Star Trek: The Original Series: No Time Like the Past

by Greg Cox

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Kirk.” Habroz scowled beneath his drooping black mustache. “We both know that Seven fell into your lap from sometime in the future and that you have been foolishly searching for a way to return her to her own time.” He put down his goblet and snarled across space at Kirk. “Trust me when I say that I am not known for my patience. I propose a simple trade: the hostages for Seven.”

  Forget it, Kirk thought. As concerned as he was for the scouting party, he knew he could not allow Seven to be spirited away by the Federation’s enemies. “I take it the Mavela are working for you?”

  “Of course they are,” Santiago muttered.

  “We have an arrangement,” Habroz disclosed. “Which means you have to deal with me if you want your men back.”

  “And if I refuse?” Kirk asked.

  A cruel smile bared pointed teeth. “Let me demonstrate how far I am willing to go to claim my prize.” He lifted a communicator his lips. “K’Mara, you know what to do.”

  Twenty-three

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Aboard the O’Spakya, K’Mara drew a serrated dagger from her belt. The exotic Orion pirate stalked toward McCoy, who waited for his life to pass before his eyes. He hoped it would skip over the more annoying parts.

  “Don’t I at least get an anesthetic first?”

  She smirked at the doctor’s defiance. Papa Yela averted his eyes. “Please, for the love of the star-spirits, be swift about it!”

  “Oh, it will be quick, all right,” she promised. She nodded at her men, who took hold of the hostage’s arms to keep them still. McCoy strained against his captor’s grasp while a burly pirate twisted his arm behind his back. The doctor’s throat felt painfully exposed; he suddenly flashed on Khan Noonien Singh holding a scalpel to his neck a few years earlier. K’Mara tested the edge of the blade against an olive-colored thumb. “I keep my knives sharp.”

  McCoy swallowed hard, possibly for the last time.

  “You are about to commit a serious error,” Spock warned K’Mara. “The murder of a Starfleet officer carries irrevocable consequences. The entire fleet will devote itself to your capture. You will be hunted across the galaxy.”

  K’Mara spit upon the tiles. “That’s what I think of Starfleet.” The muzzle of a disruptor pistol was pressed against the back of Spock’s skull. “Be thankful that you are slightly more valuable than these weakling humans.”

  “Says who?” McCoy protested. “I resent that remark.”

  “Not for much longer,” she promised. “It has been too long since this blade tasted pink skin.”

  McCoy decided he liked the green dancing girls better. He braced himself for the fatal incision. “It would be most effective if you cut the carotid artery, just under the right ear.”

  K’Mara came closer. A predatory grin betrayed a sadistic nature. She licked her lips, providing a glimpse of a glittering ruby stud in her tongue. “As you desire.”

  “Don’t!” Tang shouted. “He’s a doctor!”

  Born and raised on a heavy-gravity mining planet, Tang’s strength belied his compact frame. The power of his muscles took the Orions by surprise as he threw off his captors and lunged at K’Mara. He grabbed the pirate’s wrist, and they grappled for control of the dagger. McCoy and Spock moved to join the fight, but the other Orions tightened their grips on the two men. McCoy felt another blade pressed against his jugular. A nameless raider growled into his ear. His breath smelled of Orion whiskey.

  “Stay where you are, human!”

  Unable to intervene, McCoy could only watch impotently as Tang tussled with K’Mara, who clearly knew her way around a brawl. The other Orions circled about, knives, bludgeons, and disruptors drawn, aiming to get a clear shot at Tang. Papa Yela retreated fearfully to one of the pointed control nooks, frantically waving his tentacles, while the other Mavela scrambled for safety. The majority fled the bridge altogether, diving through hidden trapdoors and exits. The cowardly nomads were clearly tricksters, not warriors.

  “Enough, please!” Papa Yela wailed. “I beg of you, no more violence!”

  No one listened to him.

  “You want to die instead, Red Shirt?” K’Mara snarled. “Be my guest.”

