* * *
Secure in sickbay and surrounded by guards who never took their eyes off him, Khan sat quietly, his expression blank, deep in thought and gazing at nothing in particular. Dr. McCoy studied the man. Peel back the layers of personality, of emotion, and what might one find? A murderous maniac or a man wronged by not one but two societies: his own of three centuries ago and today’s as represented by Alexander Marcus?
“Well, at least we’re moving again,” McCoy pointed out conversationally as he passed a tricorder over the prisoner’s face.
From where he was seated, Khan lifted his gaze to meet that of the doctor. “If you think you’re cleanly away, if you think you’re safe at warp—you’re wrong.”
McCoy just grunted at the prisoner’s reply, but it touched something in Carol Marcus. Having taken a break from her research, her eyes now grew wide at the prisoner’s remark. Before a curious McCoy could think to question her, she had bolted from the room.
* * *
Abnormal vibrations interspersed with the occasional atypical jolt were enough to let everyone on the bridge know that all was not right with the ship’s engines. Despite that, every pertinent readout indicated that they were traveling at the specified speed. The Enterprise continued through warp space until indicators showed that they were approaching their destination.
“Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet,” Kirk said from the command chair. “Identify us and tell them we were pursued into the Neutral Zone by an unmarked Federation ship.”
Uhura had to interrupt him. “Can’t do any of that, sir. Comms are down. All ship auxiliary power’s being diverted to warp.”
That’s a bit of information Chekov neglected to pass along, Kirk thought angrily. His temper dissipated as quickly as it had flared. Pressed into service in Scott’s absence, the navigator had performed multiple miracles in just getting the ship moving again. That he had somehow held things together long enough to reach the solar system was a wonderment of the first order. Chekov’s actions called for praise, not censure. Later, Kirk told himself, he might proffer a mild criticism or two. But they were not quite home, and he did not want to do or say anything that might interfere with the running of the ship.
He was almost relaxed when Carol Marcus came running out of the turbolift. “Permission to come on the bridge!” she exclaimed even as she was halfway to the command chair position. Her expression was frightened, her tone urgent. Kirk eyed her uncertainly. What did she want on the bridge?
“Dr. Marcus?”
“He’s going to catch up with us, and when he does, the only thing that’s going to stop him destroying this ship is me, so you have to let me talk to him.”
Preoccupied as he was, he did his best to reassure her. “Carol, we’re at warp. He can’t catch up with us.”
“Yes, he can.” She was utterly positive, he noted. “He’s been developing a ship that has Mark IV capabilities and—”
The sounding of the ship’s proximity alarm interrupted her, its blare counterpointed by cries of surprise and astonishment from bridge personnel. Of these, Kirk focused his attention on his helmsman.
“Mr. Sulu, what’s going on?”
Scarcely daring to look up from his instrumentation, Sulu found himself unable to avoid reporting the impossible. “Captain, I’m getting a reading I don’t understand. There’s a—distortion.” He squinted at one particular readout. “A very big distortion. There’s something in the warp tunnel behind us.”
* * *
This time, Admiral Marcus did not bother with professional niceties. Closing fast on the Enterprise, his state-of-the-art warship unleashed an array of powerful, state-of-the-art weaponry. Already barely traveling at warp on a wing, a prayer, and an assortment of increasingly frantic Russian entreaties, the Enterprise was rocked, jolted, and finally knocked sideways by a succession of explosions.
Airtight barriers slid shut as a hole was ripped in the side of the Enterprise. Under the relentless pull of escaping air, desperate screaming crewmembers clung to beams, instruments . . . anything that remained fastened to a wall or the floor. One by one, they were sucked down corridors that were now exposed to remorseless space, perishing quickly in the unforgiving void.
In Engineering, overstressed elements let out inorganic shrieks of their own as, pushed beyond all reasonable design boundaries, they began to fail despite the best efforts of frantic techs to keep the intricate mechanisms functioning. Entire sections went dark. Illumination returned only because of luciferin-based lighting that was chemically integrated into the coatings that covered walls, ceilings, and deck.
