Star Trek - TOS - Battlestations

by Diane Carey

  barely breathing," he said, unable to keep the heavi-

  ness of disgust out of his voice. "This midshipman's

  already dead."

  One, and counting. I thought of Scanner. Dead.

  What a word.

  The hiss of a turbolift door down the next corridor

  drove us quickly up the nearest deck-to-deck spiral

  crawlway. We barely made it, and I had to draw my

  feet up, out of sight, while several of Mornay's hired

  lizards ran past the opening toward the hangar deck.

  I listened until there was nothing left to hear of their

  footsteps. Above me, Sarda climbed a few rungs, then

  stopped. I felt his concern.

  "It's not likely that they will move him, Piper," he

  said, keeping his voice down.

  Until he said it, I hadn't been sure of what I was

  thinking. I squinted upward into the brightness of the

  tube. "I guess you're right."

  He pulled off the uncomfortable mask and attached

  it to the communicator belt under his uniform shirt.

  "Where are we going?"

  Nice handy ladders... empty tube... big ship... I

  stripped off my own mask, hooked it to a belt loop,

  and shrugged. "Up."

  And yet, a more specific destination kept turning in

  my mind, no matter how I tried to apply logic to the

  situation. Sarda had surmised that Mornay, Perren,

  and Boma wouldn't try to install the transwarp device

  until they reached a comfortable location where they

  213

  were totally in charge. They wouldn't be in Engineer-

  ing, then. No point in going there. The doctors didn't

  need my incompetence in medicine to help them find

  the antidote for the narcotic gas, so no point in going

  that way. Besides, Merete and McCoy weren't the

  people I needed to see right now. I had prevented any

  hope Mornay might have of taking the starship out of

  the solar system on warp power, and surely they knew

  by now that nothing but several weeks in spacedock

  would realign Enterprise's delicate nacelle balance.

  They wouldn't bother trying to repair such wild dam-

  age. All that sounded perfectly logical, and I was ready

  in case Sarda asked, but my real motivation was

  nothing more than a subliminal echo deep in the least

  logical corners of my thoughts. It was an irresistible

  call. Rotating and growing ever stronger in my mind

  was a single word bridge.

  The Enterprise was as quiet as a floating coffin.

  Each entry into a new deck, a new corridor, chilled us

  with the sight of co!lapsed crewpeople dropped in their

  tracks by Mornay's ruthlessness, then mashed to-

  gether on the starboard side because of our little trick

  with Rex. The starship was worse than empty. It was

  cataleptic.

  And traveling through it, thanks to me, was like a

  maze of dead ends. Everywhere we turned, doors

  refused to work or were jammed partially shut, turbo-

  lifts scraped and rasped in their tubes, or refused to

  open for us at all because they were simply too dam-

  aged to allow passengers to trap themselves between

  decks. The ship's automated maintenance system was

  fully enabled, cutting off many access routes through

  the ship that were now dangerous.

  Even worse---I couldn't feel the presence of Captain

  Kirk. Common sense told me he was here. I'd seen

  him and Speck beamed on board. But I couldn't feel

  him. Where was he? Had Mornay, in some fit of

  unpredictability, beamed him somewhere else to corn-

  214

  plicate any bid he might have for freedom and the

  welfare of his ship and crew? Might she have gassed

  him and Spock along with their crew, in case she

  needed to impress Star Fleet with the caliber of her

  hostages?

  As we wended our way through the innards of the

  great ship, I kept trying to find Captain Kirk with my

  intuitions. I clamped my mouth shut when the inclina-

  tion arose to tell Sarda my feelings. Vulcans already

  thought humans were a little short of a harvest, and 1

  didn't need to throw more fodder on that field.

  Finally we were spared any more sights of the

  crippled crew when we reached a direct turbolift to the

  bridge. We stood side by side and looked at it as

  though there was no lift inside and we'd just fall away

  into eternity if we stepped in.

  "Disruptors," I uttered, clueing us simultaneously

  in to the missing element. As with a single motion, we

  drew the weapons from our belts.

  "Set for light stun?" Sarda asked.

  "Heavy stun."

  He looked up. "Not the third setting."

  "No. Second."

  I looked at my weapon after setting it, unable to pull

  my eyes or thoughts away from the dial. I knew Sarda

  wondered why I was hesitating, but I had no clear

  answer yet. My fingers moved like separate beings on

  the disruptor dial. An extra three clicks. And a lock.

  Kill/disrupt.

  "Kill?" he asked. Whether he was surprised or

  disappointed, I couldn't yet tell. He hadn't been with

  us when Captain Kirk made me believe in the urgency

  of the situation--that any single life was expendable,

  even my own. The time had come to act on that sour

  truth.

  Sarda left his own weapon on stun; I was glad he

  did. It fit into my plan.

