Agents of Influence

by Dayton Ward

  Watson groaned in irritation. “We haven’t even had time to run a diagnostic to make sure we got all the connections right.”

  Eyeing the ramshackle setup that was the culmination of frantic effort on the part of Rideout with the assistance of Binnix and Watson, Khatami felt her mouth go dry. “Master Chief, we’re out of time.”

  Rideout offered a small, humorless smile as she reached for the topmost row of controls on her console. “Sometimes you just have to say ‘what the hell,’ am I right?” She tapped one button that blinked a steady red.

  Nothing happened.

  Thirty-nine

  “I’m still not picking up any sign of shields from the Endeavour,” Stano said. “What the hell are they doing down there?”

  Pushing the Dreamline into an angled descent, Kirk could see a small circle of light all alone in the darkness outside the cockpit canopy. He knew it was the Endeavour, at the far end of the canyon but growing larger with every passing second as the transport dropped ever lower. Below them, and effecting its own dive into the valley, was a much smaller light plunging toward the helpless starship. The Klingon scout’s pilot was exceptional, he decided, employing a series of evasive maneuvers that within the canyon’s confines were as impressive as they were audacious.

  “Enterprise,” he said into the newly established comm frequency. “Spock, where are you? We’re running out of time down here.”

  Over the open channel, his first officer replied, “Estimated time of arrival is one minute, forty-three seconds, Captain.”

  “This will be over before that,” Stano said.

  Nobody needed to say aloud what everyone knew was at stake. A single strafing run against the unprotected Endeavour’s already stressed and weakened hull would be devastating.

  Ignoring Stano’s comment, Kirk said into the pickup, “McCormack, did you reach Sulu and the others?”

  The Endeavour’s helm officer replied, “We’re maneuvering into position now, sir. There doesn’t look to be any hull damage, but the ship’s on emergency power. We’re in an area of pretty high background radiation, so I’m getting in as close as possible before engaging transporters.”

  The lieutenant did not need to say anything else for Kirk to know this meant McCormack and her ship were too far out of position to be of any assistance. Given the damage to the Orion transport piloted by Sulu, there had been no choice but for McCormack or Kirk to break off and attempt a rescue. McCormack suggested her own commandeered Orion vessel was better suited to that effort and Kirk had agreed, so now he and Stano were making a run for the Endeavour crash site in an attempt to head off the remaining Klingon ship.

  It was a sound plan except for one problem. Even with the refinements given to it by Montgomery Scott, the Dreamline was not a combat vessel. This was a definite drawback when confronting a Klingon craft built for that very purpose. Back in the asteroid field, Kirk could use its hordes of obstacles to counteract the enemy ship’s greater speed and maneuverability. In open space or even something like a dive toward the bottom of an asteroid canyon, the scout had all the advantages.

  “Kirk!”

  Stano’s warning came just as he saw the scout make an abrupt change of direction, peeling up and away from its mad descent into the canyon and away from the Endeavour. Now it was climbing, and the helm console’s targeting scanner showed the ship beginning to climb and angle back toward them.

  “Somebody doesn’t like being chased,” Kirk said. This far into the canyon, there were few options available so far as evasive action. He therefore decided aggressive action was preferable to retreat, and increased the Dreamline’s speed. Even though they were only traveling at a bare fraction of available impulse power, the slight acceleration was enough to make him nervous. The feeling only worsened as he adjusted the transport’s heading to place it on a collision course with the Klingon ship.

  Stano pushed herself back into her seat. “Okay, this plan just went all the way to Kirk, didn’t it?”

  “Afraid so.”

  The targeting scanner indicated a phaser lock and Stano unleashed another barrage of phaser fire. The twin beams of blue-white energy passed just beneath the scout as Kirk cut the Dreamline to port. His fast maneuvering was still too slow to avoid a volley of disruptor bolts slamming into the transport’s aft shields. The salvo was followed by a second round, and with the third attack, alarms erupted across the cockpit. Kirk almost flinched as the enemy ship passed close enough to the cockpit’s canopy he was sure he could see seams between individual hull plates. All the while, caution alerts were sounding from different indicators on the helm console and the surrounding status monitors. Then all of the lights went out as the power of the Dreamline’s impulse engine faded. There was a pause before the ship’s backup generator activated, bringing with it emergency lighting and power back to the cockpit.

