Chapter Eleven

- “It should be hauled away AS garbage?

–The Trouble With Tribbles

I wns TRYING to absorb the end of the nightmare when Captain Kirk extended his hand to me. Why did he want to help me down from the gangway? Almost on the thought, the answer wrapped itself around my heart. The captain’s handshake suffused me with honor, a thousand times more than any promotion ever had, or ever could.

As if sensing my need for a moment of not being the center of attention, Kirk moved to his command chair and thumbed a button. “Kirk to Engineering.” When there was no response, he punched again. “Kirk to auxiliary control.” “Spock here.” Ahhh, that sonorous voice! How welcome it was!

“Mr. Spock, the bridge is secure,” the captain informed him.

“That is satisfying news, sir. Congratulations. May I ask the condition of the prisoners?”

He wanted to know about Perren, I guessed. From opposite sides of the bridge, the renegade Vulcan and I exchanged a meaningful regard, but nothing more. This was the captain’s moment.

“Professor Mornay and Dr. Boma are on their way to the brig. Perten is still here with us.”

A brief pause gave weight to Spock’s next question. “And Mr. Sarda?”

 

224

 

The captain peered at me from the corner of his eye. “He’s in charge of the prisoners.”

Relief went through me like a knife. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, then let myself stare at the floor as Kirk’s support for us soaked in. Had he been in my place before? Did he know what it felt like?

“Ship’s status, Spock?” he was asking.

“Very poor, Captain, as you might guess. However, we do have maneuvering capabilities on impulse power. We should be able to ambulate back to Argelius, 0e we take care not to strain the systems. I am presently attempting to re-engage electrical support for the guidance systems.”

“Keep me posted. Bridge out.” Again the command chair clicked. “Kirk to sickbay. What’s the antidote situation?”

McCoy’s voice shot through the com system with a reassuring confidence. “We’ve isolated the antidote, synthesized it, and introduced it into the circulation system, Captain. The crew should start waking up within about fifteen minutes, depending on the individual.”

“Will they be functional, Doctor?”

“The intoxicant was wicked stuff. They’ll wake up, but for the next six hours or so we’re going to have a mighty sick crew on our hands, Jim.”

Kirk lowered his voice noticeably. “Any count on fatalities yet, Bones?”

“No way to tell yet.” McCoy sounded edgy.

“Guess.”

“We hope to hold it under a dozen. Doing our best, ú Jim. Ipromise.”

I felt the presence of Merete when Dr. McCoy said “our best,” and knew she had found her own way to contribute to the situation. She could easily have stayed behind on Earth and gotten safe transit back to Star Fleet Command to await her next orders. Her presence had seemed so natural that, until now, I

 

225

 

hadn’t remembered to appreciate it. I sent her a telepathic good luck and, remembering how she always managed to get to the core of my tensions, flexed my shoulders in an attempt to relax the muscles in my neck. With that I also took a deep breath and caught traces of a sweet odor, heavy and lingering descending from the upper vents. Merete’s silent response–the antidote.

The captain addressed me quietly. “Piper?”

I shook myself into focus. “Aye, sir?”

“Where did you moor Keeler?”

“She’s docked, sir. At Man-o-War. I took the liberty of arranging to have her brightwork sanded and refinished as long as she’s just sitting there. I left Ambassador Shamirian in charge of her.”

“I thought you would.” Leaning that way, with one elbow on the command arm, clasping one wrist as casually as a tiger rolling onto its back in the sun, Captain Kirk became everything a human could be. His soft hazel eyes brushed me and hovered beneath feathery brows that minutes ago had defined his sense of purpose. The purpose relieved, his face returned to the portrait of wisdom I’d known on board that lovely schooner so far away. For that instant, he and I were everything and everyone in the universe, mentor and pupil, captain and mate, captain and captain.

The communication was real. It drew his lips outward into a restrained grin. “Good job,” he added.

I smiled. “Thanks.” Funny that I felt as gratified by his trusting me with his schooner as I was by his trusting me with this mission. Of course, after many weeks at sea with James Kirk, I knew what the schooner meant to him. The mission only meant risk-ing death. The schooner meant life itself. The schooner, the starship… a strange and provocative mirror image.

“That was quite a wrenching you gave us,” he said

then, reinstating the paranoia. “I had no idea a construction tug could do that.”

Several possible responses flooded my brain. “Neither did I.”

His brows went up and down in a dismissing motion. “Well,” he said, “I won’t want to be around when you explain it to Mr. Scott.”

The moment’s elation sank out of me. I muttered, “Me neither.” Maybe there was something to be said for narcotic gases after all.

The captain moved around the back of his command chair, caressing the leather. All the while he was looking at Perren, who stood on the far bridge, swallowed by his own thoughts, or perhaps by the emptiness of them. Abandoned by his scruples, Perren was caught between the gears of bad and good, for the moment quite content to surrender himself to the wisdom of others. A sudden and completely unex-pecteA sorrow rose inside me, touched with pity for him. Was he so wrong to wish to free the countless conquered worlds in the neighboring hostile empires? He felt guilty for the privilege of having been born Vulcan, of being born into the Federation, .where his abilities were able to flourish without leash. I had once thought of the Klingons’ right to be what they were, had once armed weapons to defend that clause in the Articles of Federation that guaranteed the privilege of serf-rule to any government that didn’t wish to join the Federation as much as to those who did. Never before had I thought so sympathetically of those billions of beings who might never get the choice at all. Perren made me think. The sacrifices were his, and I had mined them. I would do that again, of course, but would things always have to be this way? Was freedom of choice only a matter of proximity in the galaxy? Where your borders lay?

As I gazed at Perren now, these thoughts folded in

 

226 227

 

on me and I became confused. I tried to isolate my regret, but after all we’d been through I couldn’t clear my head enough for simple rationalities, much less a complex moral question. When all this was over and there was time to read, time to ask, time to listen, I promised myself I would keep learning. Perren’s face, all angles and soft shadows under the bridge lights, evoked from me a warrant of teevaluation.

