Collision Course

by William Shatner

  Matthew nodded in agreement. “I think you’re absolutely right, Jimmy. Since our transporter’s shot, you should use your communicator to have that Vulcan beam us back to the Enterprise to get her dilithium. Glad to see you’re thinking.”

  “We have twenty minutes,” Kirk said. “Then we die.”

  Matthew spun his rifle around and drove the butt into Kirk’s stomach, making him double over, gasping for air.

  “Maybe you die,” Matthew said. “Maybe other people die. But me, I live forever.” He reached to Kirk’s equipment belt, tore off the communicator, pushed it into Kirk’s face. “Call the Vulcan.”

  “No,” Kirk said.

  Matthew nodded to his soldier and the teenager dug the muzzle of his rifle into Kirk’s side where the flashdriver had sliced into him. Viciously.

  Kirk winced but pushed the rifle aside, stared defiantly at Matthew.

  “You want to die?” Matthew asked.

  “That’s not much of a threat,” Kirk said. “In twenty minutes, we’re all going to die. Even you.”

  Matthew nodded at his soldier again, and as the laser barrel pushed in, Kirk swept his hand down to deflect it, then spun around to clip the teenager on the side of his head with his fist.

  In the two seconds it took for Matthew to swing his own rifle up to cover Kirk, Kirk had the second soldier’s rifle aimed at Matthew.

  “I can save us all,” Kirk said.

  “Too bad you’re outnumbered.” Matthew jerked his head to the side.

  From the corner of his eye, Kirk saw the third teenager, rifle raised and aimed. Bohrom was beside him, clapping his hands with excitement.

  Kirk began to lower his rifle. “Guess you got me.”

  “Some things never change, Jimmy. You’re still a loser.”

  Kirk shrugged, then swung up his rifle in a blur and fired at the third teenager’s weapon to make it explode.

  Then Matthew fired before Kirk could turn, the laser beam slicing into Kirk’s rifle, making the power cell erupt in flames.

  But before Matthew could fire again, Kirk threw his blazing rifle at him, making him duck. Kirk seized the opening to slam into him and drive him to the deck.

  Matthew fought for his life, because that’s all he had been trained to do.

  But Kirk was fighting for Spock and Zee and Naderi and Del Mar and unconscious Finnegan and the U.S.S. Enterprise and every one of his kids that he’d lost on Tarsus IV.

  It wasn’t even close.

  The two wounded teenagers and the boy stared nervously at him as he stood over his fallen enemy. Kirk knew it would take just one more blow to crush Matthew’s neck and put paid to the horror of what happened three years ago.

  “Do it,” Matthew croaked. His eyes were swollen, but Kirk knew he could see.

  Kirk shook his head.

  “I killed your brother.”

  Kirk reached down, grabbed Matthew by the collar, pushed in close to his face.

  “That’s right,” Matthew spat past broken teeth. “In his apartment. He cried and he cried and begged for you to save him and you weren’t there.”

  “Liar,” Kirk said. “He’d have begged for our dad. He’s the one who taught me how to fight.” He let Matthew fall back to the floor. He turned to the two teenagers and the boy. They flinched away from him.

  Kirk took a step forward. “I won’t hurt you. I only want to—”

  Three laser beams sliced the air beside Kirk and killed the three children.

  Kirk wheeled around to see a man standing over Matthew, aiming a laser pistol at his head. He fired once, and Matthew died, too.

  The man looked up at Kirk.

  “Jimmy,” Griffyn said. “It’s about time.”

  51

  The bridge of the Enterprise was a study in controlled chaos.

  Zee had found a critical-equipment locker that held actual printed operations manuals, presumably to be used at times like these when the computer systems were down.

  Naderi was paging through one on antigravity systems, trying to see if there was some way to shake loose Griffyn’s ship by reversing gravitational polarity.

  Zee was trying to find the sections that described emergency communications. She was convinced there had to be a battery-powered back-up system on the bridge, even if it just used ordinary radio waves.