  Even through the conviction, his question made me

  215

  think twice, forced me to make the awful decision a

  second time. "I have to be taken seriously," I told

  him. "It's imperative."

  Neither of us liked it very much. Only that, the

  evenness of our regret for what we had to do, kept

  Sarda from controverting my decision. That, and other

  things between us that still defied definition.

  With a sigh of commitment, I stood up. Fortified

  against my own decision, I led the way back to the

  bridge turbolift.

  There were no words between Sarda and me as we

  rode to the bridge, flattened against the sides of the lift.

  Words had lost their value. And my mind was already

  on the bridge.

  The doors hissed open. With a shout of warning, I

  burst out, followed by Sarda, led by my disruptor.

  Several faces snapped around in shock. Weapons

  came up.

  I picked a target and fired. A scream filled the bridge

  as one of Mornay's mercenaries withered into gory

  lights and smoke. I turned my disruptor on Mornay,

  my readiness to kill confirmed by the leftover scent of

  incinerated flesh and bone.

  The first voice was a distantly familiar one. I hadn't

  heard it in a long time, and then only briefly, but it

  hadn't been soon forgotten.

  "You again!" Samuel Boma's face flushed beneath

  its deep brown complexion.

  Professor Mornay, gripping the handrail on the up-

  per walkway, glared at him. "I told you someone had

  invaded the compound to get Sarda out," she said

  roughly.

  Boma drew in
his brows and pointed. "You didn't

  tell me it was her! I could've warned you!" "Why? Who's she in particular?"

  Boma shook his head. "You don't want to know." It

  was hard to believe this was the man who had designed

  the dangerous dreadnought that was meant to put the

  216

  galaxy on the edge of war, who had kept his cool

  enough to fool Star Fleet into accepting his help, and

  who had somehow managed to take a prime com-

  mander like Montgomery Scott by surprise and gas

  down the entire crew. I forced myself to remember

  those things and not slacken my guard.

  By now I'd assured myself there was no one on the

  bridge but who I saw Mornay, Boma, and three

  remaining mercenaries who were manning helm, navi-

  gations, and command intelligence stations. There was

  no sign whatsoever of the bridge crew--Mr. Scott, Mr.

  S ulu, Uhura... the bridge looked raw without them.

  "Sarda," I said, the order silently following.

  He took careful aim, holding the disruptor in both

  hands, and one by one struck each guard with a stun

  bolt. Mornay and Boma had no choice but to watch

  and wait until the four of us squared off across the

  bridge from each other.

  "Where's PerrenT' I asked. "Did you leave Arge-

  lius without him after all, Professor?"

  She gave me a smug nod. "Keep guessing, hot

  spur."

  I battled against the quiver of my voice and de-

  manded, "Where's the captain?"

  "Held tightly hostage, that's where."

  "Those aren't answers, Professor."

  "I don't owe you answers. My guards are on their

  way up here. Do you think I'm foolish enough to let

  myself go unprotected? The instant you entered the

  bridge, my security forces were alerted. When the

  turbolift doors open, you're dead."

  That word again. I ignored Sarda's glance. !

  wouldn't have known what to tell him anyway. I

  waggled the phaser at Mornay and Boma, who were

  standing near each other near the Engineering subsys-

  tems monitor. "Down there, please, both of you."

  Boma hesitated, but Mornay merely widened her

  weird little grin. Now what? What could I do if she

  217

  wasn't even intimidated by a Klingon disruptor set on

  kill?

  "Gladly," she said then. "Out of the line of fire."

  She led the way down to the command module, step-

  ping over the crumpled body of one of the guards.

  Boma followed.

  I hated the fact that she was right; putting them

  down there made it easier for her marauders to fire

  freely at us when they appeared. "Sarda, can you jam

  that turbolift?"

  He moved immediately to the communications sta-

  tion and placed his disruptor down on the console to

  free both hands. What I asked of him was no easy task.

  The turbolifts were especially designed to counter-

  mand any artificial jamming, to avoid trapping passen-

  gers anywhere on the ship. Sarda would have to

  reroute its programming both through the computers

  and through the engineering of the ship. If he had time.

  If, if, if. Another word, like dead.

  When he had done what he could at Engineering, he

  crossed by me to Communications and started tamper-

  ing.

  I snaked sideways along the handrail past Sarda and

  down the gangway, trying to put myseff in a position

  where my single disruptor could protect Sarda from

  whatever came out of the turbolift while still keeping a

  wedge of threat over Mornay and Boma.

  "Hurry, Sarda," I urged.

  "Trying."

  The communications station clicked and whirred

  under his hands, but I could see in the tension of his

  jawline that he wasn't succeeding against the auto-

  matic resistors of the turbolift system. That was con-

  firmed when the turbolift doors puffed open.

  Sarda rolled away from the station to give me clear

  aim. His disruptor, left on the Engineering console,

  was out of commission for us.