Under such a sustained attack, not even Chekov and his dedicated team of technicians could keep the warp drive functioning. With a shudder and an electric crackling that sounded like sheet metal being torn, the core slipped out of alignment. Yelling instructions, Chekov saw to it that it was shut down and its containment compartment sealed off before it could further damage the ship.
Conditions were not much better on the bridge. Emergency lighting only served to illuminate the extent of the damage. As crewmembers stumbled about suppressing incipient fires and shutting down instrumentation that was likely to ignite in the closed atmosphere, Kirk steadied himself in the command chair. Like his ship, he was shaken but still functional.
“Sulu, damage report!” Mentally calculating the time they had spent in warp space gave him only a general idea of their possible position. An unprogrammed drop out of warp could have deposited them anywhere. Chronologically if not spatially, they should be close to home, but . . . “Where are we?”
“Shields are dropping, all weapons systems are offline!” Sulu reported promptly, ignoring the gash on his head. “We’re twenty thousand kilometers from Luna.”
“Almost home,” Kirk muttered disconsolately. “So close.”
“Captain,” Spock announced, “Marcus’s ship clearly has advanced warp and weapons capabilities proportionate to her size.”
Another blast rocked the artificial gravity on the bridge. If they lost that, Kirk knew, they would be almost helpless. “Evasive maneuvers! Get us to Earth now! Full impulse! Once we cross the halfway point between home and the moon, we can—”
“Shields are gone, Captain,” Sulu broke in. “Impulse power failing! We’re losing the last of our powered forward momentum.”
Having been thrown hard to the deck by an earlier concussion, Carol Marcus finally managed to pull herself up and totter over to where Kirk was standing. Protocol forgotten, she stepped so close in front of Kirk that he could not avoid her.
“Please, we are going to die, all of us, if I don’t talk to him!”
Aware he was nearly out of options, Kirk now found himself contemplating a most unlikely one. “He won’t listen to me. Not now. What makes you think he’ll listen to you or anyone else?”
Her fingers tightened against him. “What have you got to lose by letting me try?!”
Kirk considered the badly damaged bridge, the fact that they were virtually defenseless against the warship’s advanced weaponry, and the potentially mortal wounds to the rest of the Enter prise. As a captain from an earlier time would have said, they were essentially dead in the water. Inclining his head in the general direction of Communications, he nodded reluctantly.
“Lieutenant Uhura—hail them.”
It required two work-arounds on her part just to generate a functional link. “Channel’s open—go.”
Shifting to one side, Kirk nudged a single control and then nodded at the anxious young woman standing beside him. Leaning forward, she addressed herself to the command chair pickup.
“Sir—it’s me, it’s Carol. I’m here. I’m on the Enterprise.”
No response, no reply. Two ships drifting in space: one crippled, the other looming nearby like some brooding vulture in armor. And no words passing between them.
On the silent bridge, Uhura checked her instrumentation and assured Kirk that as near as she could tell, a ship-to-ship lin
k was open and operating. Carol tried once more. “Sir—can you hear me?”
The viewscreen forward activated, the image at first flickering and unstable. While reception remained sporadic, the likeness of Alexander Marcus was unmistakable. He acted concerned, looked pissed, and sounded confused.
“What are you doing on that ship?”
Father or no father, it was plain to see that she was scared of the man on the other end of the communication. She would have one opportunity to convince him.
“I heard what you said—Father. That you made a mistake and now you’re doing everything you can to fix it. But, Dad—I don’t believe that the man who raised me is capable of destroying a starship—a Federation starship—full of innocent people to fulfill your aims. And if I’m wrong about that—” She paused to ensure that he knew she meant full well what she was saying. “—then I guess you’ll have to do it with me on board.”
