STAR TREK: TOS #7 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

by Vonda N. McIntyre (Novelization)

  [207] The huge collapsed cloud began to spiral around the nexus that had been Reliant. It quickly coalesced, shrinking behind them. Kirk watched, awed.

  “Reduce speed,” he said softly.

  Saavik complied. The new planet stabilized in their sight.

  The turbo-lift doors opened, and Carol Marcus came onto the bridge. She did not speak.

  Jim heard her, turned, reached toward her.

  “Carol, my God, look at it. ...” It was so beautiful it made him want to cry.

  Carol took his hand.

  Kirk opened a channel to the engine room.

  “Well done, Scotty,” he said.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the science officer’s station.

  “Spock—”

  He stopped, looked around the bridge, and frowned.

  “Where’s Spock?”

  In front of him, Saavik shuddered. Her shoulders slumped. She did not face him.

  “He left,” she whispered. “He went ... to the engine room.” She covered her face with her hands.

  Kirk stared at her, horrified.

  “Jim!” McCoy’s voice was harsh and intense over the intercom. “I’m in the engine room. Get down here. Jim—hurry!”

  For the first time since he began his pursuit of Khan Singh, James Kirk felt cold fear.

  “Saavik, take the conn!”

  He sprinted for the lift.

  Chapter 9

  Jim Kirk pounded down the corridors of his ship. They had never seemed so long, so cold.

  He caught himself against the entryway of the engine room. It was a shambles: every emergency light flashing, sirens wailing, injured crew members moaning as the medical team tended to them.

  He finally managed to catch his breath.

  “Spock—?”

  Scott and McCoy, near the impenetrable glass panels of the reactor room, turned toward him with horror in their faces. He understood instantly what had happened, what Spock had done. Jim forced his way past them to the hatch control. Scott dragged him away.

  “Ye canna do it, sir, the radiation level—”

  “He’ll die!”

  McCoy grabbed his shoulders. “He’s dead, Jim. He’s already dead.”

  “Oh, God. ...”

  Jim pressed against the heavy glass window, shielding away reflections and light with his arms and hands.

  On his hands and knees, trying to stand up, Mr. Spock hunched beside the door.

  “Spock!”

  Spock barely raised his head, hearing Jim’s voice through the thick panel. He reached for the intercom, his hand bloody and shaking.

  “Spock. ...” Jim said softly.

  “The ship ... ?” His face was horribly burned, and [209] the pain in his voice made Jim want to scream with grief.

  “Out of danger, out of the Genesis wave. Thanks to you, Spock.”

  Spock fought for breath.

  “Spock, damn, oh, damn—”

  “Don’t grieve. The good of the many ...”

  “... outweighs the good of the few,” Kirk whispered. But found he no longer believed it; or even if he did, he did not care. Not this time.

  “Or the one.” Spock dragged himself to his feet, and pressed his bleeding hand against the glass.

  Jim matched it with his own, as if somehow he could touch Spock’s mind through the glass, take some of his pain upon himself, give his friend some of his own strength. But he could not even touch him.

  “Don’t ... grieve. ...” Spock said again. “It had to be done. I alone could do it. Therefore it was logical. ...”

  Damn your logic, Spock, Jim thought. Tears spilled down his face. He could barely see.

  “I never faced Kobayashi Maru,” Spock said. His voice was failing; he had to stop and draw in a long shuddering breath before he could continue. “I wondered what my response would be. Not ... I fear ... an original solution. ...”

  “Spock!”

  Saavik’s voice broke in over the intercom.

  “Captain, the Genesis world is forming. Mr. Spock, it’s so beautiful—”

  Infuriated, Kirk slammed the channel closed, cutting off Saavik’s voice. But Spock nodded, his eyes closed, and perhaps, just a little, he smiled.

  “Jim,” he said, “I have been, and will be, your friend. I am grateful for that. Live long, and prosper. ...”

  His long fingers clenched into seared claws; the agony of the assault of radiation overcame him. He fell.

