Collision Course

by William Shatner

  “No venting,” Zee said as she read her damage displays. “Structural integrity is holding. We’re okay!”

  “Not really,” Spock added.

  Kirk spun to him.

  “Griffyn’s ship is about to—”

  The Random Wave spun like a boomerang, edge over edge, directly for the spinning Enterprise, until one flattened nacelle hooked around the central support pylon joining the primary hull to the secondary one.

  The smaller ship wedged there, caught between the pylon and the starship’s starboard nacelle, transferring its kinetic energy into momentum that the bigger ship picked up.

  Viewport lights flickered, then went dark on the Enterprise as its power systems failed. The Random Wave was already without any running or propulsion lights.

  Like wadded-up refuse, the two ships spun over Neptune, neither one with an operative reaction control system to stabilize their motion. And as both crews were quick to discover, the energy lost to their collision meant their overall velocity had diminished to below what was required for Neptune orbit, standard or otherwise.

  The ships were locked in a death spiral, slowly descending to the giant planet below. And as cold as its atmosphere was, at the speed the ships would hit it, there would be hellfire.

  49

  Kirk pulled himself up from the deck, feeling dizzy. The once bright bridge was darkly shadowed, lit only by emergency battery lights.

  “Sound off!” Kirk shouted over some mechanical whine.

  Everyone answered but one. “How’s Finnegan?” Kirk called out.

  “Still unconscious,” Spock reported. “But no new injuries.”

  A flash of blue light suddenly strobed through the bridge. A few seconds later, it happened again.

  The viewscreen had reset itself and now showed flashes of Neptune as the Enterprise whirled over it.

  Kirk went to the helm, but the controls were unresponsive. “I can’t stop the spinning.” He looked back at Spock, who had returned to the science station. “Any sign of Griffyn?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Spock waved his hand over a switch, and on the displays above him, views from the Enterprise’s other optical sensors took shape.

  They revealed Griffyn’s ship clamped around the middle of the Enterprise like a giant set of jaws. And the elongated dome of one nacelle was jammed up against the saucer’s main impulse port. If that port fired, the explosion would tear apart both ships.

  “Well, we stopped him, all right,” Kirk said. “And he stopped us.” He found Zee in the gloom and flashing blue light. “Zee, it’s time to call Starfleet. It’s time to call anyone.”

  But Zee was already at the comm station, resetting controls. “We’ve lost all channels. Communications are gone.”

  Kirk blinked, thinking. Each time the blue of Neptune flashed across the bridge, it seemed brighter. He went to Spock. “Our orbit’s decaying, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Spock confirmed.

  “Do our lifepods have enough thrust to boost us to a higher orbit?”

  Spock shook his head. “We passed that point ten minutes ago.”

  “Is there anything on this ship that’s still working?”

  Spock passed his hands over the sensors, making screen after screen of technical readout appear on the overhead displays. Then one screen remained, and some of the numbers on it were green.

  “Transporters,” Spock said. “One installation is still online and operational.”

  “Then you know what we have to do, right?”

  Spock didn’t look any happier than Kirk felt. “I do.”

  They left the bridge together.

  Kirk staggered to the side as soon as he had resolved from the matter stream in the cargo hold of Griffyn’s ship.

  Spock had warned him the transport could be rough. Station-to-station or even lens-to-lens transport within a single station was one thing, but it was extremely difficult to beam to an open location that was less than half a kilometer away.

  Kirk essayed a deep breath. Good. He could still breathe. He checked his hands—five fingers on each. All of that plus the fact that he was standing and thinking convinced him Spock had known what he was doing. Now it was up to him. Spock was certain that the Enterprise’s impulse engine could lift both ships into a more stable orbit, but not until the port was clear. Kirk had to get to Griffyn’s flight deck and figure out some way to move this ship.

  The other thing Spock was certain about was that they had less than thirty minutes for Kirk to accomplish his mission. By then, Spock said, the first tenuous wisps of Neptune’s atmosphere would be thick enough to tear both ships to splinters.

