by Diane Carey
"Here now, sir." The young navigator picked at his controls, tied in to the science station—not the best, but workable for now—then looked up at the screen.
There it was.
Big. Well, they could see it, but that wasn't much help. It looked like—
"Looks like a big … pasta noodle," Chekov said. "A little overboiled, maybe …"
"It's a hunting horn, sir," Sulu offered.
Uhura swiveled to look over the heads of Sulu and Chekov. "Looks like a cornucopia to me."
Engineer Scott canted his head to one side. "I think it's a giant purple foxglove kicked on its side. Y'know, the flower part."
"Enough," Kirk droned. "You're at alert."
"Aye, sir," Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu uttered, each suddenly attentive of stations.
Satisfied, Kirk rubbed his elbow again and eyed the new ship. It did look like all those things. Like a porridge of those things. Huge collars of hull material set in a pattern, purple plates fanned out like playing cards. Maybe Scott was the most right. The structures were like flower petals, winding down to a point. Yet there was a decidedly nonfloral ferocity about it.
He could see why Kellen would be shaken. The ship was the color of Klingon blood—plum fans shimmering in the light of the nearest sun, twisting down, around and around, into shades of night orchid, etched in sharp black.
"All stop. Hold position relative to the other vessel. Communicate orders to the Klingon ships."
"All stop," Sulu said as his hands played the helm. "Compensating for drift, sir."
"Fire!"
General Kellen's big voice became a thunderbolt under the low ceiling.
Kirk spun and belted, "Security!"
Kellen plunged for the helm console, his wide hand aimed specifically at the phaser controls. Another inch—
Sulu pressed upward out of his helm chair, driving his knobby shoulder into Kellen's chest and almost disappearing under the bulk. Ensign Chekov lunged sideways from the navigator's position and pushed his own skinny shoulders over Sulu's head and under Kellen's chin, while Kirk himself made a grab and caught a handful of hair and silver tunic with his weakened left hand. With the other hand he clutched the arm of his command chair and hauled away.
The chair swiveled, then caught and gave him purchase. He drew back hard. It took all three of them to hold Kellen away from that critical inch.
An instant later the two Security guards made it down from the turbolift vestibule and grappled Kellen by his arms, muscling him back from the helm and plunging him against the bright red rail until his great bulk arched and his face screwed up in anger. Not too soon, though, for Kirk's mind flashed over and over that Kellen's hand had been halted directly over the phaser control. No guesses. Kellen knew exactly where those firing controls were, though there were no markings.
Once the Security men hit the lower deck, the crisis ended, but Kellen strained against them and bellowed, "Shoot while you have the chance!" He pivoted toward Kirk. "Fire on them!"
"I don't know them!" Kirk pelted back, squaring off before him.
The big Klingon's face bronzed with excitement. "But I have seen what they are!"
Angry now and reminded of it by the screaming muscles and throbbing bones in his left arm and both knees, Kirk said sharply, "You've described a Klingon legend. I told you before, legends don't use conventional power ratios. Barbarians don't drive around in ships like that."
The general stopped hauling against the red-faced guards. He seemed to accept Kirk's charge of the moment, and fell again into that disarming, nearly bovine self-control which had garnered him a reputation even in Starfleet circles.
"What are your intents?" he asked.
As the passive bright lights flickered in Kellen's spectacles, Kirk said, "I intend to hail them."
"You will give us away."
"I've already done that by entering the sector, General. We neither explore nor protect by stealth. Will I have to call more guards?"
The general squinted at him as if in challenge, but let his arms go slack in the guards' grips and acknowledged with his posture that this was not his bridge. The power of such a concept rang and rang. Command. One per ship, one only.
"Bring us into short-range communications distance," Kirk said, without taking his eyes from the general's.
"Aye, sir," Sulu responded, and beneath them the ship hummed its own answer.
"Shields up, Mr. Chekov. Keep weapons on-line."
"Phaser battery on standby, sir. Shields up."
