and surprise and Linus yanked him off his body. Now he had vision and freedom. He saw a Noviani soldier kneeling beside his outstretched right arm, wrapping a restraint around his wrist. His eyes went wide with surprise. Linus growled and rolled off his back. He got his legs under him and felt for the first time like he had a fighting chance.

A rifle butt slammed into the back of his skull, and his head snapped forward as his vision went blurry. A second blow exploded in the small of his back, and his knees buckled. He saw the soldier in front of him—the one who'd been fixing the restraint—reach for his pistol. Linus acted without thinking, grabbing the man by the shoulders and heaving, throwing the man bodily off the ground and into the treeline. He heard the soldier behind him curse and Linus spun and lashed out with his talons.

And suddenly the world was still. Linus noticed the tingling in his hand and the blood stripes appearing on the soldier's throat. In another moment they became bold lines, and finally the soldier grabbed his throat and choked, then gargled. His eyes lost focus and he pitched forward onto the ground. Linus knelt down beside him and tried to press on the wound.

"Quick! Do you have a med kit? A medical kit? Field dressing? Anything?"

The solider didn't hear him. His eyes scanned the jungle canopy--and perhaps someplace beyond--and then they went blank. Linus let out a sigh and let go of the man's throat. He'd never used his talons on a humanoid before—he'd scratched plenty of fellow Saurians, but that did little beyond leaving some shallow scrapes—now he'd just torn someone's throat out.

The blip of a communicator distracted him from thinking about it too much. It wasn't the chirp of a Starfleet communicator, so he inspected the Noviani soldier's body until he found a clunky comm device. He pressed buttons until he got a channel.

"Theed, come in! Don't tell me you still haven't subdued that damn lizard yet! It's a grelfing scientist!" Thok spat the word like it was a piece of rotten fruit.

"I am not an 'it,' Colonel," Linus said politely into the comm device. "My name is Linus, and I'd thank you to refer to me as such. Or you may refer to me as 'Lieutenant Linus', although that has a strange consonance to it in Galactic Standard."

There was a moment of silence, then Thok's voice crackled over the channel, blunt and forbidding. "So you have bested my men."

"Yes," Linus said. "One of them is dead the other..." Linus abruptly realized that he had no idea where the other soldier was. He whipped his head around, saw nothing, then raised his gaze and saw the man's motionless, crumped body in the bough of a nearby tree. "Well, I appear to have thrown him into a tree."

"And now you feel confident?"

Linus blinked. "Well, no...not really."

"Because despite what you may believe right now, I assure you that by this time tomorrow your hide will upholster my favorite chair."

Upholster...? Why would anyone...? Linus shook the question away. He couldn't afford to get distracted. "Where is the rest of my team?" he demanded.

"You have merely delayed the inevitable, lizard. I have a full team of Noviani commandos at my disposal—"

"Minus two," Linus pointed out. It was just basic math.

"--and more troops at our base. Night is coming, my friend. Can you see in the dark? Because my men can. If you surrender now you may just live. If you don't, your death will be certain and soon."

"You haven't really given me a very good case for turning myself in," Linus said. "Maybe if you're men hadn't shot at me..."

"Fine. We do it your way. Good luck, Lieutenant Linus. We'll see you soon."

Linus opened his mouth to respond, but stopped at the last moment, thinking of something better. He keyed the mic.

"Yippie-kai-yay, motherfucker."