  Kirk turned slowly in the cargo bay, using a tricorder to build a map of the ship’s layout. Knowing Griffyn was somewhere on this ship, he would have liked to have brought a weapon, but the Enterprise’s armory had been empty.

  He heard a quiet shuffling sound behind him, but he kept turning in a slow circle. He did, however, carefully adjust the tricorder to scan for life-forms.

  But he didn’t need a tricorder for what he found.

  An eight-year-old boy. He wore coveralls that were too big for him, the sleeves cut down and the legs rolled up with a black equipment belt tightly cinching his waist. The boy’s face was pale and hollow-cheeked, and his black hair was flattened to his forehead, long unwashed. A crust of blood was under his nose, and Kirk guessed he’d been hurt in the collision.

  “Can you help me?” the boy asked Kirk.

  Kirk felt a wave of fear course through him, but fought it down.

  This wasn’t Tarsus IV.

  “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

  “Bohrom.”

  “Do you have parents?”

  “The bad guy hurt them.”

  Kirk stared at the child. How could this boy have been on Earth and ended up this way?

  “What bad guy?”

  “Gwiffyn.” The boy’s lips trembled.

  “Do you know where your parents are?”

  The boy snuffled, shook his head, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Will you help me?” he asked again.

  Kirk crouched down, remembering all the ones he’d failed. “I will. C’mere.” He waved the boy closer and reached for his communicator. Spock could beam the boy back to the Enterprise and he’d—

  The boy slashed Kirk’s side with a flashdriver! The acid pain was startling.

  Kirk toppled over, kicked out instinctively, but the boy laughed and danced around him, waving the sharp-pointed tool over his head. “Ha, ha—I get the pwize!” the boy sang.

  Kirk rolled to meet his next attack, and Bohrom jumped back. But as soon as Kirk put his hand on the deck to push himself up, the boy darted in and struck again, slicing across Kirk’s sleeves and into his arm.

  Kirk had a sudden image of what would happen if he grabbed his arm and rolled back to the deck. The boy would be there to slit his throat.

  So he reached to his side, offering himself up for another attack. Bohrom hooted in delight and ran at him!

  And Kirk swung his arm back around with the tricorder and caught the boy under the chin, sending him flying. The flashdriver skittered across the metal deck.

  Kirk was by the stunned boy in an instant. He used the child’s own equipment belt to tie Bohrom’s arms and hands behind his back. He ripped the shoulder strap off the tricorder and used it to tie his legs.

  He thought of gagging him, then just as quickly decided not to. The boy’s nose was so clogged from crying or dirt, there was a chance he’d suffocate.

  That moment of hesitation was all it took.

  Bohrom’s eyes cleared, and for a moment panic set in as he realized his arms and legs were immobilized.

  He shrieked then, the sound more cutting than any alarm on the Enterprise.

  Kirk knelt by him, thinking quickly. He couldn’t put his hand over the boy’s mouth because he knew he’d be bitten. He wouldn’t hit him again because that had been wrong and he didn�
�t want to know where that violence had come from.

  So as the boy thrashed and struggled and tried to break free of his bonds, Kirk grabbed a fistful of Bohrom’s T-shirt and stretched it over his mouth, at least muffling the sound.

  Too aware of the time limit he faced to save his ship and his friends, Kirk rapidly scanned the cargo bay, trying to find someplace he could safely stash the boy.

  That was when he realized the boy’s alarm had been heard.

  Three teenagers were in the cargo bay doorway, two of them holding laser rifles.

  The third was Matthew.

  And all three wore red bandanas.

  50

  Four days after the revolution, four days after fourteen-year-old Jimmy had been given his red bandana and his yellow card all on the same night, he knew it was over. He’d failed the younger ones he was supposed to protect. And he was going to die now.

  Of the twenty-four who had been in his cabin, four were left. The governor himself gave him Donny because everyone knew Jimmy Kirk always followed the rules: He’d take Donny back to the storehouses and then just give himself up because that’s what he’d been told to do.

