FIFTEEN

Stardate 4758.3 (0736 hours)

—as he always did.

McCoy opened his eyes and inhaled deeply as he sat up. The sickbay air rushed into his lungs. Nurse Chapel was standing in front of him, her face lit up in delight. “Welcome back, Doctor.”

McCoy shook his head, trying to shake off the numbness he felt. “Hello, Nurse,” he said, a grin growing on his face. “How long have I been out?”

“Almost an hour,” she said.

“Wow.”

“Longer than you thought?” she asked.

McCoy frowned, thinking about how it had felt. “Yes… and no. It seemed like I was there forever… but time stood still.”

“Where were you?” asked Chapel. “Your readings fell, but once I started talking to you, they began creeping back up.”

“You were talking to me? What were you saying?”

She blushed. “I told you to come back, that you were needed.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She smiled. “I’m glad to have you back.”

He grabbed Chapel’s hands in his own. “No, thank you. You put up with a lot, and you never say a thing. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” Christine sounded profoundly grateful.

“It can’t always be easy.”

“No. But it’s worth it.”

There was a discreet cough from the doorway to the ward, where Lieutenant Sulu stood. McCoy quickly let go of Chapel’s hands. God… now he was blushing, too. “Welcome back, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Mister Sulu.”

“Good to see you back.” Sulu smiled wanly. “There have been developments.”

“Such as?”

“Lieutenant Uhura’s injured and needs surgery. I’m back in command.”

“What happened to Uhura?” McCoy asked.

Chapel gave him a brief summary. McCoy tried to read the medical monitor. “How am I doing?”

“Fine.”

McCoy leapt off the bed. “Excellent. We’re going to save Uhura, and we’re going to save these people.”

Sulu said, “You’re in a good mood, Doctor. Did you learn what you needed to?”

“Not really,” said McCoy. “But we’re saving these people. Every last one of them.”

A Farrezzi was able to point out the tunnel that led to the command center. Kirk broke into a run, eager to make it there before the ship went to warp. Not everyone could keep up. When Kirk stopped to check his makeshift team, he saw that Giotto was in the rear, keeping Chekov company, talking to him in a low voice.

“James-Kirk-Enterprise,” said Horr, “preparation lawbreaker attack now. Danger!”

“I know,” Kirk replied. “I’m prepared. When we get there, we’ll blast the door open and take them by surprise.” Giotto had liberated some grenades from the slavers.

A few minutes later, they reached the command center. The door was open. In an instant, they were under fire from slavers unleashing particle weapons at them.

With its smooth, featureless surface, the tunnel offered no protection. “Fall back!” Kirk shouted to the crowd of Farrezzi around them. He and Giotto lay down covering fire with their phasers. This discouraged the shooters, but there was still chaos around them. Some of the Farrezzi were slow to retreat, while others were overly eager. A slaver’s blast hit the wall next to Kirk, leaving a sharp odor of burnt plastic.

The group finally reached a bend in the tunnel that shielded them from the slavers’ fire. Kirk motioned Giotto over to him. “Not the welcome I expected,” Kirk said.

“A little too warm for me,” Giotto quipped.

“Well,” said Kirk, “maybe we can return the favor.” He wished there was time to talk to these Farrezzi, get them to stand down. “You and I will go back, phasers set on wide beam. Incapacitate them, and mind the equipment.”

“Stun everyone, keep the controls intact.” Giotto smiled. “Easy. We’ll need some covering fire.”

“Horr and Neff,” said Kirk. The captain checked his phaser. “My power’s almost out.”

“Mine, too,” said Giotto. “If we fire on wide beam, that’ll be it for them.”

Kirk explained the plan to Horr and Neff. Chekov seemed to be recovering his strength. He was talking with the Farrezzi about their unusual physiology. For now the captain would leave the ensign with them.

“They’re not going to expect us to try again right away,” said Kirk. “Let’s go.”

Kirk and Giotto advanced cautiously up the tunnel, with Horr and Neff behind them. A shadow in the tunnel. The captain motioned to Neff, who fired up the corridor. There was a high-pitched squeal, and then a thump. They continued up the curving tunnel, Horr and Neff firing to deter anyone from coming at them.

A blast whizzed down the tunnel. It hit the tunnel wall, sending shrapnel in all directions. Some pieces hit the captain’s face, feeling like hot needles piercing his cheeks. They were almost to the command center. If the slavers were shooting at them, the doors had to be open. “Go!” Kirk said to Giotto.

The two Starfleet officers charged up the tunnel, running straight into the command center. “Your shot!” Kirk shouted.

Giotto fired his phaser on wide beam, and Farrezzi slavers at the control panels fell to the floor. Kirk counted four down—there had to be more. A second later, three popped up in one corner, bringing their weapons to bear. Before they could fire, Kirk pulled the trigger. They collapsed as well. The captain checked the power level on his phaser—dead. He continued to brandish it, as he searched the room. Cowering behind a control panel was a slaver.