  She tried to butt Tang with her skull, but he yanked his head out of the way in time. Locked in combat, they slammed against the navigation globe floating at the center of the bridge. Knocked from its stasis, the massive sphere crashed to the floor, inflicting yet more damage on the already cracked tiles. It rolled across the deck like a transparent moon kicked from its orbit, the image inside it spinning wildly so that the Enterprise and the Navaar appeared to be tumbling head over heels.

  “The orb!” Papa Yela squealed. “Somebody rescue the orb!”

  The globe bowled over a slow-moving raider before ricocheting off a bulkhead toward Papa Yela himself. The treacherous Mavela dived under a control console instants before the orb bounced up against it. The sphere came to rest against the workstation, trapping him inside his cramped, makeshift hidey-hole. He looked to be in no hurry to extricate himself, at least not until the battle stopped raging.

  Like a rat in its hole, McCoy thought. Figures.

  The odds were against Tang, but so far he was holding his own against K’Mara. “You picked the wrong crew to mess with,” he grunted as he took on the knife-wielding Orion female. His thumb applied pressure to a nerve cluster on K’Mara’s wrist, causing her to let go of her dagger. The blade clattered to the floor. Tang shoved K’Mara up against a bulkhead. “Starfleet trained me to deal with lawless scum like you!”

  “But did they prepare you for this?”

  Her tongue flicked from her lips, pressing its ruby stud against his jugular. There was a vicious hiss like the sound of a striking serpent.

  Or a hypospray.

  He staggered backward, clutching his neck. He gasped for breath, stumbling across the bridge as though poisoned. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Swollen black veins spread from where the stud had kissed him.

  “D-doctor,” he said hoarsely. “Help me—”

  The Orions didn’t give the venom a chance to kill him. A crimson beam struck Tang. He flared brightly before disintegrating.

  “No!” McCoy exclaimed. Tang was gone in a heartbeat. “You didn’t have to do that!”

  K’Mara seemed to agree. “Perdition!” she swore. “What greedy bilge rat stole my prey from me?”

  A sheepish Orion, still clutching Tang’s own phaser, was quickly abandoned by his comrades, who slunk away from him, leaving the hapless raider to face K’Mara’s wrath alone. “But . . . I had a clear shot!”

  “Did I look like I needed your help?” She reclaimed her fallen dagger and thrust the unbloodied blade back into her belt. “His worthless life was mine to take!”

  “My mistake, First Mate,” the trigger-happy raider said hurriedly. He could not put the stolen phaser away fast enough. “It won’t happen again!”

  Once was enough as far as McCoy was concerned. He stared in horror at the empty space Tang had occupied only moments before. The man was gone . . . just like Jadello and Bergstrom. Another life lost to this gang of murderous thugs. Despite the knife at his throat, McCoy could not keep silent.

  “You green-skinned witch!”

  K’Mara wheeled about and smacked McCoy across the face with her hand. Despite her slender frame, the blow was strong enough to rattle his teeth. Deprived of her kill, she grabbed McCoy’s collar and hurled him across the room. Spittle sprayed from her plump green lips. Pearly teeth gnashed furiously.

  “Watch how you speak to an Orion woman!”

  • • •

  “Talk to me, Habroz!” Kirk said. “There’s no need for bloodshed.”

  The pirate captain laughed. “On the contrary, Kirk. There’s always cause for a little healthy bloodletting, as long as it’s not Orion blood that’s spilt.” He raised his wrist-communicator to his one remaining ear. A shark-like smile stretched across his face. “I’ve j
ust received word from my second-in-command aboard the O’Spakya. I’m afraid you’ve lost a security officer, Kirk. But don’t worry, I’m told he put up a good fight before being blasted to atoms!”

  Daniel Tang, Kirk realized. A surge of relief that neither Spock nor McCoy had been sacrificed yet was immediately followed by guilt over valuing his friends’ lives above any other member of his crew. That guilt over an understandable human reaction fed his fury about the Orions’ callous disregard for sentient life.

  “That’s three lives you and your people have taken,” he accused Habroz. “Don’t think you’re getting away with that.”

  “Spare me the empty threats, Kirk,” the pirate captain said, betraying not a hint of remorse. “I still have two more hostages . . . and I want my prize.”

