by Diane Carey
names like Orcu, Styx, Aralu, Jahannan, Doom, Hades,
Hell... and on other planets names such as Kagh'Tragh
and Aralua. Even Vulcan had such a concept, though we
dropped it generations ago. All involved banishment
and punishment."
"If they'd had this on the mountain," McCoy grumbled,
"there'd be eleven commandments."
"Captain," Spock cautioned, "although Zennor and
his crew have the physical appearance of devils, of
'Furies,' they do not seem to have the inner makings of
evil purpose. Legend was obviously written by the winners."
"Saints and demons can be the same," Kirk contemplated,
"depending on whether you approve of their
work."
He knew the bitterness was coming out in his voice,
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but his feelings were boiling to the surface and he didn't
feel inclined to push them down. He was beginning to get
a picture of what his duty would be, and he didn't like
looking at it.
"They're not demons, no matter what they look like.
They're just people with a fixed purpose, no different
from any others who get their minds stuck on something.
Zennor's a decent, forthright captain on a mission and
he wants to do the right thing. It's just what I would do if
I had those beliefs. And I stood by and let him kill
Garamanus, even though I knew Garamanus was on the
right track. I should've stopped it."
Spock looked like a boy who'd broken a window with a
rock, but wasn't sure whether the building had been
condemned yet or not. He watched his captain. "Your
devotion to Zennor is most unexpected, sir."
Gazing at the forward screen, Kirk sadly said, "I like
him. We have a lot in common."
McCoy put one foot up on the stand of Spock's chair.
"Figures you'd get on so well with the Devil."
Crooking that eyebrow, Spock almost smiled. His eyes
smiled, at least, and Kirk was flooded with a sense of
possibility that blunted the torment of the moment.
"What do I do now?" Kirk considered. "Escort a
hostile power into Federation space? Abandon them
here to stumble on the truth, then to attack the Klingons?
Pretend they wouldn't find us eventually? I'll have
to notify Starfleet. Have them standing by."
At this moment he hated his rank. He hated being the
watchful renegade of Starfleet, who not only had trouble
dropped at his door, but who went chasing when it
appeared. He didn't feel as unshatterable as his reputation
and now remembered Kellen's expression when the
Klingon general had discovered that the great Kirk was
as much cautious sentinel as sword swallower.
Kellen had been right about everything all along. So
had Garamanus.
He moved between McCoy and Spock, running his
hand along the red rail. "I have to talk to him. I have to
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make him understand, think past that tribal clubfoot he
drags around."
"Captain.. 2' Spock spoke, but he had no more to
say, no way to bewitch logic so it could solve his
captain's trouble.
"Come-on, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, and took the Vulcan's arm. "It's that time. Back to sickbay. I want you
to walk very slowly."
Spock lingered a moment longer, still watching Kirk,
still searching for something to say.
In his periphery Kirk saw him, but this time didn't
turn, didn't glance. He tucked his chin to bury a shudder.
He would provide no excuses for Spock to stay. No
more mistakes.
"Captain?"
"Mr. Chekov?" His voice was a croak.
"Reading the Klingon fleet coming into short-range,
sir. ETA, thirty minutes, distance--"
The bridge went up on an edge as if it had been kicked
from under the port side. Sirens blared; red alert came
on automatically, changing the lights on all the panels
for emergency readings in case the main power wobbled.
Kirk slammed sideways and barely missed crushing
Lieutenant Nordstrom at the communications station,
where she was hanging over her console, pressed to the
board by the impact.
He skidded past her and caught himself on the aft
science board, bending his back painfully over the edge
and holding himself by his fingernails on the rubberized
edge. One foot came up off the floor. Around him the
bridge flashed to black and white as the lighting blinked,
searching for conduits that hadn't been ruptured. The
surreal forms of Spock and McCoy were crushed up
against the side of the turbolift doorway.
For a moment he couldn't turn his head. Artificial
gravity was being compromised by impact or energy
flush and he heard the systems yowl, but couldn't react.
Any momentJ
His arms and legs lightened abruptly and he shoved
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FIRST STRIKE
himself off the console. He pushed Nordstrom back into
her chair and told her, "All decks clear for action."
"Aye, sir!" she said on a rushing breath.
Stepping around her, he caught both Spock's arm and
McCoy's good arm and provided leverage as McCoy got
to his feet; then they both pulled Spock up and held him
through the clutch of pain until he gained some control.
