The Trellisane Confrontation

by David Dvorkin

  A computer's voice replied: "Bridge has been declared closed to all personnel not on duty there now."

  "Och, you stupid—" Scott stopped and brought himself under control. "This is the chief engineer, and this is an emergency. I'm ordering you to override that and take me to the bridge." After a pause, as if the decision were a painful one, the elevator lurched into motion. Scott rebuked himself for taking his feelings out on the machine, which was doing no more than following the orders of fallible humans. He suppressed the desire to utter an apology. He liked certain people, and he liked certain brands of Scotch whiskey and some brandies, but he liked virtually every machine he had ever encountered.

  When the elevator reached the bridge level, the doors refused to open. The computer spoke again, almost sounding apologetic this time: "Bridge is closed." Scott could almost imagine it adding, "Sure you don't want to reconsider?"

  He lost his temper again. "You know my voiceprint. Open the damned door!"

  The doors swished open this time, and Scott stormed out onto the bridge. "Mr. Sulu," he bellowed, "I want to know just what's—" Too late to retreat, he saw the phasers leveled at him from all sides. Someone he didn't know sat in the captain's chair and stared at him appraisingly. "Who are you?" this stranger said coolly.

  Scott forgot the phasers and strode forward until he stood next to the captain's chair. "Who are you, that's what I want to know, and what's going on up here? Why are you in that chair?"

  "Scotty." Sulu's voice, tired, defeated. Scott turned toward him, disturbed to find that Sulu, who he had been told was to have the con, was on the bridge though obviously not in command. "Scotty, just cooperate with them."

  Scott looked around and measured the situation. Strangers, all armed and all alert, and all looking at him hostilely. The bridge crew sitting slumped at their stations, all looking as tired and defeated as Sulu sounded. Uhura looked up at him, her gaze dull, almost without recognition, and then she turned back to her communications console. Only Chekov showed anything approaching liveliness, and even that was far less than he had learned to expect from the young Russian. Scott did a quick mental calculation. If he remembered the latest duty roster correctly, most of these people shouldn't even be here, should have gone off duty hours ago. He turned back to the man in the command chair and glared at him. "Okay, mister, I'll tell you that I'm the chief engineer of this ship, and now you'd better talk."

  Hander Morl, to his own surprise, felt intimidated, in spite of the four armed killers on the bridge who were at his instant beck and call. He couldn't show that, however, or his control over this ship would become even more precarious than he feared it already was. He smiled at Scott calmly, superciliously, and told him just who he was. "I'm in control of this ship, Engineer," he said, "and in not too many hours, I'm going to take it into the Romulan Neutral Zone and start a war."

  "A war! Good God, man!" Scott took a deep breath and tried again. "Now let me tell you what's really going to happen. Our speed is already dropping, and it's going to keep on dropping. If we're all lucky, this ship will come to a stop and drop out of warp into normal space. If we're all unlucky, the whole scow will disappear in a cloud of vapor when the warp reactor blows. I've got repairs to do! I've been calling up here to tell you that, and I've been getting doubletalk." He glared at Morl. "And I suppose you were behind that, too."

  Morl licked his lips, ignoring the chief engineer. He muttered, "We can't stop. Or slow down." Suddenly he stood up and pointed his phaser at Chekov. His voice shook with rage. "You! You must have known we were slowing down, and you didn't tell me!"

  "You didn't ask me," Chekov said sweetly. He reminded himself that he had always wondered what it felt like to die by phaser; it looked like he was about to find out.

  The Nactern warrior with whom Chekov had been so unsuccessful earlier stepped between him and Morl and said firmly, "Don't be a fool, Hander. You know we need him. A small delay won't hurt."

  Sulu flashed him a quick look, but Chekov kept his face impassive. Perhaps, he thought, his investment was already paying dividends.