  “Not to mention a sizable bounty from the Klingons?” Kirk guessed. How else could the marauder have acquired a cloaking device, not to mention the freedom to operate so openly within the Neutral Zone? “That is who you’re working for, isn’t it?”

  “That’s my business, Kirk. You’d be wise to keep your nose out of it.” Habroz leaned forward on his throne as though trying to invade Kirk’s personal space from four hundred kilometers away. He clenched his prosthetic fist. “I want Seven. What I choose to do with her is none of your concern.”

  Not where the Klingons are involved, Kirk thought. He could not risk Habroz handing Seven over to the Federation’s rivals. But how could he hang on to her without losing Spock and McCoy?

  He was racking his brains when Scotty raced back onto the bridge. “I knew that bloody marauder would be back to trouble us again,” he muttered. The engineer must have assumed, correctly, that he’d be of more use on the bridge than in the transporter room now that the Orions had joined the party. He gave Habroz a dirty look. “So that’s the sneaky cutthroat behind all this deviltry. He looks the part all right.”

  Habroz ignored the interruption. “No more stalling, Kirk. My deal remains the same: Seven for the two remaining hostages. Give me your visitor from the future . . . or your Vulcan dies.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kirk warned. “Seven has confided in me, privately, that it was the future Spock who invented the device that sent her back to our time in the first place. If you kill him now, he will never do so . . . and Seven will vanish instantly from our time.”

  Chekov leaned over to whisper to Sulu, too low to be heard by an audio pickup. “Is that for real?”

  Not in the least, Kirk thought. But that didn’t matter; he just needed Habroz to believe it.

  “Er, how is that again?” Habroz’s arrogant attitude faltered and his scarred brow wrinkled in confusion. Uncertain how to process this new complication, he shifted awkwardly upon his throne. Puzzled jade eyes glanced offscreen, perhaps searching for confirmation from one of his crew.

  Good luck, Kirk thought. He doubted that there were many experts on temporal mechanics among the raiders. Habroz was on his own.

  “You’re bluffing,” he said without conviction.

  “Am I?” Kirk shot back. “Think about it. If you kill Spock today, he’ll never create the time machine that brought Seven here. You’ll be erasing that entire future.” He called upon his star witness. “Isn’t that so, Doctor Seven?”

  She stepped confidently into the recessed command well so that Habroz could see and hear her. Kirk hoped she’d be able to play along convincingly.

  “That is correct,” she stated. “My very presence in this era would be negated due to the crucial alteration of the time line.” She spoke with the absolute assurance of a stern schoolmistress lecturing her pupils. “No doubt you are familiar with Janeway’s Fundamental Principle of Trans-Dimensional Causality?”

  Habroz’s blank look spoke volumes.

  Janeway who? Kirk thought. Did she just make that up?

  “If you wish,” Seven volunteered, “I can provide you with the relevant equations.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Habroz snarled, visibly frustrated. He slammed his metal fist into his palm. “Don’t forget, Kirk. I still have another hostage. Hand over Seven or the doctor dies!”

  “Kill McCoy and you have no more bargaining chips,” Kirk pointed out, doing his best to sound much more cold-blooded than he felt. Aside from possibly Spock, McCoy was closer to Kirk than anyone else aboard the Enterprise. “Besides, it would be a pointless gesture anyway. We both know there’s no way I can let you have Seven, no matter how many hostages you threaten. This is a matter of Federation security, as I’m certain Commissioner Santiago would agree.”

  The diplomat stepped forward to play his part as well. “That’s right, Kirk. By the authority vested in me by the United Federation of Planets, I expressly forbid you to turn over the time traveler known as Annika Seven to a known ally of the Klingon Empire.” His stony face and stern tone brooked no dissent. “That’s an order, Captain.”

  “You see what I mean?” Kirk threw up his hands. “I couldn’t trade Seven for my own mother.”

  Habroz’s face hardened. “Then we’ll have to take her.”

  He gestured at an unseen lackey. A moment later, enemy fire buffeted the Enterprise. The bridge rocked back and forth, throwing Kirk against the side of his chair. A loose data slate crashed to the floor. The inertial buffers strained to compensate. Seven grabbed the back of Kirk’s chair to keep from falling. Santiago stumbled against the handrail.

