Star Trek - TOS - Battlestations

by Diane Carey

  I couldn't hear clearly, and Mr. Scott's voice came

  back up at him through the corn system. I looked

  toward the engineering panel, confirming to my jarred

  senses that he wasn't there anymore.

  "Nominal but coming back slowly," Kirk was say-

  ing. "Good work, Scotty, keep it up." Fighting from

  inside a cage, he adjusted the navigational controls and

  Enterprise pivoted against the Klingon tractor beams

  until we had a clear view of a Romulan ship veering

  toward us, with one of the cuneiformed Tholians close

  behind. Instantly Kirk struck a firing launch. Space

  filled with bright red-orange lancets. Phasers! They'd

  gotten phasers working! And the captain was using

  them to keep the enemies busy out there, protect our

  weakened deflectors, and complicate the Klingons'

  effort to protect their prizemusmwhile they also tried

  to beat off attackers who were determined that if they

  themselves couldn't have us, nobody could. Including

  the Klingon Empire.

  The pastel Tholian vessel swerved to miss our pri-

  mary hull, one of her wedges blazing with melted hull

  material. The Romulans cut upward on short notice

  and fired their particle beam at us, but the Klingons

  fired and detonated the particle beam before it reached

  our screens. Enterprise rocked and whined in the

  dispersing waves. I caught myself on the bridge rail

  and managed to stay upright.

  From one side, Spock's voice overlapped the snap-

  ping of tangled voltage as Enterprise trembled back to

  life. "Port side Klingon cruiser is keeping in contact

  with the other cruiser, Captain," he was saying, his

  hand to the com receiver in his ear. "Distorted . . .

  they are attempting to contact their Empire or other

  Empire ships... I believe to request help that... may

  be on stand-by already, if I decipher these transmis-

  sions correctly."

  "Cut off their broadcast. Make sure those transmis-

  257

  sions get scrambled. They can tow us," the captain

  said to the screen, "but they'll have to do it alone.

  Scotty, ready secondary phaser banks."

  "Secondary banks are dry, Captain. I'm trying to

  funnel in some power. It's only a matter' a time before

  the hull in D-section ruptures and that'll be the end of

  our reserve. We've taken too many hits there, sir."

  Scott's voice held the timber of a man possessed.

  But I was staring at Spock. Just last year I'd finished

  a top-of-the-line course in computer cryptography and

  I blasted well knew that with the new wave-maze

  technology the Klingon Empire had developed, we

  couldn't possibly tie in to their transmissions. Profes-

  sor Eufinger had made that indelibly clear. But there

  was Spock, blithely doing the impossible.

  Well, Eufinger had always been a cretin anyway.

  The captain's voice shook me awake. "What's the

  status on the transwarp appliance?"

  I had to clear my throat. "It's tied in, but... a little

  shaky. We have to correlate from here to the engine

  room and over to the sensory. Perren's standing by,

  and Sarda should be in the sensory any minute."

  Kirk left his station and approached me swiftly on

  the lower deck, shooting me full of the moment's

  urgency. Even though I was standing over him, the

  sense of eminence he radiated was staggering. I felt

  drawn to his presence, even comforted, in spite of the

  battle blazing on the screen behind me. "Do you know-

  what to do?" he asked.

  "It's been explained to me, sir," I said, obviously

  avoiding the real answer.

  He seemed to like that response even better than if

  I'd told him I knew all about it and understood it

  perfectly and could pull it off without a hitch.

  "Go," he said. We crossed by each other as he went

  to join Spock.

  The engineering subsystems monitor was sluggish

  under my hands. The functions override and critical

  258

  regime indicators took too long to respond. Oh, well

  ... I didn't know for certain what they meant anyway,

  so let them take their time. I tapped the com through to

  engineering. "Bridge to Perren." "This is Perren."

  "I'm at station. Hold while I tie us to Sarda."

  "Acknowledged."

  Another tap. "Bridge to sensor broadcast."

  A few seconds passed. I was about to call again

  when the breathless response came. "Sensory. Sarda

  here." He'd been running.

  "I'm feeding the coordinates through to both of you.

  Keying weapons cross feed now."

  "Acknowledged. Drawing power to transwarp."

  "Broadcast ratios are confirmed, Piper. Standing

  by, J'

  My eyes drifted closed. I inhaled and turned. "Cap-

  tain? We're ready when you are."

  Kirk's expression pasted me to my controls. "Target

  the Klingons who have us under tow. I'm going to

  move us up into their tractor to tighten the range. We'll

  go for a short incursion first." He skipped the steps

  altogether, going from Spock's side back down to the

  helm, and introduced the controls to their heading.

  Beneath us, Enterprise whined against the strain of

  impulse power fighting the tractor beams to push

  forward into them. Not as impossible as trying to pull

  away, but not easy.

  "Aye, sir. Targeting." I had to force my fingers to

  move. Green lights on the board blinked, confirming

  that Sarda was receiving the coordinates.

