The captain nodded. “You’ve got it.” He handed Mitchell, Sulu and Scotty a phaser. “That’s why we need everyone’s help—yours included, Commander.”
“What can I do?” asked the navigator, expecting to have to lead a team against the M’tachtar despite his injuries.
Kirk looked at him, then gestured to the crewmen with whom Mitchell had shared the cargo bay. “You can transport these people to the Klingon ship,” he answered, “with the help of the command codes I’m about to give you. Then you can transport yourself there as well.”
The navigator didn’t believe what he was hearing. He felt an impulse to protest the order, but he managed to stifle it.
“Aye, sir,” he said at last. “That is, if you’re certain, sir.”
The captain nodded. “I’m certain, all right.”
But he continued to look at his friend a while longer. It was as if Kirk was saying he had done fine to this point, even without his lucky rabbit’s foot—and that he could finish the job on his own just as well.
Under the circumstances, it was a hard conclusion [225] to argue with. Mitchell held up his phaser. “Are you sure you won’t need this?” he asked.
The captain shook his head. “Hang on to it. For all we know, there are a couple of M’tachtar posted in the transporter room. And as for the command codes ...”
He whispered them in the navigator’s ear. Mitchell repeated them to himself, then nodded. “Got ’em.”
Kirk smiled. “Good luck, Commander.”
His friend smiled back at him. “We make our own luck, sir.”
“I suppose we do,” the captain conceded.
Then he gestured to Spock and the others who had come in with him, and they left in a group—no doubt headed for the next cargo hold and its dangerous M’tachtar watchman.
Mitchell turned to his companions. “Well?” he asked. “What are we waiting for? We’ve got a transporter room to get to.”
And he led the way.
Chapter Eighteen
QADAR DRUMMED his fingers on his armrest, growing angrier than ever. Entire minutes had passed, and there had been no word from Chi’ra—even though, by then, the Klingon had to have destroyed four or five of the prisoners.
Was it possible the Starfleet targs were refusing to talk anyway? Had the M’tachtar somehow underestimated their stubbornness?
He brought his fist down on the intercom stud embedded in his armrest. “Chi’ra?” he demanded gruffly.
There was no answer.
Cursing Federation technology, Qadar brought his fist down on the stud a second time. “Chi’ra?” he rumbled.
Still no answer.
The Klingon felt his lips pulling back from his [227] teeth. Something was wrong, he told himself. He could feel it.
This time, he didn’t attempt to contact Chi’ra. He tried Molta instead. However, Molta didn’t respond either. Nor did Drabbak or Yarruq when Qadar called their names in mounting rage and frustration.
But there were sounds that came to him over the intercom system—grunts and curses and muffled thuds, and something shrill as well. The sounds of a fight, he realized.
The M’tachtar brought his fist down on his armrest again—but this time, he put a significant dent in its control panel. Either the prisoners had revolted, he told himself, or the Enterprise had been boarded.
Either way, Qadar decided as he tried not to choke on his fury, the matter demanded his personal attention.
Spock stood in the Enterprise’s computer room, a fallen Klingon giant at his feet, and frowned at the captain’s suggestion. “Sir—”
“I know,” Kirk told him, his face caught in the crimson glare of the room’s overhead lighting. “We’re taking a chance here, Mr. Spock. Unfortunately, we’ve no longer got a choice.”
He pointed to the chronometer readout in his handheld sensor device. It indicated that thirty-two minutes had expired since they left the Klingon battle cruiser.
“In another twenty-eight minutes,” the captain noted over the hum of the computers, “Kang is going to assume we’ve failed and hit the Enterprise [228] with everything he’s got—and so far, we’ve only run down seven of the M’tachtar.”
“Eight,” said Kelso, straight faced. “That is, including the one in the transporter room that Mr. Mitchell no doubt took care of.”
Kirk smiled grimly. “Including that one, Lieutenant—assuming he was posted in the transporter room in the first place, and assuming Mr. Mitchell did, in fact, take care of him.”
