Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Over thirty years ago, the pond near his grandfather’s dairy farm froze over with ice. Despite Grandpa Boutwell’s stern warnings about the thinness of the ice, Brett went out anyway. He was only ten years old; surely the ice could hold him better than an old man like his grandfather.

When Grandpa Boutwell went off to milk the cows, Brett sneaked away to the pond. The glossy white sheet beckoned to him, daring him to cross. With a snarl of determination, he glided out onto the ice. He kept skating across until he reached the center of the pond.

Then he turned to look back, smiling at his accomplishment. Stupid Grandpa Boutwell. What did he know? Brett thought the exact moment he heard the ice creak.

The crack formed at the shore and followed his path. He watched it approach him, swallowing the ice in front of him. As much as he wanted to flee, he found his legs unable to move. He could only watch as the crack reached him and then began to radiate in every direction.

The ice gave way beneath his feet with a crash like a thunderclap. For a moment Brett seemed to hang in the air as the ice around him disappeared. In the next instance, he plunged into the water below. Water so cold it knocked the wind from his lungs and paralyzed his limbs in a second.

His body limp in the water, Brett drifted towards the bottom. He looked up at the surface, seeing a blotch of hazy sunlight that seemed a million miles away. Only then did he realize he would die.

Except a silver tube broke through the water, burrowing down until it collided with his chest. His mind as numb as his body, Brett didn’t know what to do with this tube. It prodded him in the arm until he realized he could grab onto it. Willing his numbed limbs to move, Brett grabbed onto the tube. He felt himself being pulled up towards the blotch of sunlight.

He broke through the surface to find Grandpa Boutwell holding the tube. “Damned fool. As headstrong as your father,” Grandpa Boutwell said by way of greeting.

Brett survived that dunking, but as he thrashed about the Serparnian marsh, he didn’t think he would survive this time. Grandpa Boutwell had died twenty years ago; he wasn’t going to come along with a pole to fish Brett out. And last time he wasn’t entangled in a Skolip intent on crushing him to death.

After wrapping itself around Brett’s waist, the Skolip sucked him beneath the water. It then tried to consolidate its hold by wrapping itself around his chest to his diaphragm. Brett raised his arms to keep the Skolips body from pinning them, but no matter how hard he punched the snake-like creature, it maintained its hold.

Then the Skolip began to squeeze. Brett morbidly wondered if the creature knew alien anatomy or if it had X-ray vision to find the exact point to force the air from his lungs. The Skolip pushed up on his diaphragm with the force of a sledgehammer, squeezing until Brett’s mouth popped open like a champagne bottle.

The air he’d managed to suck in before going under was replaced by brackish water. He thrashed harder in the Skolip’s grasp so he could spit out the foul-tasting water and get air back into his lungs. But the serpent’s hide was too thick; it tightened its grip until Brett heard ribs cracking like twigs.

There had to be some way to get this thing to let him go. If he still had the disruptor he might be able to scare it off. But it had fallen from his hand. He only had the communicator badge pinned to his shirt. That couldn’t do any good—

He tore the badge from the shirt, turning it so the head of the Starfleet logo faced down like a spearhead. With all his remaining strength, Brett drove the communicator into the Skolip’s hide. The wound wasn’t enough to do any damage, but it stunned the Skolip enough for it to loosen its grip.

That was the opening Brett needed. He shot out of the Skolip’s grasp, rocketing to the surface as white spots formed in his vision. A rush of humid air greeted him at the surface; he began coughing up all the awful water he’d swallowed.

Before the Skolip could recover, Brett paddled onto the stand of grass beside Robyn’s limp body. Once he finished coughing up what seemed like half the marsh, he sucked in a lungful of air. He’d made it!

From his knees, he saw the disruptor lying at the edge of the water. He didn’t know if it would still be usable after the soaking, but at least he could use it as a bluff. Reaching out towards the disruptor, his fingers grassed the butt—

A thin tentacle shot from the water to wrap around his wrist. Another and then another joined it until an entire spider web of tentacles had formed around Brett. The Skolip surfaced, its scaly black body glistening in the moonlight. The Skolip began to reel the tentacles in towards its body.

With the tentacles wrapped around his body, Brett didn’t have any hope of escape. If he could just get his right hand free, he could grab the disruptor, but the tentacles held firm no matter how hard he struggled. What’s more, they began secreting white foam that hardened like cement within seconds.

This time it seemed determined to play for keeps. More like a spider than a snake, it would wrap him in a cocoon and then sink him to the bottom of the marsh to finish off at its convenience. Short of shouting curses at it, there was nothing Brett could do.

The foam hardened into a shell around his legs and arms first. Then it began dripping down his chest to encase him from the neck down. With Brett’s body thus encapsulated, the Skolip poked its head above the water. Instead of a snake’s head, it had the long, flat snout of a crocodile or alligator on Earth. And like those Earth reptiles, the snout was filled with rows of sharp teeth ready to tear Brett to pieces.

“I hope you choke,” Brett growled as the Skolip’s tentacles dropped him into the water. The red eyes of the Skolip glared at him, glowing with what seemed to Brett like satisfaction. Its tail wrapped around his left leg, preparing to shove him down beneath the water to finish off.

A bolt of green light shot over Brett’s head, momentarily blinding him. He heard rather than saw the Skolip thrashing around as the disruptor fired again and again. Finally the Skolip’s tail unwound from Brett’s leg and with a splash it disappeared.

When his vision cleared, he saw not his grandfather with a silver pole, but Robyn with the disruptor he’d dropped. “Hold on,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. She turned the disruptor to its lowest setting and then shot the cocoon around his left leg. The shot had just enough power to shatter the hardened foam without scorching Brett’s flesh.

Robyn repeated this with his arms so he could peel the rest away by hand. “I’m sorry,” she said before sagging into the grass, her body turning chalk-white.

“Robyn? Robyn!” he shouted, hurrying to her side. But there was nothing he could do except to hold her as her breathing slowed and then stopped.

He cradled her head to his chest, sobbing into her hair. She was gone. “Robyn, no, you can’t leave me. Come back, please,” he said. “Come back.”

He was still pleading with her when the familiar white beams of a Starfleet transporter formed around them. A heartbeat later, Brett found himself squatting with Robyn on the transporter pad of a shuttlecraft.

“Commander, what’s wrong? What happened to the captain?” Ensign Cooper asked.

Brett said nothing. He dropped Robyn, racing over to the medical kit mounted on the wall. Opening the kit, he found the paddles to shock her heart. “Stand back!” he warned Cooper.

He brought the paddles down on her chest with a jolt. No response. Again he tried without success. “Come on, Robyn, you can do it. We need you!” he screamed at her.

This time when he put the paddles to her chest, her body stirred. He waited a moment, watching as her chest began to rise and fall ever so slightly. “That’s right, you can do it. Come on. Keep going,” he encouraged her.

With a violent cough, her eyes opened, fixating on him. “Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re on a shuttle. Cooper found us. We’re going to get you to sickbay and you’ll be all right.”

“I can’t move,” she whispered.

“It’s all right. Dr. Chen will fix you up.” He looked up at Cooper. “Get us back to the ship as fast as this thing can go. You got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Cooper said, her voice sounding shaken.

Brett cradled Robyn’s head against his chest the entire trip to comfort her. He wasn’t going to lose her. Not this time.