  Morl sat down in the command chair again, trembling from the reaction to his own anger but also from a sudden fear that all was going to end in disaster after all. "Let me think," he whispered. Could he take the chance of continuing as they were? The man obviously knew his job—Morl respected the capabilities of Star Fleet personnel, even if he thought their motives smacked of cowardice. If the ship blew up, nothing would have been gained; Morl and his people would have died without purpose, without starting the war. Even if the warp engines blew or failed without destroying the ship, they'd be reduced to impulse power, and Morl knew that it would take months or even years to reach the Neutral Zone. They might be caught and stopped long before that. Everything was falling apart! His grand plan, the wonderful opportunity this fortuitous seizure of one of Star Fleet's proudest vessels had provided—it had seemed at first as if the Fates themselves were on the side of the United Expansion Party, as indeed Morl had always thought they were. Now he was faced with failure no matter which course he took.

  He licked his lips again. "How long would that maintenance you mentioned take?" he asked Scott, and he couldn't keep the uncertainty and fear he felt from showing in his voice.

  Scott smiled slightly. "Two hours. Maybe three. Mind you," he added, holding up a cautioning hand, "if there are certain parts that need replacement, well, then, it could take a day or more."

  A day or more! Impossible that he could keep control of the bridge for that long! Morl's suspicious nature asserted itself. Was the man lying? How would Morl be able to find out even if he were? Then he noticed that his own subordinates were watching him, disturbed at his indecisiveness. So were the Enterprise personnel, becoming alert and hopeful again as they thought they saw a weakness in their captors. "All right," he snapped, his voice firm. "All right, Engineer. I'll allow that maintenance, but no replacements that take too long. I want you done with the whole thing in three hours at the outside." Scott turned to go. "Wait a minute!" Morl shouted. "You think I'm a fool? You're not going back down there alone!" He hesitated for a moment more, then gestured to one of the Assassins. "You'll go with him," he told the man. "Keep an eye on him all the time so he doesn't betray us. Keep your phaser hidden, but be ready. Don't let him talk to anyone else down there except for the technical matters." He turned to Scott. "As for you, remember that I have all these people here under my control. If you try to pull anything, I'll kill them. All of them."

  Scott looked around at the bridge crew, his face grim. "I'll remember," he said. He stared wordlessly at Morl for a moment. "I'm not about to forget about you, you can be sure of that." He strode back toward the elevator, the Assassin close behind him.

  Only minutes later, the faint lurch of transition between normal space and subspace, more psychological than physical, hit Morl. On the great screen in front of him, the star field disappeared momentarily and then shimmered back into existence. But now it was static, the motion apparent because of the enormous velocities of the higher warp speeds utterly absent. The illusion of a flowing universe had given way to the illusion that the ship was absolutely still in a static universe. Although Morl ordered Sulu to press on at the greatest speed the impulse engines would provide, he knew that those speeds were so low in comparison to the vast distance yet to be covered, that the Enterprise might as well be standing still. Their pursuers, if there were any, would surely not be so limited. It must have happened when the ship was damaged and he and his partners had escaped. Why had the fool let his ship be damaged that way? If Morl had been in charge already, it would never have happened! But it had happened. Morl groaned.

  He was too preoccupied to notice the rush of hope that had buoyed up the slumping Sulu. He knew from his console that the ship's speed had been constant before, under warp drive. Scott had lied, quickly and extemporaneously, but apparently convincingly. Now they had gained a few hours, another ally in the form of the chief engine
er, and their captors had been weakened by one. It had taken a lot to make Sulu's natural cheerfulness go dormant; now it came bubbling up again.

  Chapter Twelve

  At the sound of a throat being cleared, McCoy looked up from report from an assistant he was reading. Spenreed stood in the doorway, looking stricken. "Doctor. I wanted to thank you for helping me. I'm—My call has come."

  "Your what?"

  "My, uh, my call. So you won't see me again."

  "I don't understand," McCoy said. "You're going somewhere?"

  Spenreed choked back a sudden sob. "No. No, I'm not. Yegemot don't go anywhere. We just die."