Kirk shook me out of these half-thoughts. “Piper, take the communications station and put out a dispatch to Star Fleet. Advise that we need an interstellar tow to the nearest starbase, and that we’ll meet them at Argelius.”

Striding across the bridge, I spontaneously asked, “What about the Banana Republic, sir?” It was out before I had a chance to bite it back.

His straight brows went flat on his eyes as he turned slowly. “What about the what?”

I whirled around and froze again. Well, tunnel-mouth, how do you get out of this one? “Um… by the way, Captain, I never had a chance to thank you for arranging a command for me. So… thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Banana Republic?”

Hang him, he was going to annoy me into explaining. Strapped, I fabricated a graceful, diplomatic lie and served it on a silver shrug. “First thing that came to mind, sir…”

Okay, so it wasn’t graceful or diplomatic. It got me off the hook.

His brows did a little dance again, but he let the subject die young and waved me onward to communications.

It felt good to sit down. The bridge chair groaned lazily as I relaxed into it, confirming the illusive idea that things were settling down. Only a fleeting glance at Perten, and his at me, kept us clinging to past actions. Captain Kirk probably intended to have me escort Perren to the brig, as Sarda had escorted Mor-228

 

nay and Boma. Perren was unpredictable and the idea of ushering him below brought on a clutter of possibilities. I would still have to be careful. I swiveled around, putting my back to him. He wasn’t my problem any more. Feeling taken care of for the first time in too long, I quietly tapped out the dispatch to Star Fleet Command and put it on a priority band. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a starship hanging around in the middle of nowhere any longer than absolutely necessary. When the message was intact, I committed it to the system and pressed the Subspace Send-Code. Then I leaned back, my wrist still resting on the rim of the console. The board hummed merrily, doing what it did best. Machines were easy to please. A small grin tugged at my lips. Poor old Rex. Quite a show. Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz.

I sat bolt upright. The tamper alert light was going wild. Somewhere in the system, the dispatch was jammed. Raking a hand through my hair, I chided myself for still being on edge, flexed my shoulders, and bent over the board. I didn’t know much about communications cross plays, but I hadn’t given up without a fight yet.

“Clanky plumbing,” I accused, realizing that, of course, I had done this to the starship myself. If things wouldn’t work, it was because I had made damn sure they wouldn’t.

I pecked away at the toggles and inputs, trying to clear the system before Kirk got the idea that I needed help. All the electrical routes seemed to be working, butmthere was an intrusion of impulses. From outside !

“Captain, we’re being jammed!” I shouted.

He was beside me in an instant. “From where?”

“Port astern. Transmitters are being impeded. I can’t get the message out!”

In a single motion he flew from the upper deck to the helm control and rattled orders into the board. As we

 

229

 

watched in growing awareness, Perten moved away from the main view screen and gave us clear sight of our port astern space. The screen solidified quickly, with only a waver of sensor shift before focusing on two hawk-shaped warships just coming out of cloak.

I vaulted from my chair and grasped the deck rail, staring. “They must’ve moved in while we were playing musical phasers !”

Kirk reached back and nailed the corn link on his command chair. For all the good it would do to an unconscious crew, the captain’s urgent words echoed through the corridors of the crippled starship. “Bat-tiestations! All available hands to battlestations. Mr. Spock, to the bridge.”

 

“Piper, take the helm.”

The Red Alert klaxon howled. Bridge lights darkened and became the warning scarlet that told us we were in trouble. The helm was sluggish under my hands.

“Raise all shields,” the captain said. Calmness had returned to his voice. Somehow he had gotten it back.

Even emptied of its human elements, the bridge came alive. The computer systems fought the damage and sucked energy into themselves to do their jobs. Diagnostic readouts of the ship in tiny skeletal duplica-tion, all done in computer blues, greens, and reds, were constantly shifting across the upper display boards, giving visual reality to the damage I’d done. And on at least two dynoscanners loomed the configuration, distance, and approach data on a pair of Klingon warships. Bigger than birds of prey, these were of the older, sturdier design, engineered for firepower and engine thrust. My throat closed as I watched the actual ships growing nearer in the main viewer. Because of me, Enterprise was helpless. I wiped a trickle of sweat from my chin and pecked

at the helm control board, trying to think my way through unfamiliarity with these controls. “Only half-screens available, sir,” I told him.

“They certainly didn’t waste any time finding us,” Kirk said to no one in particular. That was me, that no one.

In a fit of self-deprecation, I grumbled, “Klingons are stupid, but they’re not that stupid.”

Still dressed in cape and tunic, Mr. Spock shot out of the turbolift, cast one glance at the main viewer, and rounded on his library computer station. It started spewing data at him the instant he touched it, like a child jumping up and down to tell a parent about its troubles. “Captain, we’re being scanned,” he said immediately.

“Jam their frequencies,” Kirk ordered. His scowl told how much he resented the invasion. “Let them guess.”

Able to tie into many divisions of the bridge from his board, Spock fed the order through and prevented the Klingons from knowing the details of our damage. Anything more complicated would have to be done from the home consoles in each division. “Their weapons are armed, Captain, but they’re not coming within firing range. They are separating… coming about to flank us on either side.”

As he spoke, the scenario took place on our viewer. The two ships peeled away from each other and disappeared out opposite corners of the screen. The captain circled his command chair, his eyes narrowed like a fox in a hunt. Prey or predator? Which role would he take, and why? “Do we have phasers, Spock?”

“Nonoperational, sir.” Spock was quiet and terminal about it. He knew perfectly well what he was saying and, Vulcan or not, made no attempt to hide the heaviness he felt. A basic hopelessness was evidenced

 

230 231

 

by his lack of explanation. Phasers weren’t working, and they weren’t going to be working any time soon. Not soon enough.

Was there anything on this starship that we hadn’t destroyed?