"Over here." Kirk drew them to the science station
and brought Spock to his chair. "Sit down." As Spock
valiantly reached for his sensor controls, Kirk dropped
to the command deck and glanced at the helm. "Mr.
Byers, visual checks."
Byers nodded and punched his controls, looked at
them, then punched some more.
Several of the auxiliary monitors lining the upper
bridge flickered on, snatching power from other systems
long enough to do their jobs, to show scenes of open
space around the starship, including, off the port beam,
the enormous purple plates of the Fury ship.
"Put our forward shields to him, Mr. Byers."
Again Byers didn't manage to respond, but only complied.
The plates still glowed with expended energy. No need
to ask what had happened.
"Hail him." Kirk braced himself.
"Channel open, sir," Nordstrom offered.
"Kirk to Zennor. Pleas e come in."
He was as cold as a beached carp. His hands scarcely
had any feeling. He knew what was coming and that
there was no way to backpedal.
Nordstrom's wide Scandinavian features buckled as
she touched her earpiece. "Channel's still open, sir. He's
hearing you."
He took her at her word. Drawing closer to his
command chair as if closer to Zennor, he spoke again.
"You looked at the files."
Moments passed with not so much as a crackle on the
comm. He waited. The bridge around him was dim now,
some lights still flickering, trying to come back on. The
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whir of ventilators told him there was a gaseous leak somewhere and compensation systems had come on.
The ship would take care of herself to some degree"I looked."
A glint of solid chance rang through with the sound of Zennor's deep voice.
"We have to talk about this," Kirk attempted. He almost winced. His sentence sounded hollow and point
less.
"There is no talk. I was wrong. The Danai were right all along. Garamanus was right. This is what he was trying to say when I ruined him. Now I must take on his purpose.
He picked the right place, and I will reclaim it in his name.
The fabric of this tenuous peace was ancient and crumbling. Kirk felt it shred in his fingers.
"He wasn't right," he insisted. "You still believe the things you told me, don't you?"
'I was right only when I told you that people don't change. You are the conqueror."
"You know that's not true. The past doesn't matter."
"The past is all that matters."
Gazing at the slowly turning alien ship on the forward
screen, Kirk gripped his chair. "We're friends. We're
alike. Isn't that a better foundation than what you're
talking about?"
He waited. Nothing came back.
No one on the bridge moved. The alarms and alerts
seemed to get quieter in anticipation.
"You knew about this." Zennor's words were heavier
even than the usual sound of his voice now, and the
personal wounding came through. "Is this how your
people wrecked our civilization before? With trust as a
weapon?"
"No," Kirk said desperately. "Those mistakes were
mine alone, not my culture's. Think... think! Be rational
for one more moment. No one has any right to a
particular piece of space. You have the right to live as
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free beings in our society. Our hand of friendship is st'ill
extended. Don't knock it away."
In the corner of his eye he saw McCoy step slowly
down to the center deck and join him on the other side of
the command chair, providing what moral support he
could and trying nobly to join him in the responsibility
for what had happened. Now the two of them had
something more in common than they'd ever wanted!
McCoy moved forward a little and was about to say
something when the comm boomed again.
"Go to your civilization and tell them to get out." Kirk blinked at the screen.
Aggravated, he allowed himself a dirty expression,
"You want me to tell a trillion and a quarter people...
to pack up and move?"
"That is what you told us."
The statement burned, for it had its strange ring of
truth, at least truth as Zennor saw things.
"It wasn't us," Kirk abridged. "No one alive had
anything to do with what happened to your ancestors.
My offer stands. Come with us and be welcome in the
Federation. But you'll have to shed your attachment to
the past."
He waited for the threadlike moment of communication
to crack, but instead there was only another stretch
of silence. This time he wasn't going to-wait.
"Zennor."
When had this happened? At which moment had the
career, the job, the duty become his veins and the blood
flowing into them? When had the desire to drive a ship
and do some good turned into responsibility for the
whole Federation's well-being?
He'd crawled out of a rocky youth, or been kicked,
gone into Starfleet, where everyone insisted on conformity
yet gave him medals for fire eating. He'd innovated,
he'd survived, he'd swallowed fire, and they'd pinned
awards on him and handed him a few hundred other
lives and a ship with which to execute his appetite upon
the galaxy.