  "Romulan ships moving in for another rush on the

  Empire cruisers," Spock reported.

  "Just as well," the captain muttered. "All right,

  Piper. Ready transwarp flux..."

  "Range is uncertain," Sarda warned. "There may

  be an echo effect. Brace yourselves."

  I held my breath, waiting for the captain's next

  259

  word, as the two Romulans vessels wheeled into near

  space. Echo effect? Did he mean- "Execute !"

  I leaned on the emissions toggle. The controls went

  wild.

  Enterprise's electrical noises drooped out to long

  howls. My arms became elastic. I felt my knees fold in

  the wrong direction.

  The edge of flux--we still felt it, even though the

  waves were deflected outward at the attacking ships.

  The flushback twisted reality around us. I heard Kirk's

  voice as he shouted something to Spock, but the words

  made no sense. Still, I clung to the sound.

  While Sarda's safety systems directed the actual

  flux at our enemies, the dimensional distortion

  couldn't be controlled. It fed back on Enterprise,

  engulfing us in the same peripheral effect we'd felt

  aboard Rex. If this was the fallout, what was it like out

  there, in the main stream?

  The ship lurched and bolted to starboard, then

  righted.

  My arms came back. The queer feeling subsided

  abruptly, leaving us all breathless.

  "Status, Spock!" Kirk demanded.

  The ans
wer took too long. "Tractor beams have

  released us." Spock's report carried a ring of triumph.

  "We are free to maneuver."

  He turned to the main viewer. We all did.

  The scan of immediate space was horrifying. Parti-

  ally dissolved ships floated by us, dismembered, or

  spliced together wrong, completely rearranged--when

  a Tholian ship drifted past with a Romulan wing pro-

  truding from the side of its hull, I had to look away.

  Spock, still staring at the screen, stepped down to

  the captain's side. Together, with expressions frighten-

  ingly alike, they watched what we had done. The area

  looked like an interstellar junk yard. The only vessels

  260

  left maneuverable in immediate space were one Rum-

  aiym ship, the unidentified ship, and... Enterprise.

  Far off at the edge of the viewer, there was move-

  ment. The remaining Tholians, their hatred of disorder

  apparently stronger than their desire for transwarp,

  cashed in their chips and retreated at high speed. So

  did the ships Spock had identified as Wijngan.

  The first ship left to move on us was the Daqawlu

  vessel, a streamlined yellow and black ship made

  mostly of curves. It gathered speed gradually, then

  faster, and fired full disruptors.

  Enterprise rocked under us. I felt myself hitting the

  floor, my hip smashing the edge of the engineering

  console as I went down. In the corner of my eye I saw

  Kirk dive for the helm control. Impulse power

  hummed up from the lower decks, and the starship

  tipped away from the Rumaiym beams.

  "Shields four and seven down completely, Cap-

  tain," Spock shouted over the combined din of disrup-

  tor fire and impulse rumble.

  Kirk struck an intercom button. "Kirk to Engineer-

  ing. Scotty, divert all available power to photon torpe-

  does."

  "They're too weak, sir," Scott's voice filtered up

  from distant decks. "I'll need four minutes to re-

  charge. Buy me that time and I'll give you disruption

  potential." He sounded better than he had when he'd

  been on the bridge. Typical, for Scott, health was

  directly related to proximity to the engines.

  The arcuate Daqawlu ship had vectored out into

  deep space and was diving on us again at attack speed.

  "All right," Kirk growled. "We'll do it the hard

  way. Piper, enable the flux. Execute on my mark."

  The yellow and black ship swooped toward us. Her

  phaser port glowed faintly with gathering energy.

  "Now, Piper."

  Had someone said something?

  261

  "Piper!"

  I flinched, drawn abruptly back to my role in this

  awful drama. "Oh... aye, sir... enabled."

  "Execute!"

  I bit my lip, and fed the impulses through as Scanner

  had instructed.

  This time the dimensional flux wasn't as distorting.

  Had it lost its power? Were we drained already? A

  wash of nausea, loss of vision, dizziness... and it was

  over. I blinked, and worked to focus on the

  viewscreen.

  Before us, the Daqawlu ship shimmered briefly as

  reality short-circuited. They fell out of attack pattern,

  turned belly-up, and swept to one side of us. The ship

  left our viewscreen, then veered back in and came to a

  stop at a respectable distance. There seemed to be no

  other effect.

  Kirk moved around the helm module, his eyes fixed

  on the drifting enemy vessel. "Spock? No effect on the

  ship?"

  I'd never seen Spock hesitate. This time, though, he

  did. When he moved to his scanners, it was with a

  distinct force of will. Slowly, he said, "Confirmed...

  the ship is intact." He straightened then, his saturnine

  features limned with empathy, gaze rooted to the

  Daqawlu ship. "But there are no life forms aboard."

  The captain turned sharply. "You mean..."