  [210] “Spock!” Jim cried. He pounded the glass with his fists. “Oh, God, no ... !”

  McCoy tried to make him leave. Jim snarled and thrust him violently away. He hunched against the window, his mind crying denial and disbelief.

  Much later that night, Lieutenant Saavik moved silently through the dim corridors of the Enterprise. She saw no one: only a few crew members remained on duty, forced to grapple with their exhaustion.

  When she reached the stasis room, she paused, reluctant to enter. She drew a deep breath and went into the darkness.

  Far too many of the stasis boxes radiated the faint blue glow that showed they were in operation. Protected by the stasis fields, the body of Peter Preston and the bodies of the other people who had died on this mission waited to be returned to their families.

  But Captain Spock’s will stated that he was not to be taken to Vulcan; his wishes would be respected.

  His sealed coffin stood in the middle of the chamber. Saavik laid one hand against its sleek side. Her grief was so intense that she could react with neither rage nor tears.

  In the morning, James Kirk had decreed, Spock’s body would be consigned to space and to a fast-decaying orbit around the Genesis world, where it would burn in the atmosphere to ashes, to nothing.

  Saavik sat cross-legged in the corner, rested her hands on her knees, and closed her eyes. She could not have explained to anyone why she was here, for her reason was irrational.

  On Hellguard, if someone died at night and was not watched, their body would be gone by morning, stripped by scavengers and torn to bits by animals. Seldom was anyone buried. Saavik had never cared enough about anyone on Hellguard to remain with them through the night.

  Captain Spock and Peter Preston did not need a [211] guard, not here on the Enterprise. But this gesture was the only one she could make to them, the only two people she had ever cared about in the universe.

  She stayed.

  She hoped Spock had heard her before he died. She had wanted him to know that Genesis worked, partly because he had respected the people who built it, so many of whom had died to protect it, but primarily because its formation meant his sacrifice had been meaningful. The creation was the result of destruction, and the Enterprise and all its crew would have been caught up in that instant’s cataclysm had Spock failed to act as he did. Saavik had wanted Spock to know the destruction had ended, and that creation had begun.

  She knew Admiral Kirk misunderstood what she had done, and why. But Saavik’s essential inner core had dictated her actions then, as it did now. Admiral Kirk’s opinion was of no significance.

  Tears slid down Saavik’s face.

  Yet she remained free of the madness. Rage was absent from her sorrow. She hoped, someday, that she might understand why. Someday.

  The hours passed, and Saavik let her thoughts wander. She remembered hiding, shivering and hungry, hoping to steal a piece of bread or a discarded shred of warming-fabric, outside the Vulcan exploration party’s Hellguard camp. Saavik had spied on the Vulcans as they argued till dawn, with unvarying courtesy and considerable venom, about the Romulans’ castoffs, particularly the half-breed children.

  That was the first time Saavik had had any idea who and what she was. Only Spock had given her the potential for something more.

  When, during the final battle with Khan Singh, Saavik realized Spock had left the bridge, she knew what he planned and what the result would be. She had been a moment away from trying to stop him.

  Only the control he had taught
her had kept her at her post, because it was her duty. She had regretted her [212] action—her failure to act—ever since. In death Spock affected all those around him, just as he had in life. Someone should have taken his place whose passing no one would lament.

  She might have been able to stop him: though his experience was enormously greater, Saavik was younger than he, and faster.

  If she had been able to stop him, would she have had the courage to take his place? She wanted to believe she would have; for had she not, everyone on the ship would be dead, dissolved into sub-elementary particles and reformed into the substance of the Genesis world.

  Saavik had no belief in soul or afterlife. She had read various philosophies; she accepted none. A person died; scavengers destroyed the body. That was all.

  Yet as the hours passed and her concentration deepened, her feeling that somehow, somewhere, Spock’s consciousness retained some of its integrity grew stronger.