"Captain," Communications Officer Uhura spoke in that crystal-clear teacher's English, "Mr. Spock is calling from sickbay. He requests to speak to you."
Kirk allowed himself a smile, but didn't allow Kellen to see it. "Somehow I'm not surprised. On visual."
Spock's angular face appeared on the darkened monitor on the upper bridge, just above the library computer access panel. Kirk stepped up to meet it as if his first officer were there, at his post, as usual.
"Captain," Spock greeted. "Permission to monitor the encounter with the unidentified vessel."
Kirk eyed the face on the screen. "And just how did you know we were approaching the unidentified ship at all, if I may ask?"
But he already knew, and glanced at Chekov, hunkering down there at his navigation console and scouting Kirk in his periphery.
"Collusion, sir," Spock admitted.
"I see. And once you've monitored?"
"I shall analyze the information and make recommendations."
"As usual. I see again. You intend to do all this from sickbay?"
"As necessary."
"How?"
"If Lieutenant Uhura will give you a wide view …"
Without waiting, Uhura skimmed one hand over her board, and Spock's monitor clicked to a wide side view of the Vulcan laid out on his diagnostic couch, with the antigravs working silently at his sides, but with a new development. Above him was mounted a small monitor.
"And who did that?" Kirk asked, as if asking which of the kids put the soccer ball through the bedroom window. "Scotty."
Burying a wince, he turned and glanced up at the port aft station, main engineering, where Chief Engineer Scott tucked his chin guiltily and peered out from under the squabble of black hair.
"Wouldn't want him to get bored, sir," the stocky engineer excused, letting his Aberdeen accent make him sound quaint, "lyin' there, an' all."
"And which of the ship's heads did you lock McCoy into while you were doing this?"
Scott held his breath. "Don't recall mentioning it to him, sir."
"Nor do I," Spock confirmed.
"They both forgot to mention it to me."
McCoy sauntered out of the turbolift when Kirk looked toward the voice, and came to join the captain on the starboard deck.
"Flummoxed," the doctor said. "Right in my own sickbay. That's what you get when you try to hold down a pointed-eared bunco artist." He cast a glower at Scott. "Or his sidekick, Jock the Jolly Tinker."
Scott actually blushed, and Kirk crushed back a grin.
"I should be able to assist effectively," Spock said, and there was unmistakable hope behind his reserve. He managed not to frame a question with anything but his eyes, gazing across the silent circuits at his captain.
McCoy didn't approve, according to his expression, but he said nothing, and Kirk felt the decision go thunk into his hands from the chief surgeon's.
"I'd go stir-crazy myself," he allowed. "Glad to have you on duty, Mr. Spock. I'll leave it to your better judgment not to overburden yourself."
"Oh, he won't be overburdening himself," McCoy said. "He's scheduled for a sedative."
"When?"
"The minute I decide he's overburdening himself."
"Oh, of course. You heard it, Mr. Spock. You're on duty, but you're also on medical probation."
"Thank you, sir."
Kirk nodded to Uhura. "Keep Mr. Spock's channel open, Lieutenant." While cannily watching Kellen press his hair
back into place, Kirk left McCoy's side, swiveled toward Uhura's communications station, and spoke very quietly to her exotic, expectant face. "Note to Starfleet Command, scramble. Klingons have intimate knowledge of our bridge control configuration. Suggest necessary changes in color code and location with next design upgrades. Kirk, commanding, Enterprise, stardate … so on. And while you're at it, give them our location."
She turned her eyes up to him. "Right away, sir."
"Captain," Sulu interrupted, "coming into short-range comm, sir. Thirty seconds."
"Open channels. Let's see if they'll talk."
"Talk," Kellen snapped. Cranking his thick arm around his own body, he dug between the silver tunic and the protective molded vest that Klingons had started using only lately and only in battle, and yanked out his personal communicator.
"Stop him!" Kirk shouted, but the Security men weren't fast enough in snatching the communicator from the big fist.
Snapping it to his lips Kellen spat, "Aragor! HIgh! Tugh!"