  “Both the Navaar and the O’Spakya have opened fire on us,” Chekov announced redundantly. Real-time images of the attacking ships appeared on the main viewer, relegating Habroz to an insert window in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. Green and purple beams targeted the Enterprise. “Phasers and disruptors only!”

  “Do not think of retaliating!” Habroz bellowed. “Or you will never see your ship’s doctor again!”

  Chekov looked at Kirk, clearly eager to return fire. “Keptin?”

  “Hold your fire,” Kirk said, the words leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He wanted to strike back at the Orions just as much as the impetuous Russian, if not more so, but he hadn’t given up on Spock and McCoy yet. As long as Habroz thought McCoy still had some value as a hostage, he had no incentive to kill Bones, except purely for spite . . . which, unfortunately, Kirk wouldn’t put past him. “And shut up that son of a slime devil before I say something I regret.”

  “You and me both,” Uhura said, muting the transmission. Habroz blustered silently in his corner of the screen. The enemy ships fanned out to pummel the Enterprise from above and below. Tactical displays, employing the latest Starfleet software, offered Kirk multiple views of the conflict from a variety of angles. Status reports flashed across the bottom of the screen.

  “No major damage so far,” Chekov reported. “Shields are holding.”

  But for how much longer?

  “Evasive maneuvers, Mister Sulu,” Kirk ordered. “Be creative.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  The Enterprise tilted at an angle, presenting a narrower target to the Orion marauder, which was obviously the greater threat. It threaded between the hostile ships, trying to get them to fire upon each other. Kirk winced as an emerald disruptor beam bounced off the O’Spakya’s shields; he was all too aware that Spock and McCoy were still trapped aboard the Mavelan merchanter. He didn’t want the O’Spakya to take any fatal blows from either the Navaar or the Enterprise. The ongoing hostage crisis tied his hands, making a bad situation worse.

  Serves me right for letting Papa Yela play me like that, he thought. Want to bet there’s actually no baby Mavela about to be whelped?

  Seven made her way to the Science station, where she took it upon herself to relieve Cozzone. “Allow me, Lieutenant. I believe I may be of assistance.”

  Cozzone glanced at Kirk, who nodded in confirmation. With Spock away from his post and in jeopardy aboard the O’Spakya, Kirk welcomed Seven’s expertise and trusted her judgment. If she thought she could help out in this crisis, he wasn’t about to say n
o. Perhaps her future knowledge could give them an edge over their adversaries?

  She certainly seemed to know her way around a science station. “Shields at eighty-three percent,” she reported. “But dropping.”

  No surprise there. The Enterprise’s deflector array was state of the art, but even it couldn’t withstand a nonstop barrage from two enemy vessels for long, which was surely what Habroz had in mind. Destructive beams slammed against the ship’s shields like space-age battering rams.

  “Divert more power to the deflectors,” Kirk ordered. “And concentrate the shields over the most vital compartments.”

  Scotty took over at the engineering station. “I don’t understand. Why only disruptors? Don’t they have any photon torpedoes?”

  Habroz’s strategy made perfect sense to Kirk. “They don’t want to risk killing Seven by blowing us up. They want to knock out our shields so they can board the Enterprise and take her by force.”

  “Aye, that makes sense.” Scotty glanced over at Seven. “She’s a profitable prize, to be sure. Why, it wasn’t too long ago that I was covetin’ her future know-how myself.”

  “Precisely, Mister Scott,” Kirk said, “which is why it is imperative that we keep the Orions from getting their hands on her.”

  “Understood, Captain.” Scotty didn’t need to have the potential consequences spelled out to him. He grimaced at the thought. “I hate to say it, sir, but maybe a judicious retreat is in order?”

  Kirk shook his head. “I’m not ready to abandon Spock and McCoy yet.” He still didn’t believe in no-win scenarios; there had to be a way to rescue the hostages without surrendering Seven. “Besides, I doubt that Habroz and his raiders will let us make it all the way back to the border.”

  “That is unlikely,” Seven agreed. “Our shields are weakening at a geometric rate. I estimate that the Orions will be able to beam through our defenses in approximately twelve minutes.”