“Which leaves at least seven of them still standing,” Kyle observed.
The captain turned to the Vulcan again. “Seven, Commander. So—”
“I agree,” said Spock.
Kirk’s brow knit as he tried to absorb his first officer’s response. “You do? But judging by your expression—”
“I am not enamored of the strategy,” Spock admitted. “It was difficult enough to incapacitate the M’tachtar when all six of us acted in concert. But as you point out, our choices are limited by our circumstances.”
The captain grunted. “In that case, we’ll split up into three teams. Spock and Kyle will head for engineering. Yudrin and Alden will make their way to security. And Kelso and I will try to take back the shuttle bay.”
Phelana nodded. “Done.”
“Afterward,” Kirk went on, “we’ll meet back here.”
“And then?” asked Alden.
The captain looked at him. “Then we’ll head for the bridge and confront our friend Qadar.”
[229] An ambitious plan, the first officer thought, as he and his comrades left the computer room. But then, Captain Kirk was an ambitious man.
As Kirk and his helmsman approached the doors to the shuttle bay in the ghostly light of the emergency strips, he couldn’t help noticing the blackened spot where the M’tachtar had tried to punch their way in.
Now their positions were reversed, he thought. It was he and his companions who were trying to take over the Enterprise, and the Klingons who were trying to defend themselves against the intruders.
The captain signaled to Kelso to stop a good ten meters shy of the entrance. Then he used his handheld sensor to scan the area beyond the doors. As he had suspected, there was a M’tachtar warrior within—but only one.
Kirk was grateful there weren’t any more of them. Otherwise, he and Kelso might have had an impossible task ahead of them.
Unfortunately, the captain mused, his boarding party had probably lost the element of surprise. With seven and possibly eight M’tachtar down, Qadar must have taken notice—and warned his remaining followers.
So he wouldn’t bother trying to lure his adversary out into the corridor, the way Phelana had drawn out the Klingon in auxiliary control. Instead, he would be forced to go charging in.
Kirk shared his thinking with Kelso, who just held on to his disrupter a little tighter and nodded. Then [230] the two of them moved closer to the phaser-scarred shuttle bay doors.
As the doors reacted by starting to slide open, the captain began to advance a little more quickly. Then, when the opening was just wide enough to admit him, he accelerated to a sprint and used his momentum to hurl himself into the shuttle bay.
Kirk didn’t take the time to see if Kelso was diving in behind him. He just rolled with his weapon extended and tried to find his target in the twilight glow of the backup lights.
But as it happened, his target found him first. The captain saw a ruby red phaser beam scald the air near his face, missing him by inches. Drawing a bead on its source, which looked to be in the vicinity of the bay’s control console, he fired back with his disrupter.
However, the dark blue beam failed to hit the M’tachtar, spattering spectacularly on the bulkhead behind the console instead. And a moment later, a second dark blue spurt of energy hit the console itself—but like the first one, it missed their adversary.
As Kirk saw what looked like the business end of a phaser, he dove for the shelter of
a shuttle. What’s more, he moved just in time, because the ensuing phaser blast barely missed him.
Glancing back at Kelso’s shadowy form, the captain saw him scramble for cover as well. Somehow, the helmsman eluded a fiery shaft of directed energy and disappeared behind one of the other shuttle-craft.
But Kirk and his comrade had a problem. After [231] all, the M’tachtar held all the cards. He had established a position from which it would be difficult to dig him out, and their time was quickly expiring.
Then the captain remembered the point Spock had made about Klingon vulnerabilities in Kang’s briefing room. If a short fuse was a weakness in a normal, unenhanced Klingon ...
“Coward!” Kirk roared suddenly, his voice echoing from bulkhead to bulkhead. “You don’t have the guts to show your face to us!”
He heard an inchoate snarl come from somewhere behind the console. “You dare to call Mezarch a coward, human? I’ll tear your eyes from their sockets and stuff them down your throat!”
“Not if you cower behind that console,” the captain returned mockingly. “We’re taking our ship back deck by deck, Mezarch. You can’t hide there like a frightened child!”