  Del Mar was doing calculations to determine how much thrust she could get out of the ship’s reaction control thrusters. If they were all fired at once along the same velocity vector, she was certain she could buy them at least another orbit.

  Finnegan was wrapped in a blanket with a first-aid pack serving as a pillow. Del Mar had told the others he was in some kind of coma, and when they had time, there was probably something in sickbay that could repair the damage. Provided it came with instructions.

  But of the skeleton crew that was conscious and capable of doing something, no matter how desperate, only Spock remained still, sitting in the chair at the science station, staring with rapt attention at the flickering blue and black that marked each revolution of the locked-together, dying ships.

  “Is there a reason you’re not doing anything?” Zee finally asked, her voice thin with frustration.

  “I am doing something,” Spock said pleasantly. “I am trying to determine the logic behind Griffyn’s decision to come to Neptune.”

  All three mids looked at him in shock.

  “And that is going to help us figure a way out of this situation how?” Zee asked.

  “I believe that is the point,” Spock said. “We do not have to ‘figure a way out.’ ”

  Now they all stared at him in confusion.

  “There is only one reason for Griffyn to have come here. And that means the way out will present itself shortly.”

  The mids exchanged looks, then returned to their manuals. Their search became a touch more frantic.

  When Griffyn shoved Kirk onto the flight deck of the Random Wave, only one young woman was at the helm. Kirk was puzzled that none of the other flight stations were staffed.

  “I’m Dala,” the woman said. Griffyn handed her his laser pistol, and she smiled sweetly as she kept it aimed at Kirk.

  “Where’re all your other kids?” Kirk asked. “I saw at least ten more in the freighter.”

  Griffyn shrugged. “When their jobs were over, I took them off the list.”

  Kirk felt himself turn to stone, but not from fear. “You’re still working for Kodos.”

  Griffyn sat down at the communications console, glanced back at him. “The governor died on T-IV. Didn’t you hear? They found his body.”

  “A body,” Kirk said. “Too badly burned to be positively identified.”

  Dala shivered. “Ick.”

  Griffyn worked some communications controls. “Kodos tried to be a hero, save the colony. If you’re still looking for him, I suggest you try Starfleet. They’re all heroes, right?”

  Kirk studied the spinning stars on the viewscreen. The angle it showed didn’t include Neptune. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes before our ships start to burn up.”

  “I don’t think so,” Griffyn said. Whatever he’d been doing at the console, he was finished. A blue light flashed there.

  A signal, Kirk thought. And then he realized why Griffyn wasn’t worried about being destroyed in a handful of minutes.

  “You’re expecting company.”

  “Always knew you were a smart one, Jimmy.” Griffyn got up, took the laser pistol from Dala. “That’s why I’m offering you a job. Whether you want it or not.”

  “A rendezvous?” Zee asked.

  “It is the only logical explanation,” Spock said. “Griffyn is expecting to offload his stolen cargo. He’ll need a vessel more suitable for traversing a high-velocity smuggling route out of Federation space.”

  “I might have to argue with you about that,” Del Mar said from the navigation console.

  “Indeed?” Spock replied. “You do not believe Griffyn expects to rendezvous with anot
her vessel?”

  “How about three other vessels?”

  Spock turned to the science displays, activated a scanning circuit, and saw what Del Mar referred to.

  Three new ships were rising out of Neptune’s depths.

  And even with the crude resolution of the science scanner, Spock knew what kind of ships they were.

  As they slipped through the last layers of Neptune’s frigid atmosphere, the three ships could be glimpsed in the flickering light from the incandescent streamers of plasma shed by their shields.

  They were all of the same class: compact, shaped like closed mollusk shells, all propulsion units and sensor pods and weapons arrays curved and blended into the arcs of their single hulls, with the forward bridge resembling a warrior’s helmet.

  The silhouette of these ships was known to every Starfleet crew, especially to those who had last served on the Enterprise and successfully repulsed a boarding effort by the aliens who flew them,

  Their hulls were green, so all would know their masters.

