Star Trek - TOS - Battlestations

by Diane Carey

and, in the boldest bet of my lifetime, walked straight

  into the line of fire. Perren's stare flickered at me.

  "You know I understand you," I said to him. "Maybe

  better than she does. And I think you know her

  220 221

  opinion of you. You can't keep retreating under her

  banner. You're going to have to make a new decision

  for yourself, right now. Because I'm going to take that

  phaser away from you."

  If I died doing it, I would be the only one to die.

  Perten knew the captain and Sarda would be on him in

  an instant. He'd never have time to recover with me

  standing so close to him. And everything would grate

  to a halt once again, and for good.

  Forced into confrontation with himself, Perren

  parted his lips as though silently trying to explain--to

  himself, probably.

  I lifted a hand. Put it out. Touched the phaser.

  He raised his chin, eyelids drifting down as he

  looked now at our hands, cupped on the same weapon.

  His fingers tightened, then relaxed. With a tug, the phaser was mine.

  Perren, his head lowered in deep contemplation,

  dazedly joined Mornay and Boma on the lower deck.

  But the hatred was not over. It boiled now in the

  pitch black of Boma's eyes. Perhaps I had ruined his

  plans one time too many, and with too much finality.

  Even as Perren stepped down, Boma's rage stripped

  him of caution and propelled him across the bridge; his

  target my throat. Not entirely a tactic of momentary

  insanity, his sudden action took me by surprise. Fro-

  zen, I never had a chance even to raise the phaser.

  Taking advantage, Ursula Mornay hunched her

  shoulders and grabbed for the discarded weapons lying

  on the upper deck. The bridge burst into wild motion.

  This time, though, I wasn't alone on the summit of

  Mount Danger. A flash of beige and boot--the captain

  braced on the bridge handrail and vaulted into Boma

  without so much as a pause for breath. He caught

  Boma cleanly in the chest just before the astrophysi-

  cist's hands would have torn me bodily from the upper

  deck. Boma went down hard against the helm, the

  wind gushing from his body, and he fell limp.

  222

  Mornay's eyes widened in astonishment, but she

  had the phaser by now and backed against the weap-

  ons console, trying to get a better grip on the handle.

  Before her, Captain Kirk appeared over the handra'd

  and straightened, his eyes full of warning. He had no

  weapon, he had no advantage. Only his eyes. The

  blades of truth.

  He lowered his chin slightly, almost as though scold-

  ing her. "It... is... over." The bridge fell to silence.

  Challenge rumbled between them. Then, like thun-

  der in the distance, it ended. Ursula Mornay narrowed

  her small eyes, her face shriveling into a sneer, and she

  lowered her phaser. The captain relieved her of it.

  With a sigh, he reached down and hauled Boma,

  staggering, to his feet and gave him a heave toward the

  upper deck. "Mr. Sarda."

  The voice beside me was almost a whisper. "Aye,

  sir."

  "Escort the professor and Dr. Boma to the brig. If

  they so much as flinch," he added with a stern look at

  both prisoners just for effect, "paralyze them."

  "Aye, sir." Sarda glanced at me, and whether or not

  he meant to be asking me for it, I handed him Perren's

  phaser. He gestured Mornay to the turbolift, careful to

  keep the weapon keenly trained on the little woman we

  had learned not to trust. He glanced at Perren, who

  remained near the viewscreen, awaiting his own fate.

  Clearly Perren was no longer part of the threat. The

  captain said nothing, but silently waved Sarda on with

  his assignment, confirming that he intended to have

  Perren handled in some other way. Soon Sarda was

  gone with Mornay and Boma.

  Captain Kirk came to my side of the bridge, still on

  the lower deck below me, instantly at ease. He leaned

  one hand on the deck rail and said, "I like your style."

  A deep breath came out of me a bit more gustily than

  I would've liked. "You should," I said. "It's yours."

  223

  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 in-

  formed 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 Arge-

  lius, 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 individ-

  ual."

  "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.
<
br />   "Guess."

  "We hope to hold it under a dozen. Doing our best,

  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 tele-

  pathic 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 refin-

  ished as long as she's just sitting there. I left Ambassa-

  dor 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 out-

  ward 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 con-

  struction tug could do that."

  Several possible responses flooded my brain. "Nei-

  ther 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, swal-

  lowed by his own thoughts, or perhaps by the empti-

  ness 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 dis-

  patch 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 explain-

  ing. 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 communi-

  cations.

  It felt good to sit down. The bridge chair groaned

  lazily as I relaxed into it, confirming the illu sive 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 possibili-

  ties. 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 neces-

  sary. 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 com-

  munications 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 out-

  side !

  "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 play-

  ing 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 dark-

  ened 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