The guard grabbed the communicator and Kellen's hand and cranked hard. Kellen's face twisted into a grimace, but he knew he'd gotten his message through and gave up the communicator before arms were broken—a toss-up just whose arms.
"Captain, the Klingon ships are moving around us!" Chekov gulped. "Attack formation!"
"On screens!"
The main screen and four subsystems monitors changed to show the five Klingon ships swinging freely around the Enterprise as if swung on strings. In open space, the starship could easily have outmaneuvered them, but in these tight circumstances the lighter-weight Klingon ships were like hornets buzzing around a swan, racing away toward the unidentified vessel at full impulse, and they got the best of the bigger ship on short notice.
"General, order them back!" Kirk demanded.
"They have their orders," Kellen answered, strangely calm now. He watched the screen as a man watches a house burning down.
Kirk grabbed for his command chair's shipwide announcement control. "Red alert!"
Bright poppy-red slashes lit the bulkheads in place of the amber ones as the alert klaxons rang through the lower decks, announcing to the crew that the ship was coming into action. On the main screen, the Klingon ships shot into the distance and closed on the unidentified ship and opened fire the second they were within range, pelting heedless and relentless lancets of phaser energy onto the wide purple fans of hull material.
Sparks flew and bright energy wash pumped down the fans, but was quickly drained away. There might've been some spray of debris, but it was difficult to see from this distance, moving at this speed.
Spinning full-front to the main screen, Kirk cast his order back to Uhura.
"Warn those ships off!"
Chapter Seven
"THEY WILL NOT go off, Captain," Kellen said. "You have no choice now. You will have to fight with them."
"We'll see about that. Mr. Sulu, ahead one-half impulse. Mr. Chekov, take the science station. Ensign Donnier, take navigations."
The assistant engineer blinked in surprise and dropped to the command deck. Chekov jumped up to Spock's library computer and science station. Donnier slipped into Chekov's vacant seat and barely settled all the way down. He was a competent assistant for Scott, but he'd never been on the bridge before. He was young and particularly good-looking, which got him in many doors, only there to stumble over his personal insecurity because of a stuttering problem that he let slow him down. He'd requested duty only in engineering. That was why Kirk had ordered him to put in time on the bridge.
The unidentified ship began to return fire—one, two, three globular bulbs of energy that looked more than anything like big blue water balloons wobbling through space toward the Klingon cruiser. Two missed, but one hit and drenched the cruiser in crackling blue, green, and white destructive power. The cruiser wasn't blown up, but fell off and spun out of control.
"Heavy damage to the cruiser, sir," Chekov reported. "Main engines are seizing."
"Analyze those bolts."
"Analyzing," Spock's baritone voice answered from up on that monitor.
Kirk glanced up there. He'd been talking to Chekov.
He stared at the main screen, where the remaining four Klingon ships were dodging those heavy blue globes and pummeling the unidentified ship so unbrokenly that Kirk winced in empathy. "Stand by photon torpedoes."
"Photon t-torpedoes r-ready," Donnier struggled, barely audible.
As if he were standing at Kirk's side, Spock read off his analysis. "The unidentified ship's salvos are composed of quadra-cobalt intrivium … phased incendiary corosite plasma … and, I believe, plutonium. They also seem to have some wrecking qualities based on sonics."
"Everything's in there," Kirk muttered. "Fusion, phasers, fire, sound … effective, but not supernatural. Double shields shipwide."
"Double shields, sir."
"They will use their mass-dropping weapon if you give them the chance, Kirk," Kellen rumbled. "They can negate the gravity in the whole sector. You must attack them before they use it."
"If they have that kind of technology, General, then we're already sunk," Kirk responded, watching the action. "And they don't seem to have it."
"How can you know?"
"Because your ships are getting in some good punches and the visitors haven't used that 'weapon' again. They're using conventional defenses. If they have hand grenades, why are they shooting with bows and arrows? Helm, full impulse."
"Full impulse, sir."