  Deep within the heart of the Federation, deep within the peaceful home system that had given birth to Starfleet, three Orion corsairs rose to do battle.

  “Pirates,” Spock said.

  Of the three mids on the bridge, Naderi was the most perplexed. “How did Orion corsairs get this close to Earth? How did they even get past the frontier?”

  “Excellent questions,” Spock observed.

  The praise didn’t help Naderi. “How about some excellent answers?”

  “I have none,” Spock admitted.

  Del Mar sighed. “Well, then it gives us something to look forward to when you do have some.”

  Spock gave Del Mar a curious look, but she was already flipping hurriedly through a weapons manual. “We’ve got no torpedoes. We have no idea how to recharge those new phaser banks. We can’t raise shields. And we can’t call for reinforcements. So here’s my excellent question: How do we blast those nasty green clamshells out of space?”

  “Even if we knew how,” Spock cautioned, “it would not be prudent.”

  Del Mar put her hands on her hips. “Keep going, Mr. Spock. By now we’ve all sort’ve figured out that if we just stare at you long enough, you’ll eventually get around to explaining whatever it is you’re talking about.”

  As Spock replied, it was almost as if he had to struggle to keep the barest flicker of a smile from appearing on his lips. “Midshipman Del Mar, those ‘nasty green clamshells’ are what will save us.”

  Del Mar grinned but didn’t give way. “You can’t stop there….”

  Kirk lurched back as the Orions’ tractor beams engaged the Random Wave and the small ship’s flight deck tilted.

  He saw Dala stumble, too, and quickly checked out Griffyn.

  But Griffyn had anticipated the contact and had braced himself. His weapon was still pointing directly at Kirk. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned.

  “Think about what?”

  Griffyn wasn’t so easily distracted. “Seriously, don’t spoil a good thing. My friends out there will stabilize our orbit long enough to beam over the cargo, then we go, too.”

  “You can’t make me do anything,” Kirk said.

  “Kid, I remember you back on T-IV, before the fungus hit. You rode my horse.”

  Kirk nodded. That was one memory of Tarsus IV he didn’t have to block out.

  “You didn’t know what you were doing,” Griffyn said, “but you wouldn’t let anyone tell you what to do, either. Stubbornest kid I ever saw. That’s what I told Kodos. That’s why he chose you.”

  Kirk held on to the side of the empty command chair as the flight deck creaked. “Why did Kodos choose you?”

  “Simple. I wanted to live.”

  “Everyone wanted to live.”

  “Not everyone could.”

  “We had months of food in the storehouses.”

  “And the next cargo fleet wasn’t due for a year.”

  “A year’s a long time. A lot of things could’ve happened.”

  Anger flashed in Griffyn’s eyes. “What does it matter, kid? It’s over and done with.”

  And with those words, as simply as that, Kirk understood what he never had. Once again he heard Mallory’s voice from that first night they met. Patterns, he had said. You’ve heard that old saying: Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it?

  Kirk had, but had never comprehended what it really meant.

  For seven thousand years or so, humans appear to have lived in a permanent state of forgetfulness…not one generation free of war or famine or injustice. And then…we woke up. It took the worst war we’d ever experienced, but out of all that came Cochrane and a new generation that for the first time wouldn’t forget. Because the pattern was broken. So no more wars. No more need. No more injustice. The world, our world, is the way it is today because we remember the patterns of history and we do not repeat them.

  “We woke up,” Kirk said quietly.

  “What?” Griffyn asked.

  “The pattern was broken,” Kirk said, his voice gaining strength.

  “What pattern? What are you talking about?”

  Kirk looked into the face of the beast from his past and knew why Kodos had chosen Griffyn; knew why Tarsus IV was over for him.

  The children who had fought for Kodos, committed atrocities, killed their own friends and families, they didn’t know what they were doing. They were innocent, unformed, and trusting.

