“At present, I’m somewhere between heaven an’ hell, Captain. Otherwise known as San Francisco.” The chief chuckled at his own humor.
Burdened with concerns of somewhat greater import, Kirk did not join in the amusement. “Are you drunk?”
“Is that an engineering question? Are you now questionin’ me ability to handle liquids as well as me job? What I do in me spare time is entirely me business, Jimbo. And in case it has escaped your notice, I am no longer a member of your crew, and therefore no longer subject to your orders.”
From a very long distance away, Kirk took a deep breath before resuming the conversation. “Scotty, I’m starting to have my doubts about those torpedoes.”
Kirk’s unexpected words managed to penetrate the alcoholic haze that had taken up residence in the chief engineer’s cerebrum. “I will consider that an apology.” Scott sat up a little straighter. Or at least that was the instruction he passed along to the muscles of his lower body. As he remained slumped, it was likely that the message got lost somewhere between his brain and his behind. “And I will consider that apology.”
“Scotty, I need you to check something out for me. Will you take these coordinates down: 23, 17, 46, 11 . . . Are you recording?”
The chief glared at his communicator as if it were personally responsible for his current situation. “You think I kinna remember four miserable numbers . . . What was that third one again?”
“Forty-six. I need you to go there and report back. I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, but I have a feeling you’ll know it when you see it.”
Communication concluded, Scott flipped the communicator shut and proceeded to exchange the device for the larger, rounder, and altogether more solid glass sitting on the table in front of him.
“Damn senior officers,” he muttered as he downed a fresh shot.
By way of response, the stocky Roylan maintained his unblinking yet inquisitive stare.
Scott responded with a disturbing noise, not unlike the sound certain deeply installed components made in Engineering when the warp core was not functioning properly. “Self-pity will get you nowhere, man. Look at me. Am I pitying myself? Am I?”
Keenser pursed his lips as he regarded his superior. Though limited, his alien expression fully reflected what he was feeling.
“Can you believe his nerve?” Either Scott chose to ignore the junior engineer’s observation or, more likely, he didn’t hear it. “He lets me quit—resign—and then he ignores me. Not a hello, not a how-do-you-do, not so much as d’you happen to be alive, old friend, and now suddenly he needs me?”
When Keenser simply continued to gaze stolidly back at him, Scott’s gaze narrowed as he glared across the table. “Don’t judge me with those prunes you call eyes.” Still Keenser did not move, did not blink. Just stared back at his superior.
Raising a hand, Scott tried to wave away something unseen. “No . . . no! ”
Keenser kept staring. For a humanoid of modest resources, he could be remarkably determined. So much so that the chief finally couldn’t take it anymore. Or maybe he couldn’t take what was tugging at his guts, if not his heart.
“Oh fine, then, ya wrinkly little sonuvabitch!” Dazed and unhappy, he searched the table without finding what he was looking for. “I need a bloody refill.”
Sulu reported to Kirk the instant the captain arrived back on the bridge. “Shuttle’s almost in position, sir. Preparing to touch down.”
His eyes fixed on the forward screen, Kirk slid into the command chair. “Any sign of activity from the Klingons? Any hint they’ve detected our presence here? Unusual ship movements, any indication that we’ve been scanned?”
“No, Captain,” the helmsman replied. Kirk glanced back.
“Lieutenant Uhura: Any rise in local transmissions? Anything exceptional passing between Qo’noS and Praxis or the orbiting monitoring and defense stations?”
Looking over at him, she shook her head. “Nothing, sir. No unusual communications either in nature or volume. Chat-wise, everything’s normal in this system.”
He nodded with satisfaction. “Mr. Sulu: No indication of curious patrol vessels in our vicinity?”
“No, sir. It’s all quiet out to a safe distance and beyond. Should there be anyone looking for us here?”
