They kept at it, doing their best, each man and woman calculating and recalculating in their mind as they strove to create an equilibrium out of uncooperative difficulties.
* * *
It took Chekov longer than he’d hoped but less than he feared to reach the auxiliary engineering station. Heaving aside the protective cover to expose the controls beneath, he was confronted by switches that were as archaic as they were functional. Levers and switches might be old-fashioned, but there were times when something made of metal and composites could operate efficiently while pure electronics were down.
The double connector was dark red and labeled “Main Router.” Closing it required Chekov to employ both hands and all of his strength. Straining, he threw it forward until it snapped into place—and hoped it would work.
* * *
The great warship tumbled, burning internally, weaponless, without shields—but not entirely without control. Dragging himself to the forward console, a wounded but still functional Khan fought to make his orders heard above the crackle and thunder of instruments exploding and structural elements failing all around him.
“New destination!” he roared. “Starfleet headquarters!”
“Engines compromised,” announced the voice of the ship’s computer. “Cannot guarantee we will reach intended destination. Specified destination off-limits. Do you confirm order?”
Khan’s one-word response emerged as a snarl. “Confirmed.”
* * *
Scott cried out when he and Kirk finally reached Engineering. He couldn’t help himself. His beloved section was a mess. Devoid of staff, stressed by the abrupt shifts in gravity, and reflecting the serious damage that had been done during the violent encounter with the warship, to his engineer’s eyes it did not look capable of generating enough energy to power a handcart, much less a starship.
“Oh, no,” he cried as he studied the active readouts, “nonononooooo . . .!”
“What?” Standing behind the chief and resting his hands on his knees, an exhausted Kirk’s cry was a challenge, an expression of sympathy, and a desperate query all wrapped up in a single exclamation.
The longer he studied the available readouts, the deeper Scott’s anguish grew. “This isn’t going to work, Captain. Even if we can restore enough power to drive the ship on impulse power, we kinna redirect it. The main core power thread is decoupled, out of alignment. We could maybe get power back up, but we kinna send it where we want it. Och, with the decoupling the way it is now, we kinna send it anywhere! The ship’s dead, sir. She’s gone.”
While Kirk had been listening to Scott’s technological lamentation, he had also been studying the main readout. Though lacking in complete familiarity with some of the technical terms on display, and even more so with the majority of numerical summations, he was able to make sense of the schematics that methodically changed as relevant information was automatically updated. With his eyes he traced the central lambent outline.
“No, she’s not.” Turning to his left, he sprinted in the direction of the central core.
Scott followed. “Jim, wait! This isn’t some child’s puzzle game. We kinna actually manually realign it. It would take a whole tech team working with specialized equipment to do that, and never while the core’s still active. Even if we had a team, we could not shut the core down, because in its present condition, we might not be able to get it restarted again. Not in time, anyway. Jim, will ya listen to me?!”
Kirk did not comment. Halting outside the core containment area, he reached for the door control panel, tapped out code on still-functioning keys, and then placed his open palm over the appropriate bioscanner.
“Captain, what are you doing?” Scott began, only to have an unwavering Kirk cut him off.
“I’m going in.”
Verging on the apoplectic, the chief gestured at the transparent barrier. “As you well know, that door is there, Captain, to prevent us from getting fatally irradiated! We’d be dead before we ever finished the climb to the damaged area.”
“You’re not making the climb.”
Kirk having made his intentions inescapably clear, Scott moved to block his friend’s path. “No. Captain . . . I kinna let you. . . . ”
“I understand, Scotty. I appreciate your concern, and you’re probably right.” Dropping his head, he half turned as if to lead back the way they had come—but it was only to allow him to put more force behind the punch he threw. It was possible Scott saw it coming. Realization did not allow him to dodge the blow, however, and he fell back, unconscious.
“On the other hand,” Kirk murmured as he carefully sat the stunned chief safely down nearby and started for the entrance to the core cavity, “you might be wrong. I’m counting on it.” Returning to the bioscanner, he repeated the hand press that would identify him. It promptly released the door handle. Pulling and turning on it caused the portal to slide obediently aside.
At least there was enough localized auxiliary power for the doorway to function, Kirk thought as it opened before him. As he stepped through, he lingered briefly in the portal to look back. Montgomery Scott, the best chief of engineering in Starfleet, remained unconscious and with eyes closed. It was not the memory of his chief that he would have preferred to carry with him into the core, but it would have to do. The door closed automatically behind him.
Once on the other side, he immediately felt the excess heat. It permeated his surroundings. Undirected, unchanneled, even the very limited amount of energy that was being produced by the damaged core was hard to tolerate. While he could not keep from feeling it, he could try not to think about it. Training and determination were all that kept him moving as he made his way deeper into the engine area and began to ascend the main generator complex.
With every step, Kirk knew the radiation swirling around him was poisoning his system. Already he was weakening, his muscles refusing to respond to the commands sent from his brain. Even if he were to turn back now, there was no way he would be able to make it back to the safety barrier. Fortunately that was of no concern, since he never did have any intention of retracing his increasingly irregular footsteps.