  My finger flinched on the trigger, ready to kill again.

  218

  The phaser that came out of the lift to aim at me was

  also quite ready to commit murder.

  "Nobody move!" a strong voice shouted. A single

  phaser. Human eyes behind it. A hero's eyes. A

  captain's eyes. They reflected his ship.

  "Captain!" Like an idiot, I was still holding the

  disruptor on him.

  He recovered sooner and redirected his weapon at

  Mornay, quickly assessing the situation, lumped-up

  guards and all. He was still wearing the brown tunic

  and beige trousers from Argelius, which told me he'd

  been too busy to slip back into a uniform. Either that,

  or the uniform had nothing to do with who he really

  was deep down.

  I forgot to breathe. "You're here !"

  He nodded. "Commander, would you mind?" He

  pointed at me, then down at Mornay and Boma.

  The disruptor. Oh, damn. My hair bounced as I

  looked from him to Mornay, back to him, and back to

  Mornay. Finally comprehension sank in and the dis-

  ruptor in my hands moved itseft to the people it was

  supposed to be guarding. "Right .... "I murmured.

  "Sir, there are guards on the way up here," I said

  breathlessly.

  "Yes, I know. They had a little trouble getting by

  Mr. Spock and me."

  I readjusted my feet. "Oh." So much for the guards.

  "Where were you, sir?"

  "Before or after we broke out of our cells?"

  "Uh... after."

  "We've notified Star Fleet Command," he said,

  "given Bones the specific name of the drug the crew is

  under, incapacitated most of the professor's guards,

  and put an isolation field around the transwarp mecha-

  nisms," he now looked at Mornay in prime connec-

  tion, "so even the Professor and Dr. Boma won't be

  able to engage it."

  The bridge fell silent.

  219

  I lowered the disruptor slightly. "Is that all?"

  Numb, dreaming, drunk . . . I could're taken my

  pick.

  "By the way, Piper," the captain began, circling the

  upper deck with his phaser still steady on Mornay and

  Boma.

  "Sir?"

  He raised a brow at me. "You wrinkled my star-

  ship."

  A ball of compunction blocked my throat. "Aye, sir,

  I know that, sir. You should see what it did to my ship.

  I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."

  "No apologies," he said. "I was considering the

  self-destruct sequence myself." I blinked. "You're joking."

  "It wouldn't be the first time." His strong words

  were directed every bit as much to the two on the

  lower deck as to me. He meant to have his message

  clearly given. "A starship commander must always be

  ready to use the last resort. You'd be surprised."

  Darn right I would be. "Aye, sir," was all I said.

  Behind us somewhere, my first command ship drifted,

  derelict. I heard its noble moans
in my mind.

  Mornay and Boma exchanged an unreadable look.

  I should're blown the doors off that damnable tur-

  bolift when I had the chance. The contemptible thing

  opened again behind Captain Kirk. Presuming it would

  be Mr. Spock, the captain didn't turn soon enough.

  "Phasers down! Don't move, Captain." The form

  was Vulcan, but not Spock. Perren held his own

  phaser square at the captain's spine. He reached

  around and pulled Kirk's phaser away from him, put it

  on the floor, and kicked it down the gangway where

  nobody could reach it. "Now yours, Commander."

  My glance connected briefly with the captain, but

  there was nothing I could do. Perten was unpredict-

  able, I'd seen that for certain. The captain's face grew

  rosy with anger. He didn't like being caught off

  guard--another thing we had in common. I lowered my weapon.

  "Down here," Perren instructed.

  Until I could think of something better, I did as he

  instructed. Soon, both weapons were lying down the

  gangway, out of reach.

  "Now move over there, Captain Kirk."

  The captain stiffly obeyed, but ! noticed his true

  nature remained unsmudged he made sure he was

  standing between that phaser and me.

  "That's right," Mornay spoke now. Her voice

  seemed strange after all the fluxes of victory and

  defeat that had passed the bridge in the last few

  minutes. The weird grin was gone, though. Her

  transwarp mechanism was out of commission for quite

  a while. Isolation fields couldn't just be pulled down

  overnight. "My turn again, isn't it? I'm not giving up.

  I'll get away." She tapped her graying temple. "It's all

  up here. And you'll never interfere again, any of you.

  Perren," she said, her tone rising, "for the good of the

  galaxy... kill them."

  Vulcan or not, he was quite liable to do it. He'd let

  us go once before, and we'd returned to haunt him.

  The horrifying thought arose that Mornay might in-

  deed know him much better than Sarda did, and might

  have more control over him than we guessed. No time for analyses.

  Perren hesitated, but it wasn't the kind of hesitancy

  that gave me any confidence. He leveled the phaser on

  Captain Kirk.

  Suddenly I said, "No." I stepped past the captain,