Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #3: Cadet Kirk

by Diane Carey

  Warping space in order to rush from place to place actually meant putting the ship in another dimension than the planets, stars, and nebulae it was passing. The slightest error could mean cramming into a star or ripping the body of the ship apart.

  “Cruising at warp two,” Cadet Kirk said, his voice shuddering ever so slightly. He tapped a small panel at his left. “Logging faster than light speed … time … and stardate.”

  “Congratulations,” McCoy offered.

  Cadet Kirk shot him a sideways glare.

  “Enjoy yourself,” McCoy added quickly. He got up and left the cockpit.

  He went back into the main compartment, picked one of the six seats, settled into it, and put his feet up. Maybe if he took a nap, the trip would seem shorter.

  Settled in his own lounge, Ensign Spock was deep inside some kind of science manual. The dark-eyed Vulcan offered him only one quick glance, then ignored him.

  McCoy thought about snaring the other ensign into a conversation, so he could pick at the Vulcan and tease him a little. That was real fun.

  But … three and a half days. He’d better save the teasing. He might need it later, to break the boredom. Maybe there were some things to read around here. He leaned and opened a bosun’s locker where old magazines and newsletters were sometimes dumped for passengers to leaf through. The locker was full—but with books. Real books, not just computer tapes.

  Victory at Aximar by Garth of Izar, Captain, Starfleet. Celestial Navigation by Wendy Lesnick. Computer Guidance in Small Craft by Orazio Guidal. Salvage Law by Michael Riley. The Alexandria Spaceport Foundation’s Seafarers’ and Spacefarers’ Dictionary. Spacelane Rules of the Road. Maritime Law in the Age of Steam. Beside it was the same book, only for the Age of Sail.

  “Junior,” McCoy called. “You studying to be a space lawyer?”

  “Me? … No, sir. Just want to drive ships.”

  “What’ve you got all these dusty books for, then?”

  “Some of them are antiques. Two are first editions from the eighteen hundreds.”

  McCoy shrugged and closed the bosun’s locker. He settled deeply into the curved lounge, dimmed the reading light at his side, and closed his eyes. In moments the quiet hum of the Spitfire’s warp engines wrapped him like a blanket. He took a deep breath and tried not to think about how fast they were going. He felt himself falling asleep.

  As his brain grew foggy, he started thinking about diseases of the human upper respiratory system in alien atmospheres. That was more than enough to carry him to sleep.

  His last thought as he drifted off to sleep was about how nice it might be to drowse away a few days without any pressure—

  “Zodiac Spitfire on Starfleet Emergency Channel ninety-one to Atlantis Outpost! State your intentions!”

  McCoy’s eyes shot open! Who was that? What was wrong? Why was someone yelling? An alarm of some kind was jangling in the cockpit, and a red light flashed, casting a bloody glow across the salon.

  Boom!

  A blunt force hit the Spitfire, echoing inside its metal bulkheads. The deck tilted to the right, and McCoy went spilling out of his lounge onto the deck carpet.

  “What—!” he blurted. Somehow he got to his knees.

  A pair of legs dodged past him—Spock. The Vulcan pulled himself forward against the tilted deck and crawled into the passenger seat in the cockpit.

  “What is it, Cadet?” he asked.

  For a moment Cadet Kirk pounded at his controls, trying to force the little ship to do what he wanted. But nothing changed—the alert jangle kept ringing, and the ship kept bucking against a force that grabbed it.

  “B-Sixty-four Automated Outpost at Atlantis Station! It’s throwing a tractor beam on us! We’re being pulled off course!”

  Chapter 4

  “No doubt about it. That’s a full-power tractor beam!”

  Cadet Kirk spat the words furiously. Before them, the spacescape tumbled drunkenly.

  Ensign Spock scoured the readouts. “The engines are buckling,” he called out. “I suggest you drop to sublight.”

  “Sublight, aye,” the cadet answered.

  As he played the helm, the Spitfire suddenly fell out of warp speed and seemed almost to stand still in space. In fact, they were still moving very fast, but not in the right direction, and there was no point going warp speed to the wrong place.