Kirk allowed himself a pleased smile. “Only if they find pieces of their colleagues lying around down on the surface and wonder what happened to them. There’s no reason to connect what happened in Ketha Province with an off-world intervention, anyway. That’s one thing we’ve got in our favor. Not only are Klingons noted for taking shots at other peoples, they’re perfectly happy bashing up one another. Any local forensic followup will logically first assume that there was an altercation among the patrol members themselves that got out of hand. By the time anyone finds anything or suspects anything that might point to an intrusion from off Qo’noS, we’ll be well away from here.” He looked again to Communications. “Nice work putting together that relay so I could talk to Scotty, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Captain. It was a bit of a project, tight-beaming all the way from here back to Earth and directly to Mr. Scott’s personal communicator. But you know what the ancient philosopher Clarke said. ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”
Kirk nodded. “We could use a little of Mr. Scott’s own brand of magic right now. Still no response from Starfleet regarding our capture of Harrison?”
“No, sir. No response yet.”
Swinging back in the command chair, Kirk turned his attention to the pickup. “Mr. Chekov. Give me some good news.”
The sounds of technicians busy with unseen equipment formed a counterpoint to Chekov’s response. “We’ve isolated the problem, sir, but there is some damage. We’re working on it.”
Kirk pondered. “Any idea what caused it in the first place?”
“No, sir. It’s very odd.” The ensign sounded exhausted. “But I take full responsibility. A ship should not just drop out of warp like that.”
“Something tells me it wasn’t your fault, Chekov. Stay on it, and notify me the minute repairs are completed. No matter what else may be happening at the time. We’re still undetected, but we can’t sit here forever. Sooner or later a manned or automated craft is going to check this particular small section of emptiness and be surprised to find something. I don’t want to be a surprise.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll let you know the instant that full warp drive capability has been restored.”
Sulu wasted no time in passing along his own up-to-date information as soon as Kirk had finished with Chekov.
“Shuttle is standing by, Captain. They’re in position on the planetoid.”
“Any position’s a good position so long as they weren’t spotted,” Kirk murmured. The forward viewscreen showed the shuttle’s destination: a dusty, yellowish, uninhabited sphere. He keyed the chair’s comm.
“Thanks for helping out, Bones. In lieu of Mr. Scott, Dr. Marcus asked for the steadiest hands on the ship. I know you didn’t want anything to do with those torpedoes, much less be involved in trying to open them.”
Within the shuttle, McCoy considered an appropriate response even as he continued to contemplate his present situation. Why had he agreed to something that, in his right mind, he ordinarily would have refused? Was it possible that when he accepted he hadn’t been in his right mind? If that was the case, what was the appropriate medical explanation? He hesitated. He could be evasive, or he could be truthful—and he’d never been very good at being evasive. If he had, his divorce might have been less fiscally painful. Said divorce might also, however obliquely, have influenced his decision to agree to this insane subsidiary mission.
“You know,” he replied glumly as he gathered his gear and headed for the shuttle’s exit, “when I dreamt about being stuck on a deserted planet with a gorgeous woman, there was no torpedo involved.”
As it sounded from the communicator Kirk’
s voice was mildly disapproving. “Dr. McCoy, may I remind you that you’re not there to flirt.”
“I know, I know.” McCoy wasn’t sure whether he was exasperated or simply regretting the circumstances in which he presently found himself.
Even for such a small world, the volcanic desert vista that surrounded them was strikingly barren. The black sinter plain underfoot was broken only by occasional towers and buttes of similar but harder material. McCoy might even have found it interesting if not for the potentially disruptive device lying on the surface near where the shuttle had set down.
Outside the Enterprise’s weapons bay, the torpedo appeared twice as massive and ten times as threatening. He checked the readouts on his instruments. A planetoid this small should have had light gravity, yet it was not much below Enterprise or terrestrial standards. Extra-dense core, he decided, somewhat surprised that the Klingons had not done any mining here. Idly, he wondered if he could stake a claim, then told himself that the locals were unlikely to honor it.