“Put down your weapon,” Kirk ordered.

“Noncompliance,” said the slaver with a sneer. “Lack of victory.” All its eyestalks trained on Kirk as it raised its weapon.

Removing the sliver of metal from Uhura’s chest had been a relatively simple task, and she was now recuperating in the examination room. The doctor didn’t want to move her. McCoy now knew the only hope for the coma patients was to extract the Enterprise from the distortion zone.

While he was reporting to Lieutenant Sulu, McCoy wondered if he had learned enough to free the ship.

“So because this other universe has no … quantum entanglement, their minds found nothing and shut down?” asked Sulu.

“That’s how it sounded to me,” said McCoy. “None of them said quantum entanglement, but yes. They also kept going on about the Nothing.”

“Why did they make the medical staff hallucinate?”

“They weren’t thinking clearly,” McCoy admitted. “They’re desperate and confused, so they tried whatever worked. They never had abilities like this before—they’re only this powerful working together.”

Sulu had his arms crossed, a frown growing on his face as he listened. “Again, why?”

“At first, I thought they wanted to tell me what was wrong with them,” McCoy said. “They told me the Nothing would destroy the ship and that the Enterprise had to get out of here. They said, ‘Find another power.’”

Sulu was looking pale, as if he was about to keel over. “We’re dead in the water.” He called up a diagram of the Enterprise. Some sections were marked in green—SAFE—and others in red—EVACUATED. “We’re slowly losing the ship. The longer we sit here, the worse it gets. The other universe is leaking into ours, causing our equipment breakdowns and our power failures. I’d give it a day before we lose power entirely.

“Stay and die. Move and die. We get to choose between catastrophes.”

McCoy considered the espers’ cryptic suggestion. “Sulu, they said, ‘Find another power.’ Could they have meant one different from the Enterprise’s engines? When the portside computer banks exploded, they sent the ship spinning out of control. There was a lot of power there. What about the torpedoes?”

“We can’t use the computer to control them, too dangerous.”

“I suppose we couldn’t toss them out of the shuttlebay?”

“Doctor McCoy, you’re brilliant. A shuttlecraft. It’s a reasonably big mass of duotronic circuitry. And then there’s the matter/antimatter engines.”

“Wouldn’t an explosion that close to the ship be devastating?” asked McCoy.

Sulu shook his head. “Not if we angle the deflectors right. We absorb the blast’s kinetic energy, and then shut everything down before we hit a distortion. The momentum should carry us through the distort-zone.”

Kirk pointed his phaser at the Farrezzi’s head and coldly said, “I can kill you with a single shot. Drop your weapon.”

The slaver hesitated, and in that moment, Giotto threw his phaser at the alien’s eyestalks. As it recoiled, Kirk leapt and grabbed the gun out of its tentacles, aiming it at the Farrezzi.

“Is that all of them?” Kirk breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s all.”

Kirk called Horr and Neff in, asking Neff to take custody of the last slaver. The captain looked up and saw that the overhead was a transparent cupola. Impressive. The ship was still in orbit above Farrezz on autopilot. Neff marched the slaver off at gunpoint while Horr went to get Chekov and the rest of the sleepers.

Another time, Kirk would have wanted to take his time and explore the command center. As he stood there, he realized his face hurt. He touched it gingerly. There were sharp metal spikes embedded in it. When he pulled one out, it felt like half his cheek came with it. He was not surprised to see it covered in blood.

“Sir,” said Giotto, wearing a worried expression, “are you hurt badly?”

Kirk shook his head. Bad idea. “You know head wounds. Make you bleed like hell.”

“Make you look like hell, too, sir.”

The captain laughed, then immediately winced. “Damn you, Sal, that hurts.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“We need to find Yüksel. You round up the slavers.”

“I hope there’s a brig on this ship,” said Giotto, looking at the unconscious Farrezzi around them.

“I was thinking,” said Kirk, “that we could put them to sleep. Those empty hibernation capsules are waiting to be used.”

Giotto grinned. “Aye, sir. I’ll get some of the freed Farrezzi to help me.”

As Giotto left the room, Kirk looked up and caught sight of something through the transparent cupola.

The second transport.

They had no way of keeping that ship from making off with their cargo.

Not yet.

The two shuttles successfully avoided the ship in orbit—or ships, as it turned out—and took out the weather satellite. Scotty discovered that it had been activated when they removed the other satellite from orbit, evidently in a misguided effort to “compensate” for the missing satellite. There were no other Farrezzi fighters, which Scotty took as a good sign. Spock had tried to raise the captain, but his communicator wasn’t picking up anything.

“I still think you should sleep,” said M’Benga, “now that the immediate crisis is over.”

“I’m needed,” said Scotty, “for when we get to the distortion projector.” He was unable to move, but his mind was still working. “And Mister Spock agrees.”