  “Atlantis Outpost!” the cadet tried again. “Respond—”

  But this time Ensign Spock put his own hand on the communications console and stopped the broadcast. “No signals!”

  As the other two stared at him, Spock scowled at the console. “Atlantis Outpost is completely automated. There is no tractor beam there and no one to turn it on if there were one. Someone is doing this deliberately. We should not be contacting them until we know what’s happening.”

  His voice was overlaid by the whooping alarm and the flashing of almost half the lights on the helm control board. Together he and Cadet Kirk battled the force gripping the Spitfire.

  McCoy watched from between the two seats. “Why would an automated outpost be pulling us off course?” he asked.

  “It can’t be,” Cadet Kirk answered. “Somebody must’ve installed a tractor device on the station.”

  Wide-eyed, McCoy shook his head. “But why? I’ve seen outposts like that. They’re just hunks of equipment, usually doing geological surveys and running wells and mines.”

  The Vulcan palmed the helm. “We’re definitely being pulled off course, by a beam from the Atlantis station.”

  “Can we overcome its pull?” McCoy asked.

  Neither Cadet Kirk nor Ensign Spock answered. Clearly they were fighting to do just that. But the whine of the helm and engines said they were failing.

  “Can’t we pull in the other direction?” McCoy persisted.

  “Not if the tractor beam has more power than our ship’s thrust,” Spock said. “We could burn out our engines in minutes.”

  “I’d rather fight it,” Cadet Kirk said.

  The Vulcan twisted to face him. “That makes no sense. I just explained—”

  “You’d be right if this ship were over three thousand metric tons. But I think we’ve got enough thrust to fight the beam.”

  McCoy looked at him. “You think?”

  Spock pointed at the sensor grid. “Cadet, the tractor beam is the old magnetic design, originally used for transfer of large cargoes. According to the energy readings, this tractor beam is capable of not only holding this vessel, but breaking it in two.”

  “There’s got to be a way to fight it,” the cadet insisted.

  To keep from bumping his head again, McCoy lowered himself to one knee. “Is there a problem with your hearing?”

  Cadet Kirk frowned at the console before him. “Sir, we’ve got to contact whoever’s doing this and get them to break that beam.”

  As the cadet reached for the communications panel, Ensign Spock pushed his arm back. “Not yet,” the Vulcan told him.

  Now the boy’s flashing hazel eyes came up sharply. “Are you saying we should go down silent? We don’t know if there’s anybody controlling the beam. We could be dragged into the planet’s surface at full speed—”

  “I know that. We have to take the risk.”

  “Sir, there are certain steps we’re supposed to take with any deviation in our flight plan. There are no exceptions. This is my warp solo and I have to do it right!”

  “No contact.” The Vulcan’s answer was crisp and blunt.

  Cadet Kirk started to sweat. “Sir, there are rules for this situation. There are rules for every situation.”

  Spock’s lively eyes flickered like electricity. “That would be quite illogical, cadet. We should hold off any contact until we find out who is doing this to us, and why.”

  Leaning between them, McCoy asked, “You smell a trap?”

  Spock glanced at him as he powered down the impulse engines to avoid overload. “None of us is of any particular value. Logically, t
here has to be a better reason for pulling us off course.”

  “What reason?” Cadet Kirk asked.

  “Remember,” Spock said, “the Spitfire was supposed to have another passenger on board.”

  The cadet stared at him. “Dr. Daystrom!”

  “If the persons controlling the beam think they are getting Daystrom, we should let them believe that as long as possible.”

  “But, sir,” Cadet Kirk argued, “that isn’t the correct procedure for an emergency. If this is a malfunction of the station, then Dr. Daystrom’s transport could be in the same kind of danger when it comes past here later. We should find out who these people are, so we know what to do.”

  Keeping very calm, but obviously surprised by the strange turn of events, Spock fought to think around what was happening to them. “We should attempt a safe landing on the outpost, find out what is occurring, secure the area, then take appropriate action.”

  “But that isn’t the right order of procedure.”

  The Vulcan raised a brow. “I outrank you.”