  But the puppet masters—Kodos and Griffyn and, eventually, Matthew, all those who should have known better, who should have known the patterns of the past and should have woken up and should have refused to repeat those patterns—they were already dead, if not in body, then in spirit.

  For three years, Kirk had tried to forget the nightmare world he had seen and been part of. And that’s what had trapped him in his past. But if he remembered the pattern of what had gone so horribly wrong, he would not repeat it—he could break it.

  That knowledge freed him like nothing he had ever experienced before. And in the midst of that release, he remembered something else that Mallory had told him. Something else important that he’d not understood.

  Until this moment.

  “If we remember the patterns of history, we do not repeat them.”

  Griffyn stared at him. “What do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “Starfleet,” Kirk said.

  52

  “The Orions are beaming cargo from Griffyn’s ship.”

  Zee looked up from the auxiliary tactical station where she had managed to bring more sensors on line. “At the rate they’re going, I’d say they’ll be finished in five, maybe six minutes.”

  “Then they’re going to drop us again, aren’t they?” Del Mar said. “Push us back into the atmosphere to burn us up, along with all the evidence.”

  Naderi suddenly jumped up from his chair at the helm. “Shuttlecraft! There should be at least two down on the hangar deck!”

  “There will be,” Spock said, “once the hangar deck refit has been completed.”

  Naderi frowned. “No shuttlecraft?”

  Spock shook his head. “A worthy suggestion, however.”

  Naderi jumped up again. “Saucer separation!”

  “We would need the impulse ports to be clear.”

  Naderi sat down again, dejected. “I know, another worthy suggestion.”

  “C’mon, people,” Del Mar said. “We’ve got most of a starship here. There’s got to be something it can do to take out those pirates. Or at least slow them down.”

  “Slow them down…,” Spock said, deep in thought.

  Del Mar ran up to him, motioning with her hands as if to coax a few more words out of him. “I like the way you said that. Keep going.”

  Spock stood. “Our transporters work. As they beam the cargo over to their ships, we will beam it back to ours.”

  Del Mar leaned in, paused, asked, “That’s a fake uniform, right? You’re not really a m
id?”

  Spock shook his head.

  “Good. Then the fraternization rules don’t apply.” With that, Del Mar hugged him. Then she said to the others, “Naderi, stay at the helm. Zee, keep trying to restore communications.” She patted Spock on the shoulder, and he was proud that he controlled himself and did not flinch. “The great imposter and I will be in the transporter room, making life miserable for our friends out there.” Del Mar grabbed Spock by the arm and dragged him to the turbolift. “Let’s go, handsome. You’re on!”

  Spock wasn’t quite certain what had just happened, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

  Griffyn spun around in his chair and punched a comm switch.

  “What do you mean they’re stealing our cargo?”

  The reply was in the Orion traders’ tongue. Kirk couldn’t understand it, but he recognized the cadence because it was so often used in holo-entertainments featuring Orion villains and, inevitably, Orion dancing girls.

  “Then raise your shields!” Griffyn shouted.

  Kirk thought he knew what was going on. It sounded as if the people on the Enterprise were doing what the Orions were doing—beaming cargo off Griffyn’s ship.

  An irate Orion tirade came over the comm link.

  Whatever was said, Griffyn had had enough. “Forget the cargo then! Lock on to any life signs you can find and beam the crew over! Beam them into space for all I care. Just stop their interference!”

  Griffyn’s frustration was the equal of the unintelligible Orion’s at the other end of the comm link. He angrily flicked a switch on and off several times, which Kirk knew would cause an annoying screech for the receiver.

  “Acknowledge, will you?” Griffyn demanded, and by doing so left himself wide open.

  As Kirk leapt into action, he had the thought that there was at least some justice playing out today. Griffyn was so preoccupied by the threat outside his ship, he’d forgotten the threat inside.

  Kirk’s first punch from behind caught Griffyn on the side of his head.

  Griffyn twisted with a savage shout, and Kirk easily caught his hand to block him from aiming his laser pistol.