The captain prowled the bridge. He was trying to think like the Klingons, and I was trying to think like him. I caressed the helm’s edge, feeling very, very small. This was my fault. If I hadn’t jumped to conclusions, assumed Kirk couldn’t handle Mornay—if I hadn’t crippled the ship-Spock turned to us, a communications hook in his ear. “Sir, the Klingon commander is hailing us.”

Kirk acknowledged it with a wry look. I felt a snide comment coming, but he repressed it and said, “Vis-ual, Mr. Spock.”

Velvet space dissolved, replaced by craggy Klingon features. It wasn’t Gelt, I noted with some relief, though there was little doubt about how Klingon Central had found out about us. Once again I cursed myself for my common altruism. I’d left Gelt and his crew alive when I had the chance to put them out of my misery. As I watched, aching inside, the Klingon captain spoke. “Commander, Enterprise, this is your captor. Your ship is disabled. We will take her in tow and return to the Klingon annex on the opposite side of the Federation Neutral Zone. As soon as we touch Klingon space, you will be classified as salvage.”

Kirk grew rock still. “Captain, you draw this ship into Empire territory and it’ll be the last thing you do. I’ll detonate her the second we leave Federation space, and you with her.”

His words chilled me to the marrow. I believed those words, that tone. He would. And I would help him. I no longer felt death lurking at my door. I’d kick the door open and go in style, along with the finest ship in the universe and her captain.

The screen wobbled and turned to space again. Kirk

 

232

 

looked over his shoulder; Spock frowned and shook his head. “They’ve cut us off,” he said.

Kirk bent over his command console. “Kirk to sickbay.”

“McCoy here.”

“Bones, what condition is Scotty in?”

McCoy took his time answering. “Still unconscious. But his metabolic rate is increasing and he’s responsive. Why? Are we the only ship in the quadrant again?”

Captain Kirk sliced through what sounded like a private joke. “I’ve got to have him on the job. You’ve got to bring him around.”

McCoy’s tone changed. “Jim, I don’t know if that’s possible,” he insisted. “A direct dose of this stuff could kill him.”

“Can’t you try—”

A crunch of energy shuddered through the ship.

Spock squinted into his graphic readout. “Tractors, Captain, from both sides.”

“Can you feed back their energy?”

“Not without overloading our impulse field flux. In our present condition, the firing chambers would over-flow into the magnatomic tubes.” “Heading?”

Spock straightened so abruptly that it hurt my back to see him do it. “The Neutral Zone. They’re taking us home.” His statement rang of the cryptic.

Behind Spock, framing his caped form, the string of graphic schematics and bar charts across the rim of the bridge was nothing less than beautiful, in spite of their data. The Red Alert glow made them shine brightly against crisp geometrical insets. Who ever had the chance to contemplate the beauty of a ship’s bridge while in Alert condition? The klaxon had stopped, having done its job of waking the dead, leaving only the red glow and wildly flashing CONDITION: AL-ERT signs. I suddenly wondered about Sarda. Had

 

233

 

Mornay snatched the opportunity of the call to battlestations and somehow overtaken him? Taken him by surprise? Sarda knew humans better than Perren did, but Mornay was clever and abrupt in her methods. l pushed my thoughts through the deck platings and deep into the ship. Don’t trust her.

“Spock,” the captain asked, “how long till they can take us into warp?”

The first officer tilted his head, piercing me once again with a contagious confidence. “It will take them approximately seven minutes to adjust their tractors, compensate for our bulk, and balance their combined engines for warp speed.”

Behind me, the captain spoke urgently. “Bones, I’ve got to have Scotty on the job. I don’t care how you do it.”

McCoy sounded strung out. “Jim, what do you want me to say? It’d take me half a day to calculate the right dosage of this antisomnial for a man Scotty’s age, weight, and physical makeup. Now, I’d love to put him on the bridge, but it’s not going to happen because nothing, nothing is going to make me pump this explosive into his system.”

“I’ll be right there. Kirk out. Spock, take the con. Keep me posted on those ships.” He said all this on the fly to the turbolift, and I got the distinct impression that nothing was bloody well going to get in his way. Not all crucial starship decisions, it seemed, are made from the bridge.

“Mode of resistance, Captain?” Spock asked at the last minute.

“None till I get back. Get on those repairs. I want full shields and photon torpedoes.” The lift panel whispered shut. Spook turned to me. “Switch to forward visual.”

I punched buttons. The screen melted and solidified again to show us the fantails of both Klingon cruisers, coordinating their energy to tow us along. Spock nod-

 

234

 

ded thoughtfully, but said nothing about it. Instead he moved around the gangway toward the weapons console.

“Commander, if you will assist me, please,” he said. He swung onto his back under the defense subsystems monitor and peeled off the panel.

To get to him I had to step past Perten. The young Vulcan’s face was sallow as he stared at those Klingon ships. He wasn’t even aware of me as I passed him. As much as Enterprise was disabled because of me, those Klingons were out there because of him. Come to think of it, everything was because of him. He knew it, too. It shone in his eyes and the set of his lips. Not exactly regret, though. Perren wasn’t the kind to re-gret too much. Had his plans gone as he intended, transwarp would not have been at such risk. The Klingons knew we had it, no doubt. Gelt would have told them. And even if he hadn’t, information like that spreads faster than Troyan bullet-bacteria. NOW wasn’t the time to be searching for blame.

Take your own advice, girl, my inner guardian warned.

“As I feed these synchrotron pulsors through the system,” Spock was saying, “confirm connectivity with the graphics on the scanner above.”

“Aye, sir. Go ahead.” One by one, we fed and confirmed each patch in, trying to cram a week’s repairs into a few minutes. The end result would be power for just a few photon shots, but those were better than nothing. Small talk kept trying to squeeze out of me, and I kept mashing it down. All I needed now was to be asking Spock a gaggle of stupid questions. My nerves were whining like the Keeler’s rigging. My hands were cold, and I had to use the head oh no! Not now. Please, not now. Heroes never go to the bathroom! Horatio Hornblower didn’t, Superman didn’t, Cyrus Centauri didn’t—but I did. Which proved who was a hero and who wasn’t. As Spock

 

235

 

worked under the console, I finally asked, “Uh, sir? Permission to step updeck?” He paused, then resumed working. “Certainly.”