  “Main power’s out,” Stano said.

  Kirk said nothing. He was too busy using the transport’s maneuvering thrusters to regain control of its descent into the canyon. “We’ve got bigger problems. I can’t get a diagnostic on the impulse engine. Shield generators are out too.”

  After a futile attempt to glean more information out of her own console’s array of status readings, Stano said, “If they come back to take another swing, we’re screwed.”

  “They’re not interested in us.” Kirk pointed to the targeting scanner, which only now was coming back online after the shift to emergency power. The tactical diagram showed the Klingon scout returning to its dive toward the canyon floor.

  “Kirk to Endeavour,” he said after activating a communications frequency. “You need to get those damned shields up right now.”

  * * *

  Khatami could only watch as Rideout, assisted by Binnix and Watson, tore even more components out of the deflector shield power-flow regulation system. She had no idea how much of the housing’s internal structure was even intact anymore.

  “Have you figured out what went wrong?” she asked.

  Buried past her shoulders inside the open panel giving her access to the system’s innards, Rideout said, “That was the easy part. The power flow to the shield generators was high enough to trip a fault-protection circuit. Actually, it tripped four of them.” Pushing herself out of the conduit, Rideout reached for a spanner before sticking her head back through the open port. “I guess that’ll happen.”

  “We didn’t think of this before?” Binnix asked.

  “In my defense, I was busy bypassing a bunch of stuff we can’t fix or replace just now. I’m trying to save all our asses. You want it now or you want it pretty?”

  Khatami moved closer. “Okay, Master Chief. What do we do?”

  “We bypass everything.”

  “What?” said Watson, who at Rideout’s direction had returned with a second impulse capacitance cell from storage. “What does ‘everything’ mean?”

  Once again extracting herself from the conduit, Rideout grabbed the short gray cylinder from the agent. “I mean everything. These cells have their own flow regulators. I can connect them in sequence and bypass their safeties a lot easier than I can reconfigure the shield generator system.” She paused, as though for the first time considering the idea to which she had just given voice. “On the other hand, there won’t be anything to keep them from blowing up in our faces.” Then the engineer shrugged. “Kind of late to be worrying about that now.”

  With Binnix’s help, Rideout maneuvered the capacitance cell through the access panel and into position next to its companion inside the conduit. Together, they connected the cells and routed cabling to power connections and transfer relays, and Khatami saw control panels on each of the cells flare to life.

  “Auxiliary control to Captain Khatami,” said Lieutenant Klisiewicz over the intercom. “Incoming Klingon ship. Its weapons are active and locked on us!”

  * * *

  Using the Dreamline’s maneuvering thrusters, Kirk managed to put the transport into something ap
proximating a controlled freefall toward the bottom of the canyon. With almost total darkness all around the cockpit canopy, the only visible light sources outside the ship were the Endeavour’s saucer section and the Klingon scout. The enemy vessel had returned to its descent, now angling for what could only be a strafing run against the defenseless starship.

  “The impulse engine’s completely offline,” Stano said as she returned to the cockpit and hauled herself back into the copilot’s seat. “I can’t even get a diagnostic to run.” Looking through the canopy, she asked, “Can you land this thing?”

  Kirk applied more power to the maneuvering thrusters in response to the ship’s sensors and the information they provided about the ground below them. “Landing isn’t the issue. Crash-landing might be a bit of a problem.” It had been a long time since he had flown anything larger than a Starfleet shuttlecraft, and as the transport made its descent he could feel its weight fighting him. “Kirk to Enterprise. Where the hell are you?”

  Spock replied, “Estimated arrival in thirty-five seconds, Captain.”