  “But the Spitfire is signed out to me,” the cadet countered. “I’m the only one authorized to pilot her, sir.”

  “Signing out a vehicle does not countermand seniority of rank.”

  “But it makes me in charge of the vehicle.”

  “But not what happens to the vehicle outside of your flight plan,” Spock pointed out calmly. “This is the most logical course of action. We will make no contact yet.”

  Cadet Kirk glared and scowled and burned, but there was no changing the Vulcan’s mind. A choice had been made by the ranking officer, and that was the course they would follow.

  “Sir,” he said then, “I suggest we attempt a mayday, at least. We should send out some kind of warning about this, in case Dr. Daystrom’s shuttle comes by and gets caught too.”

  “A distress call?” Spock paused, weighing the ups and downs of that.

  McCoy watched as Spock decided what to do. Then the Vulcan said, “Proceed.”

  The cadet concentrated on deploying a distress call. McCoy watched as he tapped in time, location, identity … and pushed the MAYDAY automatic broadcast.

  “It’s not getting out!” the cadet gasped. “Something’s blocking the broadcast!”

  Ensign Spock frowned over the readouts. “The tractor beam is scrambling the signal. It must have a very high electromagnetic charge. Cancel the mayday before we have a burnout.”

  Frustrated, Cadet Kirk clicked off his broadcast. The warp shuttle bucked and tipped this way and that, forcing McCoy to hold on tightly to the cockpit seats. He didn’t want to get thrown sideways into a bulkhead and end up with a skull injury.

  Before them on the screen now, they saw the small green-and-brown planet where Atlantic Outpost had been raised a few years ago. The planet appeared to be wagging back and forth, turning and wobbling like a ball in a bathtub, but in fact the Spitfire was doing the wagging and wobbling.

  “The hull’s taking strain,” Cadet Kirk read off as he watched the numbers on the helm. “We’re losing thrust too.”

  “Cut thrust to minimum,” Spock said. “Let them pull us in.”

  “I’d rather not do that, sir.”

  “We already had this discussion, cadet.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t make sense to let kidnappers have their way on everything.”

  “On what, specifically?”

  “I don’t think we ought to let them pull us to wherever they want us. I mean, why should we let them say what happens at every step?”

  McCoy squeezed between them again. “You have some better idea?”

  “Yes. I think we should crash-land.”

  Chapter 5

  Both McCoy and Spock simply stared at the younger cadet, as if his head were falling off. Crash-land? On purpose?

  “I cannot condone that,” Spock said. “Too much risk.”

  The cadet’s bright eyes took on a naughty glint. “Risk can work in our favor.”

  Spock shook his head. “Such action would be reckless.”

  “Or it might save our lives,” the cadet said. He looked at the forward screen, and there the planet was very close. In fact, all they could see now was a great brown-and-gray landmass flanked by two large bodies of greenish water.

  But the cadet was sure he was right. “If we let them pull us in, then they call all the shots. Whatever their plan is, we’ve got to make it go wrong at every turn.”

  “How can we judge their intentions?” the Vulcan argued. “They may have a valid excuse for this.”

  “Not valid enough for me,” the younger man shot back. “Starfleet expects me to get the Spitfire to Colony Cambria safely. And it expects me to bring you in safe too. Anybody who throws a tractor beam on a vessel without saying why is just a criminal.”

  “This may be malfunction,” Spock insisted. “An error of some kind. Or someone on the planet may need help.”

  The cadet’s brows shot together. “I don’t believe that, sir. I don’t think you do either. I know one thing—whoever wants to get their hands on us, I don’t want to deal on their terms. I want them to have to deal on ours.”

  “Cadet,” Spock said steadily, “this mission has gone off course. When that happens, the senior officer takes over the decision-making process. It’s my option to decide what action to take. We will allow ourselves to make a safe landing at the source of the tractor beam. Then we will take one step at a time.”

  Without moving, McCoy watched them both. Which of these strong personalities would win the moment? One consumed with rules and regulations, the other consumed with logic. If only I could take notes! What a great experiment this would make!