“I am not a frightened child!” the Klingon thundered, his voice ringing off every surface in the shuttlebay. “I am a M’tachtar!”
“You are nothing!” Kirk rumbled back at him. “You are less than nothing! And your craven, misshapen head will adorn my bridge before I sit down to eat my dinner tonight!”
He was laying it on a bit thick, he had to admit. But that was the way he had heard Klingons speak to one another.
“I will show you who is a craven!” Mezarch growled.
The next thing the captain knew, the M’tachtar was rushing him like a maddened bull, paving the way for himself with a blaze of phaser fire. Kirk took [232] a couple of steps back behind the shuttle and raised his disrupter, bracing himself for the Klingon’s attack.
A moment later, Mezarch came swinging around the side of the vehicle, his eyes red and protuberant beneath his craggy brow, his teeth bared like those of an animal. Knowing all too well what the M’tachtar would do if he got his hands on him, the captain squeezed off a dark blue burst.
It struck the Klingon full in the chest—and barely even slowed him down. As Mezarch fired back, Kirk was forced to duck the blast and retreat. As soon as he could, he unleashed another energy attack, but this one was no more effective than the last.
Just as he was about to turn up the disrupter’s intensity to a kill setting, the captain saw the M’tachtar grimace and twist his body around. Then Kirk saw what had drawn Mezarch’s attention. Kelso had begun firing at him from behind.
Hissing with rage, the Klingon whirled and aimed his weapon at the helmsman—but before he could get off a shot, the captain skewered him in the back with another disrupter blast. And Kelso was still pounding him from the other side, refusing to stop for even a nanosecond.
Mezarch writhed in torment, too beleaguered to hit either of his targets. Instead, his phaser volleys slammed into ceiling and bulkhead and shuttle hull—just about everywhere except where he wanted them to go.
After what seemed like an eternity, the M’tachtar succumbed to the disrupter barrage. First, he sank to his knees. Then he dropped his phaser. And [233] finally, eyes rolling back in his shaggy head, he landed on his bony, bearded face.
As he had done with the other Klingons he encountered, Kirk continued to fire even after his adversary appeared to have lost consciousness. Kelso did the same. But after a minute or so, when they were sure Mezarch wouldn’t rise up and bite them, they discontinued their fire.
The helmsman studied the Klingon for a second in the light of the emergency strips, still wary despite all appearances. Then he took out an incapacitor, applied it behind Mezarch’s ear and stood back.
“Well,” he said to the captain, “I guess we can head back to the computer room. This one’s not going any—”
Kelso never finished his sentence. Before that could happen, something big and dark loomed up behind him and slammed him into the shuttle with bone-crushing force. Swearing to himself, Kirk realized what it was.
Another of the M’tachtar—and not just any of them. It was the most vicious and powerful of them all.
It was Qadar.
“Kirk,” he spat, making it sound like a curse.
His face was distorted with rage, his hands opening and closing as if they couldn’t wait to take hold of the captain’s throat. Backing off from the M’tachtar, Kirk raised his disruptor and unleashed a brilliant burst of energy, hoping only to buy himself a little time.
He didn’t even accomplish that.
Qadar absorbed the blast and kept on coming. [234] And before the captain could change the setting on his weapon, the Klingon reached out and knocked the disruptor from his grasp.
As the weapon clattered on the deck, Kirk looked disbelievingly at his empty hand. He had never seen anyone move with such blinding speed. Clearly, Qadar had amplified his own abilities even more than he had amplified those of his followers.
“You will die for what you’ve done,” the M’tachtar rumbled.
It was the only warning the captain got, but he took it to heart. Hurling himself backward as fast as he could, he avoided Qadar’s closed-fisted blow—but only barely.
Nor could he continue to avoid such attacks. In a closed space, the Klingon had the decided advantage, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. In fact, Kirk had only one thing going for him—the insight given to him by his Vulcan first officer.
“It’s no use,” he told Qadar, lying through his teeth. “My people are all over the ship.” And as he said it, he moved away from the shuttle.