A moment of silence ensued as Admiral Marcus pondered his lone daughter’s declaration of solidarity with the crew of the crippled ship. Reaching a decision, he leaned forward to peer intently into the vid pickup in front of his command chair. Unsettlingly, he did not sound particularly concerned.
“Actually, Carol—I won’t.” He glanced to his left.
Her eyes widened as the import of her father’s words struck home. As an all-too-familiar set of lights began to swarm her, she turned helplessly toward Kirk.
“Can we intercept their transport signal?” he called out.
“No, sir!” a tech quickly responded.
Racing past him, Carol ran for the turbolift. While she couldn’t hide from the other ship’s probing transporter signal, if she could just confuse it for a while, if she could only escape its grasp long enough to . . .
Kirk started after her, knowing that interposing himself in the field that was reaching out for her might just possibly throw it off enough to render at least the first attempt a failure. He was too slow, and she was gone before he could reach her. As Kirk caught himself, the now utterly cold and implacable voice of the admiral sounded behind him.
“Captain James T. Kirk: Without authorization and in league with the fugitive known as John Harrison, you and your crew went rogue in enemy territory, leaving me no choice but to hunt you down and destroy you.” He looked to his right. “Lock phasers.”
“Wait, sir!” Raising a hand, Kirk ran toward the forward screen. “Wait, wait, wait!”
“I’ll make this quick. Target all aft torpedoes on the renegade’s bridge.” Marcus turned away from his visual pickup.
“Wait!” Kirk shouted one last time. Now that he had no more choices, it was almost a relief. He did not have to think. He knew what he had to do. “Admiral, I take full responsibility for my actions. But they were my actions, and mine alone. I’m sorry.” He was pleading now. Though it was something at which he had little experience, he found it came naturally enough. In a sense, it was the exact opposite of how Spock would have responded. Whether it was sufficient to change anything, he would know in a moment.
“My crew was only following my orders. From my first officer . . . ” Over at the Science station Spock raised an eyebrow. “. . . to the lowest-ranking new inductee into Starfleet, they acted only as instructed. Following a captain’s orders should be reason for commendation, not termination. If I transmit Khan’s exact location to you now, all that I ask is that you spare them.” He stepped still closer to the screen and, by extension, the pickup that was transmitting his voice and image to the looming black ship.
“Please, sir,” Kirk continued. “Let them live. I’ll do anything you want, including and not restricted to turning myself over to you in concert with Khan. If, following that, it’s your intention to pronounce and carry out summary judgment on me, then I’ll accede to that without protest. There’ll be no request for clemency; I give you my word.”
Admiral Marcus processed Kirk’s speech without interrupting. When the captain of the Enterprise had finished, the older man sighed approvingly.
“Well, Captain, I have to say . . . that’s a hell of an apology. But if it’s any consolation . . . ” He paused meaningfully as he resumed his seat in the command chair. “. . . I was never going to spare your crew. Too many witnesses. Too many potentially awkward questions. My preference when dealing with a difficult situation was always to leave . . . a clean slate.” This time he did not even bother to glance to his right. “Fire.”
* * *
At the rear of the great warship, two banks of photon torpedoes that, in themselves, were larger than many Starfleet vessels unfolded like the devil’s hands. Each held more torpedoes than several ships the size of the Enterprise. With Marcus having given the command, as soon as they locked in position, they would unleash enough destruction to destroy a large planetoid.
* * *
Having left his station to move to Uhura’s, Spock now found his hand grasped tightly in hers. With seconds left in which to make their peace with eternity, other crewmembers both on and off the bridge composed final thoughts, embraced crewmates, or whispered words they had wanted to say but previously had not possessed the courage or wherewithal to do so.
As for James Kirk, he had done all he could. He turned toward his chief science and communications officers. At such a moment there was little to say.
“I’m sorry.”
Closing his eyes, he silently awaited the inevitable.
XIII
The inevitable came—and went. On board the giant warship, the weapons officer unenthusiastically but professionally inputted the command. When nothing happened, he repeated the instruction not once but several times. Concurrently with his final attempt, a falling whine filled the ship’s bridge—the sound of power dropping.