  If only they weren’t about to skid onto the surface of a strange planet—

  “Are they bringing us in on a landing trajectory or a burn-up trajectory?” Cadet Kirk suddenly asked. “That’ll tell us whether they’re trying to kill us or not.”

  In the copilot’s seat, Spock touched the controls and brought up those numbers. “Angle of approach … is a landing angle. Apparently they want us alive.”

  “They want hostages,” the cadet corrected. “Buckle up,” he added, feeling for his safety harness and locking it around his hips and chest.

  In the copilot’s seat, Spock distractedly found his own harness and snapped it on.

  McCoy knew he should go into the main compartment and lock himself into a lounge, but if he let go of the seats now he would lose his balance and go crashing. And he was hypnotized by the high-speed rush toward the atmosphere. He couldn’t pull himself away.

  “We’re coming into the atmosphere!” he blurted suddenly. He pointed at the screen, where a white-green haze blurred the shapes of landmasses below.

  Wind and dust particles blew past the small craft, and the Spitfire began to whistle as if it were being spun at the end of a string. The screen flashed with gusts of atmosphere and clouds.

  The craft rocked and shuddered, but held together. Cadet Kirk leaned forward, bit his lip, and concentrated hard. When the ship tilted too far to one side, he brought it back, until it tipped too far the other way. Then he had to compensate again.

  Spock was doing something too, but McCoy didn’t know what. Braking thrusters, maybe? The two weren’t saying anything, but they were cooperating somehow, keeping the shuttle under some control in spite of the powerful tractor beam.

  “We’re heading straight for the meteorological station on the southern continent,” Cadet Kirk said. “The kidnappers must be using it for a headquarters.”

  “I suggest that we do not yet know,” Spock responded, “whether these are kidnappers or not.”

  “What else can they be?” McCoy asked.

  “They could be stranded here, possibly from another crashed vessel. Perhaps they have a tractor beam on their wreck and it’s their only way of gaining attention from passing craft.”

  McCoy glanced at Cadet Kirk, who shifted his eyes but didn’t move his head or change his atten
tion.

  “That’s pretty far-fetched,” McCoy said then.

  “In space, doctor,” the Vulcan told him, “the farfetched happens every day.”

  McCoy paused for a moment. That was the first time he’d been called “doctor.” How strange and new it sounded, coming from Spock’s elegant, precise voice.

  Suddenly the shuttle started shaking violently. Was the hull holding together? Were those overlapping seams Cadet Kirk had pointed out to him now coming apart?

  The land in front of them changed from a blurry mass to a pattern of hills with trees, and with thin dirt roads cut through them in some places.

  “Leveling off,” Cadet Kirk strained. He had to squint through a heavy fog in the region. Before them on the screen, thick white haze was interrupted only by lumpy growth popping up under them. “Visibility is seventeen meters—not much at this speed.”

  “Let the computer guidance take over.” Spock touched his controls. “Atlantis Outpost’s landing signals will bring us to the pad. Hold the ship as steady as possible. Watch for obstacles … sensors are reading some tall trees.”

  Curious—the Vulcan was willing to take over the decisions about the mission, but not the actual piloting of the craft. Cadet Kirk had been assigned this ship and was expected to fly it in all conditions. Maybe there were legal reasons, regulations, or maybe there was some tradition involved. He didn’t know.

  A quick jolt to the right broke his grip on the back of Cadet Kirk’s seat, and McCoy went sprawling into the tight space behind Spock’s seat. He managed to raise his arm and take the impact on his elbow against one of those beam brackets. The movement sent blinding pain running through his upper body.

  When he struggled to his knees again, holding his throbbing arm, the Spitfire was soaring through open air over some kind of valley floor. On both sides, jagged hills reached up like teeth in a pair of open jaws.

  “We’re shallowing!” Cadet Kirk shouted over the howl of the engines and alarms. “Force the nose up!”

  McCoy hunkered back on the heaving deck, keeping most of his body behind Spock’s chair, but peeked out at the main screen. The valley floor shot by, and on the horizon was a complex of flat-topped buildings painted a light green soup color. There were stacked towers of metal attached to the buildings, and several huge portable glass structures like greenhouses scattered on the meteorology station’s campus.