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All for this?
Yes, exactly this.
"Zennor, answer me."
His answer came, but not in the form he desired.
"Captain--" Spock stared at his readouts, then
turned his chair until he could look at the main screen
without moving his head too much. "Something is happening
in space. A fissure is opening. Reading a large
solid object moving through. Coming toward us."
Kirk pushed forward, stepped up onto the platform
and stood in front of his command chair. "Dimensions."
"Are... roughly seven hundred thousand metric
tons .... Size... is... reading out at more than..."
Even Spock couldn't keep the astonishment out of his
voice.
"Length overall is in excess of one thousand meters,
sir."
Sweat broke out on Kirk's face. "On visual." Nothing
happened, and he was forced to snap, "Mr. Byers,
forward visual."
The big main screen dropped the image of Zennor's
purple and black pinecone and caught a wide view of
space in time to see a bizarre gash in the blackness of
space, as if someone had come along with a giant cleaver
and taken a random hack. Out of the gash spilled liquid
blue light, and from within the light came a vessel.
More than half a mile long, a thousand feet tall,
shaped like Zennor's ship, the enormous moving corkscrew
twisted itself through the gash in space, and when
it was through the gash sealed up with a snap that made
everyone blink.
"Any drop in mass?" Kirk quickly asked.
"None," Spock said. "They must have solved that."
As they watched, the giant vessel screwed itself
through open space toward Zennor's ship, and with
skilled excellence the two came bow-to-stern and executed
a flawless docking maneuver. Now Zennor's ship
provided only the forward section of what had become a
mammoth vessel.
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Burning with the knowledge that his ugly guess had
been right, Kirk looked upon the greatest assault vehicle
he had ever seen. If its power matched its size, there
would be disaster today.
McCoy backed off to the ship's rail, apparently sensing
that this wasn't the time to be hanging on the captain's
chair, disturbing the bubble that was the command
sphere. Kirk sensed the change without looking. He'd
noticed that since the beginning of his career--the more
tense the situation, the more the crew tended to keep
distance, giving the officers room to think. He'd come to
use that as ajump-start for dangerous thinking, a kind of
personal red alert. He wished his head weren't throbbing.
He didn't really care if the crew saw him wince. Maybe
in a few minutes he would, if they lived.
"Emergency alert, all decks," he said. "We're about to
do battle with the damned. And they have nothing to
lose."
243
Your foes are determined, relentless, and nigh.
--"Lock the Door, Larrison,"
a folk song
Chapter Eighteen
"SOUND GENERAL QUARTERS."
He'd held off saying it, but the order was overdue.
Hope had kept it back until now.
"Battle stations... all hands to battle stations. This is
not a drill .... Secure all positions .... Damage-control
parti
es on standby."
"Mr. Byers, veer us off to maximum phaser range. I
don't want to take another of those hard punches at close
range. Get me some room to maneuver."
"Yes, sir... maximum phaser range, sir."
"Mr. Spock, any other contacts from behind that
fissure?"
"None, sir. They may regard their combined vessel as
some kind of dreadnought. In fact, there is no sign of the
fissure any longer at all."
"We know what kind of power it takes to open it,"
Kirk uttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Practically
have to float a black hole in here just to open the
door."
He should send Spock below while he had the chance,
he knew. An inner alert stopped him. He noticed,
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though, that McCoy wasn't saying anything. Spock
would be little better off being tossed about on the way
down to sickbay than here at his post, where all people
with spinal injuries should be, of course.
Kirk understood them both. He even understood
himself this time.
He settled into his command chair and forced himself
to steady down.
"Secure the ship. Shut down any nonemergency emissions.
Short-range sensors on priority. Impulse engines
prepare for tight maneuvering. Warp speed on standby.
Arm phasers. And someone get me a cup of coffee."
"Nonemergency emissions, aye. Short-range sensors
ready, sir."
"Impulse engines answering, sir."
"Phasers armed and ready, sir."
"Warp engines ready and standing by, sir."
"Cup of coffee, aye, sir."
The partoting back of his orders was reassuring and
bolstered him. Underlying energy swung around the
bridge from person to person, and through the ship like
blood pumping.
"Photon guidance on standby," he added, and Chekov
said it back almost immediately. Settling back in his
chair, with the cool leather pressing to his lower back
and reminding him of lingering aches from Capella IV,