  “Spock,” she said aloud, “can you see what has happened? Are you there? Are you anywhere? A world has formed; the Genesis wave is still resonating within the nebula, forming a new sun to give the world light and sustain its life. Soon the wave will die away, and the universe will have another star system. But it will be one among millions, one among billions, and you taught me to value uniqueness. Your uniqueness is gone.”

  Suddenly she opened her eyes. She thought, for a moment, she had heard something, some reply—

  Saavik shook her head. The strange hours before morning could give one any mad thought.

  Mr. Sulu woke slowly, coming to consciousness in the dim night illumination of sick bay. He had a raging headache, he felt as if someone were sitting on his chest, and his hands hurt. He tried to get up.

  A moment later, Dr. Chapel was at his side. She made him lie down again.

  [213] “What happened?” His voice came out a hoarse croak. He tried to clear his throat. “Why—”

  “The oxygen dries your throat,” Dr. Chapel said. “It will go away.” She held a glass so he could take a sip of water.

  “We’ve been pretty worried about you,” she said. “You’re all right, though; everything’s going to be all right.”

  He tried to touch the sore spot in the middle of his chest, but the palms of his hands were covered with pseudoskin, and he could not feel anything. He realized what the soreness must be. He frowned.

  “Did I have to be resuscitated?” he asked.

  Chapel nodded. “David Marcus saved your life.”

  “I don’t remember. ...”

  “You shouldn’t expect to. You were nearly electrocuted. A little memory loss is normal. Your brain scan is fine.”

  “What about Khan?”

  “Dead.” She stood up. “Go back to sleep, Hikaru.”

  He reached out: his hands were too stiff to stop her, but she paused.

  “Chris,” he said, “something more is wrong. What is it? Please.”

  “Mr. Spock,” she said very softly.

  “Spock—! What—?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, gods. ...”

  Chris Chapel started to cry. She hurried away.

  Sulu stayed where he was, stunned with disbelief.

  Jim Kirk sat alone in the dark of his cabin. He had not moved in hours; his mind kept turning in circles, smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter.

  Someone knocked on his door.

  He did not answer.

  A pause. The knock again, a little louder.

  “What do you want?” he cried. “Leave me alone!”

  The door opened, and Carol stood silhouetted in the [214] light from the corridor outside. She came in and closed the door.

  “No, Jim,” she said. “I won’t leave you alone. Not this time.” She knelt before him and took his hands in hers.

  He slumped down; his forehead rested on their clasped hands.

  “Carol, I just don’t ... I keep thinking, there must be something I could have done, that I should have done—” He shuddered and caught his breath, righting the tears.

  “I know,” Carol said. “Oh, Jim, I know.” She put her arms around him. As Jim had held her when she grieved for her friends, she held him.

  When he slipped into an exhausted, troubled sleep, she eased him down on the couch, took off his boots, and covered him with a blanket from his bed. She kissed him lightly. Then, since there was nothing else she could do for him, she did leave him alone.

  When morning came, Saavik rose smoothly from her place in the corner of the stasis room. She had found a measure of serenity in her vigil, a counterweight to her grief. She bid a final farewell to her teacher and to her student, then left the stasis room. She had many duties to take care of, duties to the ship and to Mr. Spock.

  The ship’s company assembled, in full dress, at 0800 hours. Saavik took her place at the torpedo guidance console and programmed in the course she had selected.

  Accompanied by Carol and David Marcus and Dr. McCoy, Admiral Kirk came in last.

  The ship’s veterans, the people who had known Mr. Spock best, stood together in a small group: Mr. Sulu, Commander Uhura, Dr. Chapel, Mr. Chekov, Mr. Scott. They all watched the admiral, who looked tired and drawn. He stood before the crew of the Enterprise, staring at the deck, not speaking.

  [215] He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and faced them.

  “We have assembled here,” he said, “in accordance with Starfleet traditions, to pay final respects to one of our own. To honor our dead ...” He paused a long time. “... and to grieve for a beloved comrade who gave his life in place of ours. He did not think his sacrifice a vain or empty one, and we cannot question his choice, in these proceedings.