“It’s against my medical judg—”

“Doctor,” Spock said, “we have arrived at our destination. Mister Scott, you will monitor the situation and provide us with any insight you might have. Doctor M’Benga, you will observe Mister Scott and administer a pain suppressant should it become necessary. Understood?”

Chagrined, the doctor said, “Yes, sir.”

“The device at the center of the reactor network is directly below us,” Spock said, “but it is built into the side of a mountain. There is no adjacent landing area. There is still a strong wind. The shuttles will have to hover above the structure, while the landing party will rappel down.”

“Ensign Seven Deers, Ensign Saloniemi, and Crewman Tra, do you copy?”

“Aye, sir,” came the reply from the Columbus.

Spock made his way aft. “Mister Scott, I have configured a tricorder to let you observe the energy levels. If you discover a danger to the shuttles, take them to a safe distance.” He handed a tricorder to Scotty. “I have set up an autopilot program that can be activated with one click.”

“Aye, Commander,” said Scotty, looking at the device.

Spock had moved to open the hatch. “We will stay in contact.” The Vulcan took out his communicator. “Spock here. Begin.”

Spock exited the shuttle, rappelling in one quick motion, the strong wind just managing to ruffle his close-cropped hair.

“Good luck,” Scott said. He breathed in deeply, hoping that the landing party would find something useful down there.

The command center was starting to fill up wth the freed Farrezzi. The inner part, below the cupola, was a large empty space. The control consoles were along the wall. Looking around, the captain noticed that there was no main viewscreen—then he looked up and saw symbols floating just below the transparent dome. A heads-up display made sense if you had eyes that pointed in every direction.

The consoles were unusual, circular and rail thin. Their displays were round screens that were mounted to a pole, three meters above the floor. Very ergonomic for a Farrezzi. Chekov was doing his best to cope with the design, Giotto at his side. Unfortunately, none of the Farrezzi had piloting experience, so Chekov was their best hope.

Kirk was scrutinizing the other transport on the dome display. The other ship was a twin to the one they were on. They hadn’t found Yüksel—he could be over there. Regardless, they had to stop that ship. Both ships were ten minutes from powering up their warp engines.

But how to stop them?

“Horr-Sav-Frerin, I need your help,” Kirk said, leaning against an unoccupied console to fight the fatigue.

“Assistance certainty. Argument: lack of ability. James-Kirk-Enterprise, I nonpossession of relevant skillset. Query: suggestions?”

The captain had accepted the communicator’s failure to provide a better translation of the Farrezzi language. He understood that Horr-Sav-Frerin was happy to offer its help, but it didn’t have the knowledge to operate the technology.

“I need you to tell the Farrezzi with space experience to take any controls even if they understand only vaguely.”

Horr gestured animatedly. What did it mean? Or worse, had he said something insensitive?

“Correction, James-Kirk-Enterprise. People not-name Farrezzi. Agreement: planet name Farrezz. People name Community-of-Children-of-Farrezz.”

“Thank you for the clarification,” said Kirk. “I have an assistance requirement.”

Horr gesticulated again. “Agreement. Offer: information completion. Query: acceptance?”

“Acceptance.”

Chekov was staring up at the display, his expression intent, a smile on his lips. Kirk crossed over to him. “Ensign, I see you’re enjoying yourself. Good.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Chekov said, nodding eagerly. “This is amazing technology, completely alien—and yet intuitive.”

“Go on.”

“Let me show you, sir. Here, this is local space.” Chekov pointed up at the display. It changed to Farrezz, covered in thick swirls of clouds and green-blue oceans. “I accessed the sensors in less than a minute. I am confident that we’ll have complete control very soon, sir.”

“Any weapons?” the captain asked.

Chekov shook his head. “No weapons, sir.”

Kirk gestured at a large bank of indicator lights. “What are those?”

“Incoming transmissions,” said Chekov. “Status reports from the satellites Hofstadter found in orbit. I believe this craft deployed them.”

“Can we get a signal to the shuttles?” asked Kirk.

“I have been trying,” said Chekov, “but our communicators cannot penetrate the ship’s hull, and I haven’t discovered how to link the ship’s systems into our—” Suddenly Chekov gasped. “Captain, the other ship is going to warp!”

“Damn!” Kirk looked up at the transport, whose engines were beginning to glow.

“They probably got scared when they lost contact,” Giotto said. “Can we go after them?”

“I can activate warp drive,” said Chekov, “but it will not be good for the engines.”

“I plan on trading this ship in for a better one, Mister Chekov.” Kirk moved to the center of the room, back to Horr. “Are your people ready?”

“Affirmation. Query: current action?”

“The other transport is about to go to warp, and we’re going to follow it.”

“Exclamation of woe!”

Horr began to wriggle his tentacles again, but Kirk turned his attention back to the ship on the heads-up display. “Are we ready, Mister Chekov?”

“Warp speed at your command.”

With a flash, the other ship was gone.

“Now, Mister Chekov!”