  "Die!" McCoy thought he began to understand. "Are you trying to tell me you've received some sort of premonition of death?"

  Spenreed nodded. "The call. I was officially informed by a representative of the Food Provenders gemot. He said it must be before the banquet for gemot leaders."

  "Oh, yes. That damned banquet. I have to be there, and I'm sure not looking forward to it. Now, you listen to me, Spenreed. I've run into this sort of superstition, this fortune telling and forecasting men's deaths, on other worlds, and I can tell you it's nonsense. It doesn't matter where in the Galaxy you run into it, it's still nonsense. You come to me after that banquet, and I'll repeat everything I just said, and we'll see how you feel about it then."

  Spenreed laughed suddenly and grinned a fierce, broad grin. "You may see me at the banquet, Doctor. Tell me then." He stalked off down the hall, leaving McCoy to wonder at his sudden anger.

  McCoy pondered both that anger and the rest of the curious episode for some minutes. Finally, he shook his head and dismissed it all. "Damned ignorance," he muttered. Maybe I can force-feed some science into these slaves. If their masters don't object. Well, their masters better learn very soon to change their attitudes, because if Trellisane joins the Federation, things are going to be very different on this world. And speaking of feeding, he thought, how the Hell can I get these people to start growing their own food on the land? Now that the seas are lost to them, or soon will be, they've got to stop depending on those sea plants supplemented by fish meat. Maybe they're going to cut down on what they feed the slaves, to make what's left go further. Damned if I'll stand for that.

  He shook his head in annoyance and then forced his attention back to the report on his desk.

  Their success emboldened the fishermen. Groups of them set out in their boats with explosive devices delivered to them by Godor. He refused to tell Kirk and Spock who made these for him. As foreigners, they were obviously still not entirely to be trusted; who knew if, the present crisis being over, they would not betray Godor and the other conspirators to their masters, despite all their fine talk now about the Federation and its rules of equality. This was maddening to Kirk, for he knew how fickle war is. Godor went out on the boats often, success having returned all of his courage and more, and it was inevitable that the Sealons would eventually strike back. If Godor was lost, Kirk would have no further access to the explosives.

  Spock agreed with him, something that had become unusual. "Indeed, Captain, the Sealons' quiescence so far is surprising. I can only assume that they have been preoccupied with plans for the next stage of their invasion. Perhaps they expected more resistance than they encountered in fact. That would explain why they landed in the deeper waters, rather than along the continental margin. Now that they have gained confidence from the lack of any Trellisanian response, they are probably planning to move their installations wholesale into the shallower water. We must have caught them at that stage, and they have tried to ignore us so far. That cannot continue."

  "Yes, I'm sure that's true." They were on the same beach where their small resistance movement had started, waiting for the return of a boat carrying a depth charge. Kirk looked at his timepiece. "It's taking them a long time," he muttered. "Ah, there!" Out on the horizon, the water rose up in a dome that exploded upwards into a fountain of spray. Some distance from the site of the underwater explosion, the boat showed as a small speck on the surface of the sea. Kirk could imagine the fishermen rowing frantically away from the explosion.

  Spock, watching the boat too, squinted and said, "Captain, something in the water …"

  "I can't see as well as you can, Spock." But then even he could see it: things in the water around the boat, furious splashings. He could barely see the movements as the fishermen tried to beat the attackers away with their oars. The shapes swarmed over the sides into the boat, overwhelming the Trellisanians. Then there was a mass movement back over the sides into the sea, almost a liquid pouring, as if the attackers were boneless and they had reduced their victims to the same state. In minutes, only the empty boat was left, bobbing up and down on the waves still spreading outwards from the explosion. "So much for them ignoring us, Spock."

  "Captain, if the Sealons had chosen simply to eliminate the threat, they could have destroyed the fishing boat from beneath, from a distance, without attacking the crew directly. That was the nature of their previous attacks upon Trellisanian merchant vessels, and it entails far less risk to themselves."