  “He died in the shadow of a new world, a world he had hoped to see. He lived just long enough to know it had come into being.”

  Beside Admiral Kirk, Dr. McCoy tried to keep from breaking down, but failed. He stared straight ahead, with tears spilling down his cheeks.

  “Of my friend,” Admiral Kirk said, “I can only say that of all the souls I have encountered his was—” he looked from face to face around the company of old friends, new ones, strangers; he saw Dr. McCoy crying, “—the most human.”

  Admiral Kirk’s voice faltered. He paused a moment, tried to continue, but could not go on. “Lieutenant Saavik,” he said softly.

  Saavik armed the torpedo guidance control with the course she had so carefully worked out, and moved forward.

  “We embrace the memory of our brother, our teacher.” Her words were inadequate, and she knew it. “With love, we commit his body to the depths of space.”

  Captain Sulu moved from the line. “Honors: hut.”

  The ship’s company saluted. Mr. Scott began to play his strange musical instrument. It filled the chamber with a plaintive wail, a dirge that was all too appropriate.

  The pallbearers lifted Spock’s black coffin into the launching chamber. It hummed closed, and the arming lock snapped into place.

  [216] Saavik nodded an order to the torpedo officer. He fired the missile.

  With a great roar of igniting propellant, the chamber reverberated. The bagpipes stopped. Silence, eerie and complete, settled over the room. The company watched the dark torpedo streak away against the silver-blue shimmer of the new world, until the coffin shrank and vanished.

  Sulu waited; then said, “Return: hut.”

  Saavik and the rest returned to attention.

  “Lieutenant,” the admiral said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The watch is yours,” he said quietly. “Set a course for Alpha Ceti V to pick up Reliant’s survivors.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “I’ll be in my quarters. But unless it’s an emergency ...”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Dismiss the company.”

  He started out of the room. He saw Carol, but he could not say to her what he wanted to—not here, not now; he saw David, watching him intently. The young man took a ste
p toward him.

  Jim Kirk turned on his heel and left.

  Saavik dismissed the company. She gazed one last time at the new planet.

  “Lieutenant—”

  She turned. David Marcus had hung back from the others, waiting for her.

  “Yes, Dr. Marcus?”

  “Can we stop the formality? My name’s David. Can I call you Saavik?”

  “If you wish.”

  “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about Mr. Spock.”

  “I, too,” she said.

  “When we talked the other day—I could tell how [217] much you cared about him. I’m sorry it sounded like I was insulting him. I didn’t mean it that way. To him or to you.”

  “I know,” she said. “I was very harsh to you, and I regret it. Starfleet has brought you only grief and tragedy. ...”

  David, too, glanced at the new planet, which his friends on Spacelab had helped to design.

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “I’ll miss those folks—a lot. It was such a damned waste. ...”

  “They sacrificed themselves for your life, as Spock gave himself for us. When I took the Kobayashi Maru test—” she paused to see if David remembered their conversation back on Regulus I; he nodded, “—Admiral Kirk told me that the way one faces death is at least as important as how one faces life.”

  David looked thoughtful and glanced the way James Kirk had gone, but of course his father had long since departed.

  “Do you believe, now, that he is your father?” Saavik asked.

  He started. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Saavik smiled. “We perhaps have something in common, David. Do you remember what you said to him?”

  “When?”

  “When you tried to kill him. You called him, if my memory serves me properly, a ‘dumb bastard.’ ”

  “I guess I did. So?”

  “He is not—to my knowledge—a bastard. But I am. And if Admiral Kirk is your father, then I believe the terminology, in its traditional sense, fits you as well.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “I’m beginning to think the ‘dumb’ part fits me even better.”

  He reached out quickly and touched her hand.

  “I really want to talk to you some more,” he said suddenly. “But there’s something I have to do first.”