“Sir,” he reported, at once alarmed and confused, “our weapons won’t fire! Phasers and torpedoes alike are inoperative.”
“Shields are down,” came the startled counterpoint from the helm. “We’re losing power!”
Meanwhile the chief science officer eyed the descending numbers of his multiple readouts and summed up the situation with an exclamation that would have been understood but not duplicated by his counterpart on the Enterprise.
“Admiral—what the hell, sir?”
“Someone in Engineering just manually reset every system on the ship, sir!” declared the weapons officer. “Not only can’t we use our weapons—I can’t even access the relevant instrumentation!”
“What do you mean ‘someone’?” Marcus snarled. “WHO?”
* * *
On board the Enterprise, Sulu gazed in disbelief at his readouts. “Their weapons are powered down—sir.”
* * *
Deep within the giant ship, a lone figure came tearing around a far corner and down an empty corridor, throwing furtive looks behind him. If he was not being actively pursued at the moment, he knew he soon would be. That he had accomplished what he set out to do was nothing less than a minor miracle. While well aware that his efforts could not pass unnoticed, he hoped that he himself might be able to at least survive. For a little while longer, anyway.
Fumbling with the communicator he had not dared to activate until now, Montgomery Scott stammered into it even as he continued fleeing from his deliberate acts of sabotage.
“Enterprise—can ye hear me?!”
* * *
On the bridge of the Federation starship that should by now have been reduced to a rapidly expanding sphere of ragged fragments above Earth’s moon, Kirk’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Scotty . . . ?” He swallowed hard, not daring to believe what he had just heard.
The communications link was weak, but intelligible. Without waiting for a command from Kirk, Uhura was already working to isolate and enhance it. Meanwhile, Spock had hurried back to his station and was attempting to pinpoint the communication’s location. Thanks to their combined efforts, the chief engineer’s next words were far more audible.
“Gues
s what I found behind Jupiter, Captain?!”
A thoroughly dumbfounded Kirk could scarcely make sense of the question. “You’re on that ship?!”
“I’m sure as Ifrinn not on the Enterprise, Captain! An’ seein’ as how I’ve just committed an extensive act o’ treason against a Starfleet admiral and sabotage on Starfleet’s newest vessel, I’d bloody well like to get off this bloody ship—now beam me the hell out! You should ’ave me located by now—assumin’ Mr. Spock’s been doin’ his job and not lollygaggin’ about while I’ve been talking!”
The Enterprise’s science officer commented without looking up from his position. “Still fine-tuning for transfer, Captain. And,” he added in his usual monotone, “I do not ‘lollygag.’ ”
It was left to Kirk to respond to the frantic chief engineer. “Uh, we’re a little low on power at the moment, Scotty. That includes power for the transporter, I’m afraid. Stand by, we’re working on it . . . ”
“You stand by!” Scott howled back. “What happened to the Enterprise? If you don’t get me . . . ”
Was that the tattoo of boots on metal he was hearing via the chief’s communicator? Kirk wondered. He shouted a query, even though he knew that the ship’s instrumentation would automatically moderate the volume of his response.
“Scotty? Mr. Scott?!”
“Call you back,” was the last the captain heard from his ex–chief engineer.
“Scotty?”
There was no reply. Either the chief had been forced to run from pursuit, or else . . .
No. There could be no “or else.” Not now. The Enterprise had been spared, though for how long it was impossible to know. Moving to the back of the bridge, he confronted his science officer.
“Spock, our ship—how is she? Suggestions for immediate operations.”
“Our options remain very limited, Captain. We cannot fire and we cannot flee.”
“There is one option.” Kirk looked toward Communications. “Uhura, as soon as you can reestablish contact with Scotty, patch him through.” His gaze returned to his first. “Mr. Spock, you have the conn.” Turning away, he headed for the turbolift.
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