I dashed into the bridge head, and by the time I dashed out again, the Romulans had arrived.

Yep, there they were. I knew I should never have gone to the head.

Red Alert was whooping again, signaling intrusion into our immediate space, and Spock was clawing for the intercom. “Spock to Captain.” “Kirk here.”

“Romulans in the area, Captain, three ships. Light fighters 2’

“Maintain Alert status.. Enable the Engineering control board. We’ve got partial staff back in engineering, Mr. Spock. Put them to work impulse-drive integrity. I’m on my way.”

He would never know how much his last four words meant to us, or at least to me. Spock rose to his full height, eyeing the viewscreen with Vulcan fierceness. We watched, unable to take action, as three Romulan ships looped in front of the Kiingon cruisers and fired on them. Lancets of red energy cut hard into the Klingon screens. Without a pause the Klingons returned fire, cross-secting space with blue beams. Several of those missed entirely, but a few hit the Romulan birds and scored damage. Smaller ships had smaller shields, and the Romulans were vulnerable that way, in spite of superior maneuverability at sublight. They veered off and circled for another attack.

“Why are they firing on each other?” I wondered. “They’re allied, aren’t they?”

Spook raised a brow. “Transwarp is bigger than their alliance,” he said.

Like animals protecting their kill, the Klingon ships turned in space to keep between the Romulans and us. Even as they did, I caught a glimpse of color in the

 

236

 

high left side of the viewscreen and pointed ridiculously at it. “Mr. Spock, look!”

He stared for an extra moment, then moved to his scanner and shook his head. “Unidentifiable. We have no cataloguing of that configuration.” He straightened and watched the new ship reel in to fire on the Romulans, then attempt to cut the Klingons off from us. “I daresay,” Spock murmured, “we are in scramble.”

 

Cosmic scramble. An intragalactic, military feeding frenzy. The phrase had come a long way since, in Rex’s quiet cockpit, I’d first heard it glide out on Spock’s resonant voice. Once, it had meant little to me. Now it spelled gruesome danger. This kind of battle would be far from neat, far from a simple two-sided dispute. And we were sitting in the middle of it, stark helpless. We were the nested egg about to be fought over by every form of alligator.

The feeling was devastating—to be put on hold like this, to be an ignored piece of torn meat, while others fought around us. Shots of light energy in bright colors splintered around us. Enterprise rocked in the ebb of energy bolts that passed too near us. The Klingon ships continued to tug us along, distracted now by the other ships, bolts of enemy fire keeping them from launching into warp speed. For the moment, at least. It bought us time.

The unidentified ship cut across our bow, giving us a sharp, shocking view of its forked hull and fierce colors. We hardly had time to blink before two Romulan birds sliced by us so close that I stumbled back into the command module, and Perren swayed backward into the bridge rail.

“Take your helm, Commander,” Spock said, his tone rising and lowering as though he was reading a fairly interesting caf6 menu. His eyes strayed reso-lutely on the screen action.

 

237

 

I maneuvered in that general direction, letting my hands lead me along the command module, unable to pull my stare from the battle. I winced as the Romulans sliced through the screens of one Klingon vessel and disabled it, only to dodge into green plasma blasts from the unidentified ship. The Klingons then took their own revenge, firing hard on the nearest Romulan wing.

The turbolift opened behind me, stealing my attention. The captain appeared, then Sarda, on either side of a gray-faced apparition of Mr. Scott. I held my breath in empathy. Scott looked iH and in pain, probably the effect of whatever the doctors had to do to wake him up and get him on his feet. The captain and Sarda supported him heavily, brought him across the bridge, and eased him into the chair at Engineering. Mr. Scott pressed his hands hard on the console. I could almost feel the effort going into his concentration as he assessed the ship’s available energy.

Sarda moved across the upper deck until we were side by side, but on different levels. A brief glance told me he was all right. It felt good to have him here. Until now, I hadn’t let the emptiness take hold.

Kirk pressed ScoWs shoulder in mute reassurance and looked at tl.te viewscreen. “Situation, Mr. Spock?”

“Unchanged. Three Romulans, two Klingon cruisers, and one unidentified vessel, all counterattacking. One Klingon cruiser is damaged but functional. They have not as yet fired on us.”

Kirk nodded. “Piper, have you got an opinion?”

I blinked. Piper who?

His asking constrained me to find an opinion even if I didn’t have one. So I invented one. “I’d say … concentrate on the Romulans and the unknown ship.”

“Based on what?” ú “Based… on Klingon tendencies.”

“Explain.”

 

238

 

Deep breathe, let out slowly, start talking. “Klingons are like grizzly bears. They attack straight on, with sheer brute force. Even though they’re a threat in firepower and ruthlessness, they’re predictable. If we just watch them, we should be able to tell what they’ll do next.” I stopped to lick my lips, which had dried up when I realized that Mr. Spock had stopped his scanning and was also listening to me, and Perten had turned my way too. Another deep breath. “Even though the Romulans have lesser weapons, they understand the concept of subtle attack. Things like sneaking and bluffing. They’re cunning. It makes them dangerous. I’d watch out for them. I’d even disable them if I got the chance.” “Spock?”

I tensed, waiting.

“I concur,” Spock said.

“So do I,” was the captain’s response.

Before I had a chance to exhale, Kirk demanded, “Disable them how?”

It’s not as if he didn’t have ideas of his own. He was testing me and using my reactions to test himself. Evidently he was as curious about what made me tick as I was about finding out what drove him. But couldn’t it wait for a better time? Sir?

Trying to push ideas through the whiskerbugs infest-ing my brain, I shrugged and said, “Maybe… use their distraction with each other… launch someone in a shuttlecraft or one of the attack sleds and make for open space to get a distress call out to Star Fleet…”

“They’d be caught in traction by one of those ships and taken prisoner.”