  Still not good enough! The infuriating thought was almost enough to make him slam his fists against the helm console, for all the good that would do. To be so close and yet so helpless was a maddening feeling. It was not one for which Kirk had any patience. There had to be some option left to him. Any kind of option. Whatever it might be, he could not see it. They could not even spare the power needed to fire the Dreamline’s phasers in one last futile attempt to stop the Klingon ship.

  Consulting her instruments, Stano said, “They’re lining up for an attack and locking disruptors.” Unlike Kirk, she did not restrain herself from hitting her console and instead slapped it with the heels of both her hands.

  Neither said anything as the Klingon ship unleashed a volley of disruptor fire. Four shots, pulsing bright crimson, rained down toward the Endeavour and Kirk braced himself for the devastation he was already imagining.

  All four disruptor bolts didn’t detonate against the starship’s hull; instead, a violent surge of yellow-white energy spread outward from the point of impact, revealing the protective blanket of the Endeavour’s deflector shields.

  “Hot damn!” Stano smacked her console again, this time in triumph. “They did it!”

  It was evident the pilot of the Klingon ship was not expecting that turn of events, having already adjusted the scout’s course to take it up and away from whatever destruction its gunner must have anticipated. Kirk, still unable to do anything but control the Dreamline’s descent, grunted in mounting frustration as he watched the enemy vessel arc back toward the crash site, already setting up for a second attack.

  Then it shuddered under the onslaught of what Kirk immediately recognized as Starfleet phasers.

  “Spock!” he shouted into the comm link. “Welcome to the party, Enterprise!”

  Looking up through the cockpit canopy, Kirk and Stano saw the starship—his ship—dropping into the canyon. Phaser banks mounted on the saucer section’s underside flashed again, catching the Klingon ship amidships. The other ship broke off its attack and Kirk saw it was struggling to retain its altitude.

  “Their main power’s offline,” Stano reported, her attention focused on her sensor screen. “I’m showing a hull breach in the aft section. Their life-support system’s fluctuating as well and I’m seeing outages in their navigation and guidance systems. They’re in big trouble, sir.”

  Having arrested the Dreamline’s descent, Kirk now was reasonably certain the transport would not plow into the canyon floor. After asking Stano to find them a decent landing site, he tapped the communications controls.

  “Klingon vessel, this is Captain James Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. There’s no reason to keep up this fight. We stand ready to assist you if you’ll accept our help.”

  Stano eyed him. “I don’t think I could be as nice, sir. They did just try to kill my crew right in front of me.”

  “Fair enough,” Kirk said.

  One of the smaller display monitors set into the bulkhead to his left and near the edge of the canopy activated, its image coalescing into that of a Klingon male. His appearance was disheveled and Kirk saw small fires burning at two of the consoles behind him.

  “I am Commander Karamaq of the Klingon Defense Force.” When he spoke it was with clipped tones, and the anxiety was evident in his voice. “Do you truly expect me to believe you would help us after your ship just crippled mine?” He turned from the screen, barking orders Kirk could not understand.

  “They’re losing attitude control,” Stano said.

  Through the canopy, Kirk saw the Klingon ship tumbling away, its arc and speed taking it away from the Endeavour crash site. Instrumentation told him the vessel was no more than a few hundred meters above the canyon surface, but its spin was increasing as it fell.

  “Spock, tractor beam. Lock on and bring them to a safe—”

  The rest of the order died in Kirk’s throat as the Klingon ship, now several kilometers from the Endeavour, plummeted the remaining distance to the canyon floor. Its aft section struck first, hitting near the edge of yet another crevasse. The rest of the vessel collapsed in on itself and the entire hull rolled over the ravine’s edge. A brief fireball consumed the ship, gone as quickly as it had come, as the scout vessel disappeared with the resulting wreckage out of sight.

  “Enterprise to Captain Kirk. We were unable to lock on in time, sir. I am sorry.”

  Now guiding the Dreamline toward a landing near the Endeavour crash site, Kirk exchanged looks with Stano, who shrugged.

  “They made their choices,” she said.