His dark eyes smoldering, the M’tachtar took another violent swipe at the captain. Unable to dart away completely this time, Kirk absorbed a glancing but painful blow on the shoulder.
“You’ve lost,” he said. “There’s nothing left to fight for.” And he moved again, a critical destination taking shape in his mind.
Qadar shook his head. “No, human. It’s you who have lost. And your broken body will be proof of it.”
He lashed out again, and the captain leaped [235] backward. But the Klingon’s long sharp nails raked the captain’s chest, drawing blood and tearing his gold uniform shirt open.
On the bright side, Qadar hadn’t gotten in a crippling blow yet. That meant that Kirk could still maneuver, still try to carry out his plan.
“Why bother to go on with this?” he asked. “Why not admit that your experiment was a failure?”
The M’tachtar’s face darkened with anger. His hands began to clench and unclench faster than before.
“In the final analysis,” the captain persisted, “despite all the pain and dishonor you suffered, you’re no better than any other Klingon. In fact, you’re something less.”
Qadar’s breathing began to accelerate. His eyes looked as if they were struggling to free themselves from their sockets.
Kirk pressed his point relentlessly. “A real warrior would have caught me and finished me by now,” he chuckled. “But you ... in all those years you spent in a Federation cage, you forgot what it was like to be a warrior.”
The Klingon couldn’t seem to speak anymore. He was too incensed, too consumed with blind, unreasoning rage.
“Go ahead,” said the captain in his most scornful voice. “Kill me, Qadar. Or do you no longer have the guts?”
That did it. A strangled cry erupted from the M’tachtar’s throat and he came flying at Kirk with all the speed and fury of a striking rattlesnake. [236] Though the captain was ready for him, it took every iota of his agility and training to throw himself out of Qadar’s path.
Unfortunately for the Klingon, he had put too much power into his lunge to stop himself. And even more unfortunately, there was an unyielding duranium bulkhead just ahead of him.
Which was exactly the way Kirk had planned it.
Qadar struck the bulkhead with e
nough force to shatter the skeleton of an ordinary Klingon. But the impact didn’t kill him. In fact, it didn’t even knock him out.
But it gave the captain a chance to dart across the shuttle bay and reach the control console. Grabbing hold and swinging around behind it, he dragged down the lever that controlled the bay doors.
Gradually, they began to slide apart, revealing the starry blackness of space—and without a forcefield to separate the bay from the void, the air in the place began to rush out.
Kirk felt a terrible stormwind rip past him, tugging him in the direction of the sliding doors. But it was nothing compared to the force that tore at Qadar, who was just a couple of meters from the opening.
His long, coarse hair whipping about his head, the M’tachtar screamed his defiance at the stars and fought the pull of the vacuum, but it was no use. Finally, he had met an adversary he couldn’t withstand.
With a bellow of rage, Qadar lost his footing and went sliding toward the infinite. Just as it looked as [237] if he would be sucked out of the Enterprise altogether, he managed to grab hold of one of the doors. But then, even that precarious handhold was lost to him, as the door buried itself in the slot designed for it.
Hanging on by nothing more than his fingertips, the Klingon looked back at the captain. His face was a mask of unbridled fury.
“Kirrrrrrk!” he yelled over the roar of escaping air.
Then, arms and legs still fighting against the tide, he went spiraling out into the void and was lost to the captain’s sight.
Immediately, Kirk pushed the lever back to its previous position, reversing the movement of the doors. As he watched, they began to approach each other again, slowly shutting out the starlit splendor of space.
Automatically, the life-support system began to compensate for the loss of oxygen. As the captain felt the sweet influx of air from the vents above him, he remembered Kelso. A glance across the bay told him that the helmsman was still lying there by the Galileo, as still and unmoving as death.
Making his way across the room to Kelso, fighting the still-powerful pull of outrushing air, Kirk dropped at the man’s side and felt his wrist for a pulse. To his relief, he found one.
STAR TREK: TOS #87 - My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise Page 18