“Yes… of course… sorry.” And on top of being a bad suggestion, it wasn’t even the answer to what he’d asked.

Luckily, James Kirk wasn’t James Kirk for nothing. He took his good question and my bad answer and combined them into a wild card. “Shuttlecraft,” he

 

239

 

murmured, watching the interplay of ships before us. “Spock…”

They exchanged a long look—not a word, just a look.

Spock nodded. “Excellent,” he uttered. Had I missed something?

Stepping down to the navigations console beside me, he tapped through to the automation of the hangar deck and computer-moved one of the shuttles into launch position. As he worked, the only sounds were the whirr-beeps of electrical cooperation and the muffled, strained voice of Mr. Scott as he fed orders through to the few engineers back on duty below decks.

“Shuttlecraft Columbus ready for launch, sir,” Spock said then. “Automation system locked in.”

The captam nodded his acknowledgment.

Why was he taking me up on a stupid suggestion? And an empty shuttlecraft at that … of course! A decoy. Make the enemy waste their time following an apparent escape. Like I said, he wasn’t James Kirk for nothing.

“Go ahead, Mr. Spock,” he said, calmly watching the enemy ships wheel and fire on each other like dancers in some erotic alien ritual. As if to give my analysis life, the small Romulan ships were using supreme strategy, working together against more po-tent enemy vessels, coordinating their attacks then retreating to the rim of the solar system to regroup and attack again, from different angles. The Klingons were unable to tell where the Romulans would dive in upon them next. The only surplus danger was that unidentified ship. The Klingons had their hands full trying to maintain their pull on Enterprise and the unnamed ship knew how to use that. Its forked hull lanced past us several times, that green plasma ray cutting deeply into the Klingon shields, only then to swing around and potshot the Romulans into falling out of forma-240

 

tion. All the while we continued slowly moving toward the outside of the solar system, where, once clear, the Klingons might be able to take us into warp speed. Another clutch of guilt caught me by the heart. Tangled motivations looked for excuses in my head. Si-lent, I watched the battle tighten before me.

A small white speck appeared at the corner of the screen. It drew my attention. The shuttlecraft—veering away for open space. As Kirk had anticipated, the unnamed ship and two Romulan wings turned on their tips and angled after it in a strange race. Because they were closer in the first place, the Romulans overtook the shuttlecraft first. Pulling it against its own thrust, they drew it up alongside and tucked it under one wing, then warned off the unnamed ship with a volley of particle-beam fire.

The unidentified vessel peeled away, barely dodging the milky white gauze of particle beam, leaving the Romulans to their catch. They drew the shuttlecraft in tight to their hull. Not large enough to bring the shuttlecraft on board, they made good their possession with magnetic couplings on their ship’s underbelly. When the shuttle was firmly attached, Captain Kirk said, “Now, Mr. Spock.”

Sarda and I both looked at Spock at the same moment, after a questioning glance proved that neither of us knew what was happening. As Spock’s long finger leaned on a toggle. It flipped.

The entire left side of the viewscreen lit up. Blue-white particles spun through space, then redoubled as a matter/antimatter explosion bubbled inside the first. The Romulan ship was memory, nothing more than scattering bits of fibercoil melting and dissolving in a pyrotechnic bloom. I came halfway out of my chair. “Wow!”

Sarda’s cool gaze washed over me, and I got the feeling that only my yip of delight kept him from an embarrassing smile. He probably saw how ridiculous I looked and decided to interiorize that grin pulling at his upper lip.

Spock bent over his readout screen at the library computer. “One Romulan ship obliterated… another slightly disabled from impact fallout.” “Good, Spock, good,” the captain murmured. Victory earned us a slap on the wrist. The third Romulan ship flashed by us at attack angle and lay open the skin of Enterprise’s forward half-shields with a shot full of revenge. The bolt crumpled our shields and burst through with just enough remaining energy to send us staggering. I was thrown out of my chair altogether, and Sarda careened backward, barely missing Mr. Scott, who was clinging to his board with whatever strength he had. When the bolt faded and the ship stopped shuddering, Sarda was picking me up and Perren was picking himself up. Kirk and Spock, darn them, were already up.

Kirk was holding tight to the bridge rail, his eyes ablaze with satisfaction. I felt it too–that rare sense of triumph that came from outthinking an enemy when the enemy already had an upper hand. It was worth that spanking they’d given us. Suddenly I understood the captain’s advantage. He knew what I had forgotten. None of these ships dared destroy Enterprise. We had what they wanted.

“I think they’re annoyed, Mr. Spock,” the captain crowed.

“Yes,” Spock agreed. “They do seem… vexed, Captain.” With that, he returned to his readout screen.

That comforting thought left only the possibility of being dragged into Klingon space, or being accidentally blown to bits by wild shots, or being boarded by the enemy, or—

Spock straightened abruptly and glared at the viewscreen. “More ships, Captain! Veering in from various directions in open space,” he said, his tone edged with surprise.

 

242

 

Kirk raised his voice. “Scotty, where’s that shield power?”

Mr. Scott turned slightly, even that an effort since he was standing up—leaning, really—and running a protosensor rod over the board. “Nearly there, sir… up to 83 percent.” His eyes narrowed in discomfort, and he was breathing heavily. “Working on impulse thrust—” He slipped and collapsed forward over his console. By the time Captain Kirk reached him, he was wiping his face with a blanched hand and pushing himself up.

The captain took him by the arms and steered him back into his chair. “Scotty? Can you make it?”

Scott fought for his part in the play, forcing his eyes to meet Kirk’s without a flinch, in spite of the pain showing in his face. “Aye, sir… those spine-headed pirates‘11 not have this ship if I can help it.” The promise drained him, but he pulled on an inner sturdi-ness and straightened under the captain’s grasp.

Even in the midst of trouble, Kirk found a personal moment to pat Scott’s arm. “Good, Scotty. We need you.”