  "Whatever happened during that flux," Spock co n-

  firmed, "it took them all with it."

  Astonishment filled the captain's face. He stared at

  the screen. My nausea returned, and I was surer than

  I'd ever been that he and I were nursing the same

  thought. It was easier to kill an enemy than condemn

  him to eternity between dimensions.

  Involuntarily, we moved toward the viewer. Only a

  step or two. Enough to seal the horror. Water on a sand castle.

  We were shaken from our stupor by the Red Alert

  262

  klaxon as it whooped to life again. My heart hit my

  boots. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

  The captain looked at Spock. Feeling it, his first

  officer lifted his head from the scanner hood and

  somberly confirmed, "More ships, Jim." His nitaglase

  eyes shined in the Alert's red glow as he uttered words

  more awful than plain information could be. "Battle

  cruisers of the Empire."

  Go through it all again? We couldn't. I couldn't.

  Kirk struck the comlink. "Scott, weapons?"

  "Best I can offer is 70 percent range on photons,

  sir," the engineer reported stiffly.

  From another side of the engineering deck, Perren's

  voice interrupted through my monitor's intercom.

  "We do have remaining power for another transwarp

  flush. Shall I enable?"

  Damn him. That meant I had to report to the cap-

  tain. I hated myself. "Captain... transwarp is stand-

  ing by."

  "Man your post," Kirk snapped. "Ready photon

  torpedoes."

  With a burst of energy, I smacked the comlink and

  said, "Stand by, Perren. Do not enable. Repeat, do not

  enable." I swung around the chair to the weapons

  station and went after the photon controls, steeped in

  resurging faith for the man on the lower deck. My

  fingers tingled on the triggers, stiff with both relief and

  anticipation. We were back on familiar territory--my

  kind of ground, and his.

  "Captain," Scott hailed. "I canna guarantee that

  photon capacity. Energy was drained severely by

  those flux beams. I'm rerouting power through im-

  pulse reserve."

  "Speed it up, mister," Kirk demanded, suddenly

  fierce as he dragged his senior officers together and

  made them stand in the fire with him. "We're at

  battlestations. I want fighting capacity."

  The intercom crackled. "Aye, aye, sir."

  263

  "Piper, man the exterior scanners," the captain

  ordered, sending me dashing around the bridge to the

  dynoscanners at the opposite side. While I was mov-

  ing, Kirk spoke into the intercom. "Mr. Sarda, report

  to the bridge immediately."

  I almost passed out when I heard that. We were

  going to be together--right when we needed to be. I

  was glad for that--and for the fact that Captain Kirk

  refused to use the transwarp flux again.

  "Piper, report the range of those ships."

  The scanner light flickered with numbers. I squinted

  into it. "Point six-zero light years and closing."

  A few moments of
silence gave us no comfort.

  During that time, the captain took the helm himseft.

  "Spock, divert more power to impulse drive for the

  best speed out of the area."

  "Very well," Spock said. He crossed to engineering

  and played with the controls as fluidly as if he'd

  accepted a challenge to play chess. Yet this time, I

  knew he was deliberately hiding a deeper concern. It

  showed, if subtly, in the way he moved.

  I peered into the space scanners. The three Empire

  cruisers moved in on one monitor. Hope sank as I

  watched them grow nearer, the schematics of their

  configuration flashing on two other monitors. And on

  the scanner at my right a distant flicker showed me we

  were finished. More ships on the way.

  I watched the monitor, hypnotized. Four equidistant

  points of starlight bloomed against black space. Only

  my training kept me from sinking into a chair and

  waiting for the end.

  "Captain," I murmured, "four more."

  Our eyes connected.

  Anything he would have said to me was drowned in

  the hiss of the turbolift. Sarda glanced at me, a fulfill-

  ing glance, ff fleeting, and took in the conditions we

  faced.

  "Sarda, take weapons control," the captain or-

  dered.

  Sarda nodded, but said nothing as he hurried to his

  station.

  Though the captain surely knew there was nothing

  left to try against the odds coming at us through open

  space, we both knew we would try anything to keep

  surviving. Beyond our own survival was the scientific

  integrity of the Federation. We would destroy our-

  selves to preserve that.

  I watched the scanner. Behind the K!ingon battle

  cruisers, four new points of light became ivory pearls,

  closing at warp speed.

  "Scotty, I want those photons, now!" Kirk made no

  attempt to hide the urgency.

  "Working, sir. I can give you 78 percent range, and

  two-thirds power."

  "It'll have to do. Sarda, target those new vessels."

  "Targeting."

  "Range," I rasped. "Two-hundred-eighty-thousand

  kilometers and closing." Damn it, did we have to keep

  doing this?

  "Stay sharp." Kirk's voice was bracing.

  In my scanner the four ivory jewels separated like

  exploding fireworks, preparing to surround us. They

  were closing fast, all teeth bared. As they peeled away