Carol Marcus had preceded him to the torpedo. At once ominous and innocuous, it rested on a support platform; a streamlined mass of metal, synthetics, and concealed electronics not much bigger than two people lying side by side. In the absence of accompanying schematics, its destructive potential remained unknown. After having carefully placed sensors along its length, she was now activating the monitoring device that linked them together.
McCoy nodded his understanding as he glanced at the readout on the monitor she was holding. It was not providing the hoped-for clear view of the torpedo’s interior. There was too much protective shielding and intervening instrumentation for the small sensors to penetrate. He said as much and she gestured in agreement.
“In order to understand how powerful these weapons are and what’s so special about them,” Carol said, “we need to open the warhead. In order to do that, we need to access the drive compartment. Unfortunately for us, the warheads on these weapons are live. A lot of the talk was about the new drive system that renders the torpedo untrackable. So we go in that way, where the control system is supposed to be. However, since we have no way of knowing how our intrusion might affect the rest of the device, our first task is to disarm the warhead.” She offered up a thin smile. “Our research won’t go anywhere if the device goes off while we’re poking around its innards. Sure you can handle this, Dr. McCoy?”
He shrugged diffidently as he lugged a heavy box of gear around the back of the resting torpedo. “Sweetheart, I once performed an emergency C-Section—or more properly, a G–section—on a pregnant Gorn. Don’t ask about how I got talked into that one: It’s not a pretty story. Neither was the operation. Octuplets. All healthy: alive, kicking slowly—and biting.” His expression fell at the memory. “Boy, can those things bite. I think I can handle your torpedo.”
“Right, then,” she said without pressing him for further details. “Let us begin.”
XI
Jupiter was beautiful this time of year, Montgomery Scott thought. But then, Jupiter was beautiful any time. Not that it was a suitable spot for a vacation. A bit on the breezy side, and the landscape—well, there was no landscape, only cloudscape, which would tear you and your ship apart if you dropped too close.
Hugging Io’s surface, he soared toward the coordinates Kirk had given him. In an earlier age, its ferocious volcanoes and tormented sulfuric lakes would have drawn the attention of any passerby, but they were old news now. For every astronomical or geological marvel the solar system offered up, something twice as spectacular could be found in another system, circling another sun.
On the other hand, the massive block of blackness that abruptly appeared in the forward port and simultaneously on his shuttle’s sensors was definitely something new.
It was enormous, enigmatic, drifting in an orbit all its own. What was it doing out here, so far from any established station or colony? Where did it come from?
Slowing his speed, Scott skimmed over the top of it. Evidence of long-term heavy construction was amply visible on all the structure’s sides. For a structure it was unabashedly artificial, its construction representing a huge investment in time and resources. What equipment he could discern, he readily recognized. The immense orbiting edifice was terrestrial in origin then, and not some unfathomable alien intrusion.
Why build it way out here, so far from home? Yes, the location offered easier access to the resources of the asteroid belt, but surely those would be offset by placing the facility, whatever its purpose, so distant from Earth? Each question Scott asked himself only led to others, and he had answers for none of them.
As he contemplated making a try for a main entrance as its doors parted beneath him, his ship’s receiver barked a query of its own.
“Shuttle on course 12-4-G. Identify yourself.”
What the ladies from hell? That the insistent query came from the black rectangle was confirmed by his instruments. What was he going to do now? What was he supposed to do? As Scott’s mind raced furiously, he was saved by an interjection from a second equally unfamiliar source.
“This is shuttle Hyperion, inbound. We’ve got six pallets of dilithium cells. Awaiting vector.”
Wait a minute, he told himself. They weren’t talking to me. Whoever they were. In fact, from the gist of what he had overheard, “they” weren’t even aware of his presence. Not surprising. This close in to the gas giant’s powerful magnetosphere, there was all kinds of distortion on the spectrum, and plenty of upper hybrid resonance instability. Communicating inside the Io plasma torus was difficult enough, and scanning more so. Subject to such powerful external influences, instruments didn’t behave the way engineers wanted them to.
And speaking of scanning, Scott was free to do a little of his own.