“Captain, forward deflector power is impaired,” Spock reported. “Unlikely to regain.”

“Identify those ships,” Captain Kirk ordered.

“Attempting to do so.”

I leaned toward Sarda, who still had a grip on my arm, and said, “We’re trying to get photon capacity.”

“All right,” he said simply, and moved to the weapons control console on the upper deck. Mirroring that, I dashed back to the helm and drifted into my chair. At least it looked like we were helping.

“Come on, Spock,” the captain urged. “I want to know who I’m up against.”

Spock nodded, very slightly, then gave voice to what he was seeing on his monitor. “Tholians, sir. At least four. Sensors are unsure. And at least three more v. essels… checking design catalog to identify.” He

 

243

 

moved across his computer, arms sweeping the board as he tapped into the fabulous memory system. Even in that short time, the cuneiform shape of the Tholian ships had become clear on our screen. Behind them, other vessels appeared, all different—claviform, tur-nip-shaped, biform, full-orbed, all different colors. When Spock returned to the monitor and the blue light once again washed his features, the answers were there. His brows went up. “Captain, they are Klingons. However, not Empire-sanctioned vessels. One is of a configuration currently being used by the Rumaiym, a racial tier of the Empire.”

Captain Kirk moved to the deck below Spock, drawing the two of them together into that intangible bubble they shared when I looked closely. “Analysis, Spock,” Kirk softly invited.

Spock tilted his head, observing the action in space, then turned his gaze downward to his captain, as if they were alone. “It’s not surprising that sections of the Empire might attempt to gain a bargaining weight within the power structure. In fact, if current intelligence is accurate, we are seeing agents of at least four Klingon strains: Klinzhai, Rumaiym, Wijngan, and ff I am correct about that triformed vessel, the race calling themselves Daqawlu—the Remembered.”

With a dry nod, Kirk commented, “Oh, they’ll be remembered, all right.”

“Obviously the Klingon Empire is not so unified as they would have us believe.”

“Obviously. Well, we can’t keep feeding them shuttlecraft. We’ll have to come up with something else.” Kirk circled the command module, giving me a clear view of the harsh determination that brought his brows together and tightened his lips. His words hummed with bottled ferocity. “I don’t like being the pawn.”

I cast a brief glare at him, but broke it off before he saw it. Neither did I. Kirk spun suddenly, and I braced for a reprimand.

244

 

But it was Spock he caught in his net. “You told me about a transwarp accident while you were aboard Piper’s ship.”

“Yes,” Spock acknowledged. “Quite unsettling.”

“Unsettling enough to disable those ships?”

Spock hadn’t thought of that, judging from his expression. As he added up the elements, Sarda, Perren, and I turned to watch, and wait.

With a nod of contemplation, Spock said, “Possibly.”

Kirk inhaled deeply. “Describe it.”

“I believe improper imbalance in the matter/antimatter flow through the holding chamber caused the trilithium to degenerate. The result is not thrust, but dimensional warp. Am I correct, Mr. Sarda?”

Sarda shifted his feet and nodded. “You are, sir.”

The captain gripped the raft harder. “Can it be repeated?”

“Repeated in what form?” Spock asked.

“If the transwarp mechanisms were patched into the Enterprise’s defense system, could those conditions be duplicated?”

Spock held the hot potato for a few seconds, then tossed it across the bridge. “Mr. Sarda?”

Sarda dropped his gaze as he contemplated his safety equipment and, knowing him, about a thousand other alternatives. He hated having his inventions used for military offense, but it was that or imprison-ment behind Klingon lines. His innermost struggles shone faintly behind his eyes. I tensed, wishing there was some way I could help him. For a long self-conscious moment, our eyes met. Perhaps he drew strength from me, for he straightened and faced the captain. “It could be done,” he said. “We could not, in fact, prevent it from happening, considering the condition of the Enterprise. Rather than the defense system, the mechanisms would have to be connected into the propulsion system, the warp drive itself, then expelled

 

245

 

through the sensory in order to do what you require with any control. However… I do not trust myself to a task so complicated. At least, not alone. The dangers to ourselves, with an untested system—”

“I’ll help.” I was on my feet already. Kirk and Spock looked at me. Ridiculous! What I knew about transwarp would fit under a fingernail. Then, in an instant, I knew what I could do. I rounded on Perren. My words were potent as sharp wind. “You’ll help tOO.”

Perren’s narrow features paled, but his eyes grew intense.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I pressed. In my periphery, Kirk and Spock waited, knowing when silence was the key to winning.

“Yes,” Perren murmured. “Yes, I must.” He approached Captain Kirk. “You must let me. I can cut installation time by two-thirds. I beg you, allow it.”

Kirk glared at him, partially in threat, partially in disbelief, partially in that special way he had of cutting through the thoughts of others. Put his ship in the hands of a traitor? Even now, Perren’s face was backed by a tangle of enemy ships firing on each other, haloed by the fluorescent sparkles of direct hits.

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t let the doubt dangle. I rushed around the command module in a move I hoped was dramatic and arresting, until I was nearly at Perren’s side, and faced the captain. “Sir, you’ve got to let him. He means it.”

Kirk’s glare carried a definite how-do-you-know as it snapped to me, yet he said nothing. I knew I’d better be right.

“How long?” he demanded.

Perten tensed. “Roughly … seventy minutes. An estimate only, of course.”

A commanding hand swept from Perren to Sarda. “Both of you, get to it.” The hand folded into a point,

 

246

 

and swung straight at me. “Piper, I want you down there too.”

I swallowed a lump of liability. “Aye, sir. I understand.”

A brief glance from me sent Sarda toward the turbolift, Perren close behind, and I brought up the rear guard, deliberately not picking up one of the discarded phasers in a vote of faith for Perten. Kirk noticed, and raised a brow at me as though he knew what I was thinking. No real surprises there, though. Gambling was part of the game—sometimes the wiser part. We both knew it.