  Kirk nodded in reluctant agreement. “No apologies, Spock. I know you did the best you could. The important thing is you saved the Endeavour and its crew, and us. As always, I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Orders, Captain?”

  “We’ve got a lot of work to do and a lot of people down here who are anxious to go home, Mister Spock. We should probably get started.”

  Forty

  It made for a tight fit, but every member of the Endeavour’s crew was able to assemble on the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft hangar deck, accompanied by a sizable contingent from the host vessel. Just for this occasion, large viewscreens had been mounted at regular intervals along the port and starboard bulkheads as well as before the immense clamshell doors separating the bay from the vacuum of space. Displayed on each of the screens was an image of the Endeavour’s saucer section as rendered through data collected by the Enterprise’s sensors.

  Standing at the back of a dais positioned before the forward screen, Kirk studied the formation with satisfaction. It was only while donning his dress uniform in preparation for this occasion that he realized this was the first time he had called such an assembly since taking command of the Enterprise. It was a rarity for a starship’s crew to gather in this fashion while underway. He could simply have transmitted a broadcast for everyone to watch anywhere on the ship. That was still happening for those members of his crew tasked with overseeing their duty stations, but Kirk felt the proceedings deserved something more formal and respectful.

  Turning to look down the line of officers standing to his left at the back of the dais, Kirk observed his senior staff—Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, and Uhura—standing alongside their Endeavour counterparts. As with their respective captains, everyone on the dais sported their dress uniforms, with Scott standing out from the assemblage due to the kilt and matching shoulder plaid in lieu of trousers. A silver, ornamental sporran hung at the front of his waist below a wide black belt. Cradled in the engineer’s arms was a set of traditional Scottish bagpipes.

  At the platform’s forward edge, Captain Atish Khatami stood at a thin black podium. She took a moment to smooth the sides of her dress uniform tunic. The Enterprise’s quartermaster had been hard-pressed to meet the demand, but she and the rest of her department had come through providing new uniforms for the Endeavour’s crew. That included dress uniforms for its
senior staff. Khatami’s green tunic was a match for Kirk’s, though with its own array of medals and decorations reflecting her decades of service to Starfleet.

  On the podium rested a standard-issue Starfleet data slate. She pressed a control set into its top and a boatswain’s whistle echoed across the hangar deck. Any lingering, hushed conversations fell silent as more than six hundred sets of eyes turned to focus on her.

  “Crew of the Endeavour,” she began, her voice carried and amplified by the intercom system to the very back of the hangar. “You and I have been through much together. It’s been my honor to serve as your captain. A starship and its legacy are defined by the actions of its crew, and your actions over the course of our service together have been exemplary. You’ve enjoyed sweet victories, endured bitter tragedies, and risen to the call of duty and sacrifice in the most noble and honorable of fashions and in the finest Starfleet tradition.

  “Many of you are recent additions to the Endeavour crew. Many more of you have been with me for a long time, even before I was named your captain. You served under Zhao Sheng, as demanding and inspiring a leader as I’ve ever known. It is his example I’ve always strived to follow. If he were here today, I believe Captain Zhao would tell you how proud he is of each of you, that you continue to live up to his expectations. I don’t know what the future holds for us, whether we will be assigned to another ship or if this marks the end of our service together. Even if we are no longer a crew, we will always be a family.”

  She paused for the unexpected rush of thunderous applause that began rolling across the hangar. Despite the solemn nature of the gathering, Kirk could not help a small smile. When the applause faded and silence fell once more over the deck, Khatami called an end to the proceedings. A chorus of low murmurs reached Kirk’s ears as the formation broke and members of the Endeavour and Enterprise crews began separating into smaller groups. Others, presumably Enterprise personnel but Kirk could not readily tell from this distance, made their way to the exits, returning to duty stations or bound for some other pursuit. Along the hangar’s bulkheads, men and women in utility coveralls were already setting to work disassembling the equipment brought in for the ceremony. Kirk knew that within an hour, the entire space would be converted into temporary billeting for a good number of the Endeavour’s crew during the trip back to Starbase 24.