A check of his instrumentation followed by a glance through an overhead port revealed the presence of a dozen supply shuttles, of varying class and capacity, traveling in a loose formation and heading directly toward the black rectangle. The conversation he had overheard was already being subsumed in a jumble of overlapping exchanges between the shuttle crews and their mysterious destination.
“Shuttle Kirby: rations and personnel . . . This is the Athena; we’ve got storage pods . . . Trimble on approach, restoratives and boosters . . .”
As each of the arriving craft gave their name and detailed their cargo, it occurred to Scott that he might just possibly be able to lose himself in the confusion. Bringing himself down and around, he slipped easily into the cargo fleet’s scattered formation. There was plenty of room for Scott to maneuver among the other shuttlecraft. No one questioned his presence. After all, what would another single, small shuttlecraft be doing in Io’s vicinity? All current scientific work was performed by automated spacecraft and instrumentation.
Then what the haggis, Scott mused wonderingly, was this enormous structure he was entering?
As the supply fleet moved inside, he was able to resolve the finer details of its construction. He did not need much to tell him that what he was entering was a product of Starfleet engineering and design.
Something else drew his attention. His eyes widened and his mouth opened as he stared upward through a viewport.
Whatever that unknown intangible might be, its physical manifestation was mighty impressive. His eyes widened as he caught his first glimpse of it through the shuttle’s forward port. His whispered verbal reaction was as heartfelt as it was involuntary.
“Holy shit . . .”
Dr. McCoy stood by and watched as Carol Marcus used a specialized tool and monitor to open an outer protective panel, and then a second inner one. Carefully examining the interior of the weapon, she instructed him without taking her eyes from her work.
“There’s a bundle of cables against the inner near casing.” She studied the monitor. “You’ll need to cut the twenty-third one down to eliminate contact between the internal controls and the detonator. I’ll direct, you cut.” She smiled. “Can’t search-scan and cut a
t the same time; it’s far too tricky and the internal instrumentation much too densely packed. Which is why I needed your help. Twenty-third wire,” she repeated. “I’ll guide you. Whatever you do, don’t touch anything else. Do you understand?”
“Thought never crossed my mind,” he replied tensely.
Since leaving the Enterprise, Carol Marcus had been all business. If anything, she now grew more serious than ever.
“Dr. McCoy, this is no joke. Touch nothing else. Nothing. The last thing we want is an automatic signal rerouting via accidental physical contact while you’re interdicting the original linkage. Wait for my word.”
Selecting a small precision cutter from the box of tools he had brought with him, McCoy sidled up close to the torpedo and peered down into the rectangular opening that had been created by the removal of the two panels. The interior was a daunting jumble of solid cables and optical state links. None of the links were glowing: They would not spring to life until and unless the torpedo’s more mundane but nonetheless critical components were activated. Gripping the cutter as firmly as any surgical instrument, he gently pushed his hand and arm into the opening and slid it into position.
“Cut nothing until I say,” she reminded him as her fingers danced over the monitor’s contacts. “I’m rerouting as much of the internal programming as I’m able to access in the absence of the relevant coding.”
With his arm plunged deep into the weapon, he looked over at her. “I don’t entirely understand what that signifies, but I’m ready.”
Her eyes never left the monitor she was now holding. “Okay, good luck. Here we go. On ‘one.’ You ready?”
“And rarin’.” He sighed. The sooner this was over with and they had learned what they needed to about the weapon, the sooner he would be back on the ship.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . .” A forefinger flicked across a contact on the face of the monitor.
There was a curt metallic sound as the outer panel unexpectedly snapped shut, sliding sharply backward to pin McCoy’s arm in place. He let out a yelp and tried to pull free. While the pressure on his upper arm was not cutting, it was plenty uncomfortable. Everything in the immediate area of contact began to throb as the main blood supply to his trapped limb was impaired. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a soft, steady, and not at all reassuring beeping had commenced somewhere deep within the torpedo.
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