I reached the back of the bridge and was about to join the Vulcans in the turbolift when a crack of energy struck the port side of Enterprise, and rocked us hard. My shoulder, with the rest of me behind it, rammed into the frame of the turbolift, and I managed to catch myself and hang there until the ship stabilized. In the wide viewscreen, the unidentified ship streaked out from the underside of our primary hull and vectored out into space toward the Klingon cruisers.

The captain moved toward the helm console and turned briefly to me. With deliberate poise, he said, “Hurry.”

 

The Engineering deck was disturbingly quiet, jarred only by rumbles of energy from outside that told us the enemy ships had opened fire on us and the K!ingons who possessed us. Perren, Sarda, and I were reso-lutely silent as we gathered Perren’s equipment and carefully—so carefully—followed the directions Spock fed through to us on how to dismantle his elaborate isolation field around the transwarp mechanism itself. The mechanism made little engineering sense to me; it looked like something out of a child’s coloring book, a quincunx contraption with several arms and a central core of funnels and circuitry.

 

247

 

Evidently that was the reaction chamber for the trilithium. I didn’t even try to understand it.

Perren and Sarda worked feverishly to wrestle the various attachments into the central feeder unit for the ship’s energy/matter matrix restoration cowl. Okay, so I didn’t understand that either. It didn’t matter, as long as they understood. Even with their combined Vulcan strength and a few good shoves from me, the installation of transwarp into a damaged warp propulsion system was the work of more than three people. I didn’t bother asking what this or that was, especially if, by some miracle, it happened to fit. I followed their directions through the most muscle twisting sixty-two minutes of my life. It seemed more like six minutes.

Finally the work dwindled down to minute delicate adjustments and all I could do was watch. It was as though Perren and Sarda had fallen into a different language; though I was watching, their science was so specialized that I might as well have been a thousand solar systems away. My thoughts began to drift, jarred each time the ship shook under us from enemy fire. I held on to a nearby pylon and tried to keep hold of my self-control. The frustration was building again. I hated having to just watch.

I started thinking about the enemies out there. Tho-hans, Romulans, Klingons of every breed, and that persistent forked ship whose configuration we couldn’t pin down. Living beings, tangled in a web of power grabbing. Each had a history and a goal of his or her own. And so did I.

Without pausing between thoughts, I suddenly blurted, “What’s going to happen? When we imple-ment this, what’s the effect?”

Only when both Vulcans paused at the same time did I realize I’d forced them to face something they had been trying not to think about. Not only face it, but put words to it. They exchanged a disturbing glance. Perten gripped

 

248

 

the micropincer he was using. “We … have never postulated the effect of an accidental imbalance. Our efforts, of course, have always been directed toward canceling out or circumventing any such occurence, with the hopes of eventually preventing them altogether. We take great care to stabilize the integrity of the trilithium before funneling matter/antimatter through the field core.”

Spock’s face filled my mind, completely unbidden. Perren, so unlike him, was turning logic inside out to avoid simply saying that he didn’t know. Suddenly I longed to hear those words; there was something reassuring about the honesty in the phrase I don’t ktlow.

Anger boiled up in me and I snatched Perren’s arm. “I’ve got to understand! You’ve got to give me some idea of what it’s going to do to those ships out there.”

Perten jerked away. His eyes flashed with the on-slaught of my emotions coursing through him. Long black hair waved when he pulled his arm free. I went after it again, but Sarda caught my wrist.

A swell of perception washed through me, cooling my nerves, running up my arm, and spreading through my body. The anger didn’t go away, but like the distortion of transwarp flux, Sarda had turned it outward and away from Perren. For a moment he took it upon himself, seeing perfectly well that I was reaching the limit of my patience with Vulcan ways. He slowly absorbed my need to understand, and with his grip forced me to comprehend what could be foretold and what couldn’t be.

Seconds passed, long ones. Sarda broke his gaze from mine only once.

He nodded briefly to Perten, who collected himself with difficulty and went back to work on the microcir-cuits. When the triad of conflict faded to the two of us, Sarda turned back to me.

“Piper,” he began, “even we do not fully compre-

 

249

 

hend why transwarp works as it does. It is not meant to be a weapon.”

Though I knew how deeply he believed that, I pressed, “I’m in the command line. I’ve got to have some concept of what that thing’s going to do to other life forms. The captain has to know.”

“We would tell you, if that information could be gained without actually using the imbalance.” Glints of blue and yellow light from Perren’s snapping panel flickered in Sarda’s bronze hair and in his troubled eyes. Guilt gnawed at him. Would he ever have peace from it? “The wave effect,” he tried again, “is a reality solvent. We may liken it to pouring water on a sand castle. The sand remains, but.. 2’

The transwarp contraption trilled to life, singing an electrical song, and saved him from having to find the words for the terrible vision he saw. For a moment we simply watched the equipment whirr and glow and hum.

Sarda’s expression filled with omen. “We cannot allow hostile hands to possess this.”

“And we shall not,” Perren agreed, that rebellious thorn surfacing again.

My opinion stuck its neck out again. I couldn’t stop it. I glared at Perren. “You should’re thought of that a long time ago.”

Sarda watched me, silent.

Perren retreated to his work. The instrumentation whistled and chirred happily under his hands. Even poorly hooked up, fed into a damaged system, the transwarp mechanisms showed the effort of years of work.

“I can complete the calibrations,” Perren said. “Correlating the flux ratios of transwarp drive with the sensors must be done from the sensor control room.”

Sarda gathered the necessary computer disks and said, “Contact me there when you’re ready to begin.”

 

250

 

“Very well,” Perren said. “It may take several more minutes to make the correct calculations.”

