by Diane Carey
She pressed her eyes with one pale, trembling hand. Her finger slid away from the trigger as the phaser dropped into my grip. A sigh passed through me. My shoulders slumped under a new weight just before the phaser fire of three starships cut loose on Star Empire’s tough hull, hoping to burn through the special alloy and kill all of us. After us, they would have to kill Kirk and everyone on Enterprise. Once it had been only Burch, his people, and me. Now Rittenhouse’s prey had scoped out to include anyone on Enterprise. He would have to fabricate a great lie about our deaths, a daring battle with insurrectionists, the tragic loss of the legendary officers of Enterprise and their nameless crewpeople. As Merete felt the force of the shots, my words rammed home again. I reached out to her.
The chamber exploded into a microgalaxy. Behind Merete an entire panel of electrocoils blew up. The eruption blasted against her spine. She crashed forward into me, plummeting both of us into the com system. I managed to keep hold of her and lower her to the floor, cradling her in my lap.
Her face tightened in shock and pain. Pale purple blood poured over my legs from her torn back and thighs. She clutched at me and I clutched back. “Merete—damn—I’ll take care of you. You’re not alone anymore, do you hear? Can you talk?”
She swallowed, but her voice still gurgled. “I thought … I believed … him….”
Somehow I reached the ship’s intercom and engaged it. “Bridge, this is Piper! I need help. I need somebody medical. Hurry!”
Burch’s voice came back immediately, in spite of the battle he was waging up there. “I’ll send two nurses. Best I’ve got, Piper.”
“Please just hurry.” I felt the lavender blood suddenly pouring more freely. My agony for her redoubled as I thought back on our time aboard Pompeii and realized now the hidden elements—why Merete had insisted on going out into the corridor while we tried to transport back to Enterprise. She had warned Rittenhouse that we were escaping. He had made her his pawn, preyed on her sad past.
I held her tightly. “Hurry …”
By the time the two nurses arrived with an anti-grav gurney, the pain had gone out of Merete’s face, the movement out of her body. We put her on the gurney. Then I leaned over her for a last moment before plunging back into the battle.
“The pain’s gone,” she whispered. “I can’t feel the pain anymore. Please, Piper, make it come back….”
“Your body’s just gone numb. It’s trying to heal.” She was a doctor. Could my lie possibly work on a doctor? I didn’t know why the pain had gone, or why she could no longer move. All I could give her was my wish for her to heal. “They’ll take you to Sickbay.”
She turned her head away. “Better to die,” she whispered, “than be so wrong.”
“You weren’t wrong!” I gripped her hands and squeezed hard. “Look at me. You’re just one of billions of good people the galaxy over whose goodness is used against them. You were misguided, that’s all. He used your faith and charmed you with platitudes. You’re going to learn from this. You’re going to live and be a great Federation physician, do you hear me? You’re going to live. Promise me!” My own tears splashed on the front of her jacket.
“I promise,” she whispered.
They took her away. And I was alone again. I turned to finish the job I’d started.
Chapter Nine
THE EXPLOSION THAT hurt Merete jarred loose some of my repairs, though the fuses held and a few minutes of soldering reestablished connectivity between communications and the ship’s mainframe. Working on cinctures to the computer made me think about what Brian said: how it took them a long time to figure out how to aim the weapons. And I recalled one of the bridge ensigns trying to bypass the computer control so the shields could be worked manually. On my way back to the bridge, dabbing Merete’s blood from the legs of my jumpsuit, I finally let go of the idea that Burch knew what he was doing. He and his people were looking for ways to override the computer because they didn’t know how to work it. They never thought to ask the computer for help.
Merete’s lavender blood had darkened as it dried to a dull mulberry purple. I managed to stanch enough of it from my pants to keep the fabric from sticking to my legs. Because her blood was on me, I couldn’t forget her even long enough to clear my head. I admired her—she hadn’t denied the truth once she saw it clearly for the first time in her life. I wondered if I could ever dredge up that much courage, enough to conquer a lifetime of misconceptions. Poor Merete … the agony bottled inside her since childhood had never showed in her work. Instead of the bitterness a lesser person might espouse, she vented her pain in a reverence for life. She had to live—she had to.
The bridge billowed. Smoke poured from at least two circuit relay panels. Though it was rapidly clearing, the smoke signaled serious damage. Ordinarily tech crews would immediately pounce on every problem, but with only fifty-two of us on board, we had our hands full just operating whatever was working. The broken things, unless critical, had to wait.
Burch was shouting over a grinding record station at one of the ensigns, and on the screen flickered the hideous image of a battle between starships. Phasers incised the blackness of space, biting at the ships as they maneuvered around us and each other, and I immediately understood from the way they moved that Enterprise had looped in to draw their fire away from us. So Kirk had made his choice.