  Donny Roy was four. Billy Clute, seven. Edith Zaglada, eight. Tay Hébert, nine. They’d survived long enough for him to lead them to safety under the arena stands. But now Matthew was coming and he’d kill them all.

  Four days after the revolution, it was over.

  Approaching footsteps crunched heavily over frosty ground, over rubble, over bodies.

  “We’ve got a sensor, Jimmy! We’re gonna find you!”

  “They know where we are,” Tay whimpered.

  A tall figure jumped down beside them, boots grinding on debris. Edith and Billy both screamed. Tay cried. Donny hugged Jimmy, shaking silently.

  “Get up.” It was Griffyn, from the storehouse table, wearing his parka and the red bandana that said he was on the governor’s list.

  He pointed his laser rifle at Jimmy.

  “Get up, kid!”

  Jimmy stood up, but his legs were exhausted, no longer under full control. He almost lost his balance.

  Griffyn grabbed Donny’s arm and yanked him away from Jimmy, throwing the child out from under the stands. “All of you! Up!”

  Tay, Edith, and Billy got to their feet, huddled together, crying, sobbing.

  Jimmy felt powerless. He knew he should be doing something. He had to do something.

  But he was just a kid and he didn’t know what.

  “Move!”

  Jimmy felt Griffyn’s hand on his back as he was shoved forward. The four children stumbled after him until they were in the arena, by the bodies, encircled by the smoking ruins of wooden seats lit by laser fire days ago. Jimmy gathered the children close to him, trying to shield them as long as he could.

  Griffyn held his rifle on them, thumbed a communicator. “This is Griff. I got that last pack of kids by the depot.”

  “Names.”

  It was just one word over a comm link, but Jimmy recognized the governor’s voice.

  “It’s Kirk like we thought, Hébert, Zaglada, Clute…” Griffyn glared at Jimmy, pointed his rifle at Donny. “Who’s the brat?”

  Jimmy didn’t recognize his own voice as he answered reflexively. “Donny…Donny Roy.”

  “Roy,” Griffyn repeated.

  “The records have been updated,” the governor replied. “Have Matthew take care of this.”

  “Done.” Griffyn thumbed the communicator shut, glanced away from his captives for a moment. “Matty! Time to earn your rations!”

  Matthew came out from the shadows then, his face blank and unreadable, so different from four days ago.

  Jimmy didn’t want to know what his best friend had seen in the last four days. How many more he had killed.

  Matthew didn’t look at him or any of the kids.

  “Griff…Jimmy’s my friend….”

  Griffyn placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done this before. You’re on the list, they’re not. You know what that means.”

  “Yeah, but maybe I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  Griffyn grasped Matthew’s jaw hard, forced him to look up at him. “The governor saved your life. He offered to save Jimmy’s, too. You can’t get much fairer than that.”

  Jimmy saw the cold, hard look in Griffyn’s eyes that said if Matthew didn’t kill the children, then Griffyn was going to kill Matthew.

  “You want to make the governor proud? Let him know he made the right choice?”

  Matthew nodded.

  Griffyn released his grip on Matthew. “Then do Jimmy first. It’ll be easier.”

  Jimmy watched, incredulous, as Matthew raised his laser rifle, activated it, then awkwardly swung the heavy weapon around to him.

  “Remember, you’re on the list,” Griffyn said. “He’s not.”

  Matthew took aim. Jimmy saw his friend’s lip tremble.

  Jimmy was frozen in place, unable to think, unable to move, unable to breathe.

  But then Edith screamed and ran and before Jimmy could do anything, Matthew jerked around and fired and a red lance of light punched through Edith’s torso in two puffs of vaporized blood front and back, instantly silencing her as her body went limp and she fell facedown on the other bodies, arms and legs waving like blowing grain. As her flimsy shirt burned, small flames flickered around the blackened hole in her spine.

  In shocked silence, Jimmy heard only the sizzle of flesh, smelled only the sharp tang of ionized air. Then the frightened cries reached him. Donny was curled up on the ground. Billy and Tay clutched each other, weeping.