Sarda only nodded. He knew all that, apparently. As he stood up, his amber gaze caught fast to my own and I felt that wash of telepathy again. Was I really feeling it, or had I learned to imagine it as I came to know him better? He’d never confided in me about whether or not these mental waves were normal for Vulcans—if he even knew. I hadn’t asked, and a good thing too. He might be supremely embarrassed if my feelings were induced by his inability to control that inherited telepathy. He seemed so different from Spock, as different from Spock as Spock was from Perrenm Sarda, even more different from most Vulcans who came to Star Fleet. Very few of Sarda’s fair-haired clan ever roamed from their home planet, yet he was here, rare, and of great value to me. As we stood together over a mechanism that might either save or destroy us, I found myself hoping he never would learn to control the soft inner communication.

“Where will you be?” he asked.

My answer was deceptively simple. “Where I’m needed.”

“I know you will do well.”

“Thank you. For everything.”

His expression remained stoic, but he dropped his eyes, then raised them again. “And I thank you,” he said, almost whispering.

“Good luck,” I responded.

Before we got into a chain reaction of thank-yous, he wisely dipped away and left the area. I lingered there long after he was gone.

Below me, Perren drew my attention when he paused and put a hand to his lips. I knelt down. “Something?”

His brows came together in contemplation. “This arrangement must be coordinated from the bridge, at

 

251

 

the engineering subsystems monitor. If you can do that, I can monitor and adjust the intermix according to your readouts from pulse to pulse.”

“I can do that,” I told him. I could do it, if only I knew what he was talking about. Let’s hear it for blind optimism.

Perren’s face went blank for a moment, then twisted in confusion.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m unsure about the sensor output system. I can correlate the thrust ratios for warp drive, but I do not know how to adjust them to run through the sensory.”

It sounded like a bigger problem than I could solve—surprise, surprise–and I bit my lip before making a wild assumption. My feet were tingling when I stood up. “I know who does. I’ll contact you when I get to the bridge.”

I started toward the exit. Before reaching the door, though, I remembered my charge from a higher authority—a trust I wouldn’t betray.

Perren saw me turn, saw the tangle of emotions in my face, the sensation of being torn between two distinct duties. Even though I said nothing at all, the problem was obvious.

He read my hesitation—even I couldn’t say ff he read it correctly—and paused fine-tuning the transwarp to seal his credibility with a promise. “I give you my word.”

The throb and hum of Enterprise’s sensor system trying to accept the new energy of transwarp became the pulsing of some great heart. I absorbed Perren’s promise. Think like a Vulcan.

With my tone, I charged both of us to fulfill the vow. “I accept your word.”

 

The hangar deck was cool with freshly circulated air, sweet with the lingering odor of the antisomnial. I

 

252

 

swung around the corner of the alcove where the Arco sleds were anchored down, and was only superficially surprised to see Sarda there, kneeling beside Scanner. He’d evidently decided to make good use of those extra few minutes Perren said he had. He was holding Scanner in a sitting position against the attack-sled’s folded solar wing.

I knelt beside Scanner, but my question was for Sarda. “What are you doing here?”

His gaze was penetrating. He didn’t want to explain. “Deviating.”

That was all I was going to get, too.

Scanner’s face was clammy as I touched it and turned him to me. “Scanner? Look at me. Are you okay?”

He blinked past the pain left over from artificial sleep and unnatural awakening and moaned. “If this is life after death … I’ll take death.” He folded over, and only Sarda’s grasp kept him upright. When he raised his head, his face was pale and his eyes glazed. “You got… trouble upstairs.”

Good. Sarda had been filling him in, probably trying to distract him from his own discomfort.

I took him by the shoulders. “Scanner, listen to me. We’ve tied the transwarp into the warp drive and we’ve got to correlate the thrust ratios with sensor issue. Can you tell me how to do tl,at?”

“Aim it… you mean?”

“Yes, aim it.”

“Yeah… oh, worm guts… they killed me, Piper.” He let his head sag back against the solar wing. Pinch-faced, he fought the gaspy breath of nausea and cramps. Sarda and I shared a glance of penetrating empathy and waited.

“We’ll get you to sickbay,” I promised.

“Can’t y’just… bring sickbay down here?” Scanner closed his eyes tight. When they opened again, , some of the color was returning to his face, as well as

 

253

 

his wits. “Yeah… that transmitter on the bridge… a dead jellyfish could work it. Y’all can do it easy.”

“Gee, thanks. How?”

“Same way you aim sensors, except … push the impulses through weapons override … even if the safety system says you can’t.” I frowned. “It’ll burn out.”

He took a choppy breath. His cheeks flushed with heat. “You can’t stop that. It’s all there is. That crazy transwarp hookup won’t last long anyway. You might’s well force a human heart to breathe air.” Cramps took hold of him again, piercing all three of us and making me realize what Mr. Scott, with his hands full of starship, was going through. Scanner pressed his arm under his ribs. His free hand made a loop toward Sarda. “Tell her, Points.”

Sarda’s lips flattened, a strange reflection of his hand on Scanher’s arm as it gripped tighter. He felt responsible; I sensed it simmering. “Probably true,” he admitted.

Obviously, none of us had possessed the courage to say it before this. The captain’s plans suffered as I waded through the truth. Enterprise’s systems were sturdy, but not meant to funnel the shared energy we would soon demand of them, the hazardous intermix with its deliberate irabalances. In perfect condition, possibly—but not with the damage I’d inflicted. The K!ingons were towing us closer by the minute to the system’s edge where, at warp speed, they could easily rush us into their home territory. Time now worked against us. All we had was this one chance. Mutual disablement.

‘TI! tell the captain,” I said. “We’ll make it work somehow.”

Scanner managed a weak smile. “I was hopin’ yaw!’d say that.”

“Sarda, can you manage with him? I’ve got to get back to the bridge.”

 

254

 

Sarda nodded. “I‘11 contact you from the sensory.” I started to get up, but faltered when Scanner caught my sleeve. When I looked down, he said, “Don’t let the bastards beat us, Piper.”

My hand caught his and squeezed. “You count on it.” Comforted, he slumped back against the solar wing. I didn’t stay to help Sarda get him on his feet. The bridge of Enterprise was waiting—and all the clocks were ticking. Make it work, make it work, make it work…

 

255