"Good," Kellen whispered, then aloud said again, "Good. Fight them with this monster of yours, while we have the advantage."
"Just keep back," Kirk warned. "Helm, come to three-four-nine. Get between those Klingon ships. Force them to break formation."
"Kirk!" Kellen pressed forward and the guards had to grab him again.
Around them the giant Artemis hummed as she powered up to her full potential and all her systems came online. A choral song of heat and imagination, she took a deep bite on space and moved in on the clutch of other ships, cleaving them away from each other with the sheer force of her presence and her sprawling shields.
Two of the Klingon ships were pressured to part formation, while one other was forced off course and had to vector around again, which took time.
In his mind Kirk saw his starship plunge into the battle. He'd put her through hell in their time together and she'd always come out with her spine uncracked. She'd picked herself up, given a good shake, and brought him and his crew back in under her own power every time. This was one of those moments when he felt that esprit with sailors from centuries past, who understood what a ship really was, how a bolted pile of wood, metal, and motive power could somehow be alive and command devotion as if the heart of oak actually pumped blood. How fast? How strong? How much could she take? How tightly could she twist against the pressure of forces from outside and inside? How far could they push her before she started to buckle? How much of herself would she give up before she let her crew be taken? How tough was she?
Those were the real questions, because the ship was their life. If she died, they died. When a ship is life, it becomes alive.
"Port your helm, Mr. Sulu, wear ship," he said. "Mr. Donnier, phasers one-half power and open fire."
"Wear the ship, aye," Sulu said, at the same time as Donnier responded, "One half ph-phasers, s-sir."
Firing bright blue streamers, the starship came about, her stern section and main hull pivoting as if the engineering hull were held on a string high above.
Kirk gripped his own chair with one hand and Donnier's chair back with the other. "Ten points more to port."
"Ten points, sir."
"Good … twenty points more … keep firing, Mr. Donnier."
The ship swung about, showing them a moving panorama of stars and ships on the main screen, swinging almost lazily from right to left.
When he couldn't see the unidentified ship on the main screen anymore, he said, "Midships."<
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"Midships," Sulu said, and tilted his shoulders as he fought to equalize the helm.
Donnier glanced at Kirk, plainly confused by the term "midships" on something other than a docking maneuver. Good thing Sulu was at the helm instead of someone with less experience. Maneuvering a ship at sublight speeds, in tight quarters, had entirely different characteristics from maneuvers, even battles, at warp.
At warp speed, the helm maneuvers were very slight and specific, designated by numbers of mark and course, and even moving the "wheel" a pin or two had sweeping results of millions of light-years.
But at impulse speed, things changed. And changed even more in tight-maneuvering conditions. Helm adjustments became more sweeping, bigger, sometimes a full 180 degrees, or any cut of the pie. "Midships" meant "find the navigational center of this series of movements and equalize the helm."
Forcing her crew to lean, the starship dipped briefly to port, then surged and came about to her own gravitational center and ran her phasers across the hulls of the Qul and the MatHa', knocking them out of their attack formation. The point of Donnier's tongue was sticking out the corner of his mouth and his backside was hitched to the edge of his seat as he concentrated on his phasers, following not the angle of his phaser bolts but the position of the moving Klingon ships out there—it was exactly the right thing to do. Like pointing a finger.
The two Klingon ships wobbled, shivered, nearly collided, and bore off, one of them forced astern and down. Kirk hoped Kellen took note that the starship's punches were being pulled.
"Good shooting, Mr. Donnier," he offered. "Maintain."
Sweating, Donnier mouthed an aye-aye, but there was no sound to it.
The other two cruisers—he forgot their names—kept wits and plowed in again, opening fire now on the Enterprise. The ship rocked and Kirk had to grab his command chair to keep from slamming sideways into the rail. His scratched fingers burned with the effort.
Full phasers.
He didn't want to respond in kind. He wanted to make a point, not chop four other ships to bits.
Well, not yet.
Problem was that their commanding general was here, out of communication. They might take that as final orders and fight to the death.