  “Good shot,” Griffyn said to Matthew. “Shut the rest up and we’re done.”

  This time, when Matthew turned his rifle on Jimmy, his lip didn’t tremble. And there was nothing awkward in the way he raised the weapon.

  He said, “Fair’s fair, Jimmy. You had your chance.”

  Even before Matthew fired the laser, Jimmy felt himself die.

  Then the wall behind Griffyn and Matthew exploded into light and Jimmy felt himself lifted through the air in a silent blast of heat.

  For a moment, he was glad that being killed by a laser wasn’t painful, then he landed on the hard broken flooring and felt enough pain to wake him to the reality of the situation.

  Soldiers.

  They wore helmets and goggles and sleek uniforms that swam with ever-changing patterns of adaptive camouflage.

  Fire pulsed from their weapons—not ordinary lasers, Jimmy recognized, but blasts of phased energy that stunned, not killed.

  He knew then they weren’t soldiers. Starfleet had arrived.

  Four days too late.

  He didn’t hear the shouts of the security forces or the hum of their phased weapons. The roar of the antimatter charge that’d blown open the arena wall still hissed in his ears.

  He didn’t see what happened to Matthew or Griffyn. He got to his feet while the battle raged, careless of the possibility of being shot. His fear of death had been lost in the moment Matthew aimed his weapon, finger pressing on the stud. Now he felt only rage.

  At some point, the firefight ended and a Starfleet security officer found him. The large man twisted something the size of a communicator in his gloved hands and a thick, warm blanket unfurled. He peeled back a tab on a silver packet and Jimmy smelled the first hot food—the first real food—he had seen for more than a month.

  The officer spoke to him, but Jimmy still could not hear. Nor did he want to.

  The officer put his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, just like his father had done. Just like Griffyn had put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. The hand that said everything was going to be all right.

  Jimmy struck that hand away with all his strength.

  The officer stepped back, startled.

  “Where were you?” Jimmy cried, and as if a dam had burst, the tears came, along with every emotion, every chord of fear, every pang of loss he had not permitted himself to feel for the past four days
.

  “Hey, kid…it’s okay. We’re here now.”

  “No!” Jimmy pummeled the officer and didn’t care that the combat armor protectively hardened at the impact of his fists. “You were supposed to save us! You were supposed to be here when we needed you!”

  “Kid…kid…” The officer tried to ward off his attack.

  Jimmy lost the power of words. Only a hoarse cry of despairing fury escaped him, something so powerful, so basic, born so deep in his unformed mind that speech was impossible.

  The officer reached out to—

  Jimmy screamed and punched and kicked and saw again the blood vaporize from Edith’s back, and Donny curled up on the ground, and Tay and Billy weeping, and he knew—he knew—this was all someone’s fault. It had to be.

  Jimmy’s fingers felt a patch on the officer’s shoulder, tore it free from its adaptive camouflage connector so that it resolved in color in his hand.

  Ad astra per aspera, the patch read—words Jimmy knew by heart, cradling a golden arrowhead rushing against the stars.

  He crushed the patch in his fist and stumbled back, tormented.

  The officer held out his hand to the boy. “Kid…let me help…”

  Jimmy threw the crumpled emblem of Starfleet on the smoldering ruins and ran, escaping into the gray storm and chilling wind that flashed snow past him like stars at warp.

  But inside, he was burning with shame, with fear, and with hatred for the only answer he could grasp at to explain the horror he had seen. Starfleet had failed here. Starfleet had failed him and Edith and everyone.

  Jimmy ran and ran and ran.

  And three years later, he was still running.

  Kirk stood still in the middle of the cargo bay, held in place by two laser rifles jammed under his chin.

  The third teenager untied Bohrom.

  “I should’ve done this the first time you came to the docks,” Matthew said.

  “You’d better listen to me,” Kirk said.

  Matthew looked at his fellow teenage soldier, and both of them gaped in mock surprise.

  “We’re in a decaying orbit. The Enterprise can get us out of it, but your ship’s blocking the impulse port. We have to move it.”