Emerging from the access tube inside the top of the generator complex, he looked upward. There. The critical core component that had been isolated on the engineering console schematic was plainly out of alignment, its lower half listed drunkenly to one side, its multiple focusing beams dark and unaligned with their matching counterparts looming above. Standing there, he knew he was losing strength by the second.
He started up.
The climb was grueling. He could feel himself growing weaker with every push of his legs, every strain on his arms. The unrestricted radiation burned into him. It was taking forever to get to the core center. The higher he climbed, the farther away it seemed to become, as if it was retreating not only from his increasingly flickering vision but from his failing body itself. More than once, he nearly fell.
Then there were no more conduits to surmount, no more cables to avoid.
He paused at the top, fighting for breath. Directly in front of him, the misaligned lower unit lay askew at an angle for which it had never been designed.
Reaching up, he gripped a section of the unit overhead and swung his body forward, slamming both feet into the lower projecting unit.
Seemingly frozen in place, the heavy device didn’t budge.
He repeated the gesture, striking down and forward again and again, each time trying to project all his weight and strength through his feet as he kicked out. His quads trembled as his feet slammed into the immobile component. The shock of each contact ran upward through his legs, threatening to reduce his rapidly weakening muscles to jelly. Still he kept pounding away at the misaligned device.
It began to shift. A little.
He continued swinging and kicking, wondering whether his heart and lungs would give out before his legs. Soon his vision began to blur, and not just from the perspiration that was streaming down his face
and into his eyes. He could barely see well enough now to focus on his target. It was still shifting, but not nearly enough, nor fast enough. Swing, kick, gather strength; swing, kick, hope for strength; swing, kick . . .
Giving way suddenly to one side, the projection component slid away from him—and cleanly into place. Its arrival there was greeted by a rapid succession of clicks, a rising whirr, and a flash of blinding white light as the proximate coupling beam re—engaged. The force of it broke his overhead grip, sending him flying backward and down, to land heavily on the first access walkway below.
Engineering consoles and instrumentation that had long since gone quiescent snapped back to life.
* * *
On the bridge, a disbelieving Sulu found himself gaping at a string of messages as welcome as they were unexpected.
“Full power back online!”
“Maximum thrusters, Mr. Sulu,” Spock ordered immediately.
“Stand by, stand by!” the helmsman shouted.
As the ship plunged through the first thick layer of cumulus clouds, the sudden and unexpected restoration of full sound and light took everyone on the bridge by surprise. Their Academy instructors would have been proud to see how quickly and professionally their former students reacted.
“Hold on!” Sulu ordered. With everyone cocooned in their emergency harnesses, it was a superfluous command, but fingers instinctively tightened on armrests nonetheless. Manually manipulating the helm controls like a pianist essaying Busoni, Sulu not only adjusted the ship’s internal gravity while compensating for that of the ever-nearer planetary surface, he also managed while only employing impulse power to bring the shocked Enterprise back from the brink of what had become a toxic trajectory.
Unseen and unappreciated by anyone save its exhausted crew, the Enterprise began to rise slowly, bursting upward like some dragon of legend through the white clouds through which it had helplessly fallen only moments before.
Sweat pouring off him even as life support came fully back online, Sulu noted the attitude adjustment with satisfaction.
“Shields restored,” declared one officer from his station.
“Commander, power online,” added the ensign seated next to him, glancing back in the direction of the command chair.
“Gaining altitude en route to establishing stable orbit,” Sulu announced. “Once we’ve done that, I’ll try easing us farther out. Then we can see about limping to the nearest dock for repairs. Altitude is stabilizing.”
“It’s a miracle,” insisted the officer at the next station over.
“There are no such things,” Spock felt compelled to declare.
As everyone sat contemplating their near demise, each lost in his or her own thoughts, Scott’s voice sounded over the fully restored intercom system. “Engineering to bridge. Mr. Spock?”
“I am here, Mr. Scott. Since it would appear that congratulations are in order all around, I am pleased to—”
The chief didn’t wait for him to finish. “Never mind that now, Mr. Spock. You’d better get down here.”
Everyone heard. Not just the words, but what was implied in the tone of the chief engineer’s voice. All but ripping himself out of his emergency harness, Spock rose and raced for the lift. Everyone watched him go. Everyone, Uhura included, had the sense not to say anything.
* * *
Elsewhere, another ship, much larger and in far worse shape, trailing fresh flames as it struck atmosphere, plunged toward the surface below as huge chunks of torn and twisted metal, fiery internal components, and disintegrating pieces of its interior formed a wild trail of destruction. It fell rather than flew, almost completely out of control.
Almost . . .
* * *
It is one thing to expect the worst; quite another to have it confirmed. Rushing into Engineering and reaching the outer core maintenance area, Spock slowed as he saw Scott standing by the nearest operations console. It took the science officer a moment longer before his gaze picked out Kirk—on the other side of the transparent sealed emergency barrier. Having fallen from the upper level where his reckless effort had succeeded in restoring power to the ship, he had since crawled to where he now lay, just beyond the sealed doors.