  "You seem to think they must have had more in mind this time than defense."

  Spock nodded. "Indeed, sir. I would guess they wish to interrogate. Our attacks upon them have been atypical; they break the pattern. The Sealons, or perhaps their Klingon masters, would wish to know what has caused this change."

  The two turned away from the sea and began to walk slowly up the beach. The sun was bright, and the white-yellow sand reflected it back into their faces. "It's probably pointless to send out any more boats, now," Kirk said. "We'll have to come up with something else. If they really are preparing to move closer to the land, it becomes even more difficult."

  "Captain!" Spock said sharply. "Listen!"

  In the distance, some sort of sea bird was wheeling about in the air above the cliff face, uttering an unpleasant high-pitched cry. From behind came the steady lapping of waves on the shore. Beyond that, Kirk could hear nothing. Knowing how acute a Vulcan's hearing was, however, he stood still and strained his ears. "Well, Mr. Spock?"

  Spock shook his head. "I'm sorry, Captain. I was sure I heard voices. Very faint and muffled. Wait! There it is again."

  This time, even Kirk could hear something, though it sounded more like the cry of an animal, and muffled, than a human voice. He thought the sound had come from the base of the cliffs to their left. Then it was answered from behind. Kirk spun around, but at first he could see nothing. The sun, dazzling off the sand and water, almost blinded him.

  Shapes rose from the water and shambled onto the sand. They were bulky, shapeless, larger than a man, and they called back and forth to each other eagerly, with something vicious in the sound. The calls were repeated from the directions of the cliffs at either end of the beach.

  "Quickly, Captain, before they can cut us off!" Spock began to run toward the rising land where the beach ended and the undergrowth of the interior began. Following him, Kirk told himself, at least they probably can't move fast on land.

  Something hit him, like a great electric shock coursing through every nerve pathway simultaneously, flinging him forward onto his face. Paralyzed, limp as a rag doll, his limbs flopping helplessly, Kirk rolled a couple of times and ended up on his left side, facing toward the water. He was still half conscious, but he couldn't regain the slightest control over his body. A phaser of some sort, he thought. On low stun. Even without being able to turn and look, he knew Spock must be lying not too many meters away, in the same condition.

  Kirk's eyes were open. He hadn't the power to close them even if he had wanted to. Helplessly, he watched the Sealons—he had never had any doubt, from the first instant, that that was what these creatures were—struggle across the sand toward him. He could tell that they were making as much speed as they could, perhaps afraid that Kirk's followers would show up to rescue him. Before he had sensed both viciousness and triumph; now he caught the hint of something uns
toppable, of a driving force that knew no moral restraint. Kirk struggled without success to move his arms and legs. His body was as paralyzed as ever.

  The first Sealon to reach him reared itself up over him, one arm raised, and Kirk prepared himself mentally for the crushing blow that would end his life. But apparently it was only a signal to the others, for the creature lowered its arm again without harming Kirk, and the others began to appear within his field of vision.

  The creatures' colors ranged from pale brown to almost black. Their skin seemed to be covered by short, wiry hairs, covering them like a shield. Their general shape seemed humanoid, but he could see webbing between the fingers and toes. They were obviously heavily muscled, beneath a surface layer of fat. Their legs were short and apparently unable to support them well on land. He couldn't turn his head to see more, so he was unable to see what their faces looked like.

  He was grasped roughly by powerful hands and lifted. His body sagged, his arms, legs, and head flopping from side to side as they carried him back toward the water. Had they spared him so far only to let him drown helplessly, unable to control his limbs and swim?

  Just before they reached the water, however, his head was grasped and something opaque was forced over his face. He couldn't resist in any way; no control had yet returned. Straps were tightened around the back of his head to keep the device in place. The opacity was complete; he was in utter blackness. But he could feel water lapping over him and then rising up over his head. The hands still grasped him, pulling him deeper and deeper under the ocean he could not see.