He was not moving.
Eyeing the barrier, Spock didn’t hesitate. “Open it.” When Scott failed to comply, the science officer moved to enter the necessary coding himself. Reluctantly but firmly, Scott addressed the over-anxious Vulcan.
“The decontamination process is not complete. We’d flood the whole compartment with radiation, Mr. Spock. You know that. We’d risk losing control of what we’ve regained.” He nodded toward the barrier. “Of everything the captain regained for us.” As Spock stepped back, Scott indicated another set of instrumentation. “I’m bringin’ the radiation levels in there down as fast as is possible. It’s not like moppin’ up a water spill.” There was not a hint of sarcasm in his explanation.
Turning back to the barrier, Spock moved closer and dropped into a crouch. Responding to the science officer’s appearance, Kirk somehow forced his gravely weakened body to respond. Internal pickups relayed his barely perceptible words to those on the other side of the transparency.
“How’s our ship . . . ?”
Spock swallowed hard. For the first time in his life he wished fervently to deny the evidence of his eyes.
This could not be happening.
“Out of danger,” he heard himself saying. “You saved the Enterprise. You saved the crew.”
Kirk managed a smile. Feeble, but recognizable. Weakened, yet indomitable. “And you . . . used what he wanted . . . against him, Spock. Nice move.”
There was an unfamiliar taste in Spock’s mouth. “It is what you would have done.”
A sigh emerged from the other man’s lips. “And when Scotty indicated to me that if I came in here I was a dead man—I did what you would’ve done.”
If not for the hum of recently revived machines, it would have been completely silent in the area. Uhura arrived, slowing to a stop beside Scott, and likewise said nothing.
“Any . . . advice?” Kirk finally managed to eke out.
Another difficult swallow. “Captain?”
Exerting a supreme effort, Kirk raised his head so that their eyes met. “I’m . . . scared, Spock. Strange sensation. Not . . . used to it. Help me . . . not be. How do you choose . . . not to feel?”
Staring through the glass at his commanding officer—at his friend—Spock replied as straightforwardly as he could.
“Vulcans cannot lie. I do not know.” His voice cracked. “Right now I am failing. Because you are my friend.”
Reaching up and forward, Kirk just did manage to put his open palm against the inside of the barrier. Spock did the same on the opposite side. It was as close as one man could get to the other.
“Take care of our ship, Spock.”
A tear slipped from the science officer’s left eye.
Kirk’s hand held its position against the transparency for a moment longer. Then it slid downward, down, as the captain’s eyes turned away from those of his first officer, to gaze upward. They stopped moving.
On the captain’s side of the emergency barrier, there was no more movement at all. Spock studied the still form opposite him for a long moment as Scott and Uhura struggled to comfort each other.
Then the Vulcan’s lips parted and a single sound, more of a roar than a word, erupted from the bottom of his throat as he howled at the top of his lungs.
A name.
“KHHAAAAANNNNNNNNN!”
XVII
Screaming past the Enterprise, the gargantuan metallic corpse that was the late Admiral Marcus’s warship hurled toward Earth, leaving Sulu gaping at his monitors.
“Holy shit, that was close!”
* * *
Far below, the appearance of the plunging warship drew the attention first of a few, and then of everyone out on San Francisco’s streets. Initially, people stared—and as the huge ves
sel drew nearer, smoke pouring from its crippled engine nacelles, they began to scatter in panic.
Though the consequences of his doomed ship’s arrival were devastating enough, it did not strike precisely where Khan had hoped. As if by a giant hand, the ancient monument that was the prison on the island of Alcatraz was scraped clean from its rocky promontory. The collision was just enough to critically slow the vessel’s descent and alter its intended trajectory. Instead of smashing into and through Starfleet headquarters, it plunged into the bay.
Its momentum, however, was sufficient to send it through the water and slashing into the city bay-front. Tower after tower succumbed to the sickening impact, crumbling before the onrushing mass, until the wreck of what had not long ago been the most powerful vessel in Starfleet’s arsenal finally came to a grinding, groaning halt.
The concomitant wave that rose out of the harbor swept across the low-lying harbor front, inundating facilities, smashing apart landscaping, and tossing vehicles about like toys. Caught in the surge, stunned onlookers struggled to stay afloat. Those who managed to ride out the wave or reach higher ground fought to save those who could not do so on their own.
In guiding the crippled ship to its end, Khan’s suicidal act gave rise to a thousand acts of bravery. There were numerous injuries and unavoidable deaths, but the greater carnage he had hoped to inflict did not occur. The slightest of maladjustments that had affected the intended course of the warship’s death dive meant that many more survived who would otherwise have perished.
* * *
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Spock and his colleagues had tracked the descending warship to its final resting place. Staring at the view forward, Spock snapped a crisp command.
“Search the enemy ship for signs of life.”
Sulu studied his readouts for a moment before responding. “Sir, there’s no way anyone could have survived that impact.”
Star Trek Into Darkness Page 24