I found my way to Brian at the engineering station and hastily asked, “Fill me in.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, fighting to stabilize his panel. “Kirk moved in just after you left the bridge. He fired on Pompeii, and Rittenhouse ordered the three others to retaliate. Captain Tutakai resisted, but Nash moved right in and cut into Enterprise’s shields with photons at short range. You can see the damage for yourself. Then Leedson moved Hornet in on us and Tutakai followed in Potempkin. They haven’t broken this ship’s tough skin in more than three places yet, but we can’t hope for much more with only half shielding.”
“Commander!” I left Brian without a glance and headed for Burch, but had to follow him as he scurried from station to station, giving his inexperienced crew moral support and trying to learn as much as he could in an impossibly short time.
“Commander, I think we can get full deflectors.”
“What? How?”
“Quit trying to bypass the computer for control. Ask it to help.”
“Do you know how to talk to it?”
“Sir, it can’t be that different.”
“This way.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me up toward the science officer’s station. “You do it.”
My disgusted look did more for me than him. He had all the good intentions in the galaxy but no experience. I certainly couldn’t do any worse at this than he could. I pushed two key toggles. “Computer.” Nothing happened. So I punched more buttons, guessing entirely about the tie-in pattern. “Computer.”
“Working.”
“Engage defense/offense mode.”
“Specify.”
“Engage deflection systems and implement. Also bring forward all the indices regarding aiming the weapons and pinpoint firing, and free it up to the helm.”
“Affirmative,” the pleasant voice said, then paused as it worked. “Primary shielding engaged. Access to weapons tied in to helm and weapons control panels, available through voice command with manual confirmation and dual override.”
Ensign Hopton stared into his viewer and shouted, “We’ve got shields! All over the ship!”
Burch’s pale face flushed with the delight of respite. Suddenly we had a chance to survive another two minutes.
A short-lived chance. It soured immediately as Terry Broxon’s smile withered into shock, then despair. She touched the com link in her ear. “No … Commander, Enterprise has dropped her shields!” She switched on the bridge-wide com system, flooding the area with voices.
Spock’s voice, garbled.
Rittenhouse responding.
Spock again. “… serious damage … Ca
ptain Kirk is being taken … main bridge links … to phaser control …”
We held our breaths, every one of us. The bridge of Star Empire became as quiet as a mausoleum. We listened. Terry Broxon and Ensign Carr battled to clear the static interrupting Spock’s words. Finally they succeeded. And I soon wished the static could return.
“You have sliced through several levels of our engineering hull, including the flow-tract casing of our coolant neutralizing solution.”
“Oh, my God,” Burch breathed, slumping.
“A restricted leak would be no problem. However, with the flow released on several decks, the solution will fail to keep the induction coolant inert. I have estimated seventeen-point-three-nine minutes before the coolant eats through the subflooring and contaminates the entire ship with Wade-Gauberg trichloride ammonia. Of course, the gas will not harm the ship, but personnel are in immediate danger until repairs can be made. Since Captain Kirk is unconscious, I am forced to make a decision. The Enterprise is surrendered to you, on the condition that you effect immediate evacuation of all crew people on board the vessel. Please reply.”
Kirk unconscious?
Paul Burch withered into the command chair. The light left his eyes. With the dullness of rain striking mud, he groaned, “That’s it. We’re finished.”
My whole body tingled, an electrode of conflicting emotions as Rittenhouse slowly and thoughtfully responded. “Mr. Spock,” he began, “Captain Kirk is totally incapacitated?”
“Sir,” Spock answered with a razor-edge of controlled impatience, “Captain Kirk is dying. We have nineteen percent casualties among the crew. Dr. McCoy is fighting for the Captain’s life even as the trichloride threatens it. Speed is essential, Vice-Admiral. You must clear personnel from this ship. We now have fifteen-point-eight minutes. I am ordering my crew to the transporter rooms.” Urgency pushed through his forced coolness, and came out in a raised voice and a get-your-stupid-ass-moving stab in each word.
“It’s all over,” Brian murmured behind me. “Without Enterprise, we’re helpless.”
Burch stared at nothing, his mouth buried behind whitened fingers. He didn’t respond at all.
“Very well, Spock.” Rittenhouse’s tone carried abject triumph, a definite salt of condescension. “I’ve ordered Potempkin and Lincoln to move in to close-transport range so that you can transport independently of each others’ pads. Have the excess of your crew meet at a central point.”
“Acknowledged. All persons not beaming out from our transporter rooms will meet in sickbay.”
“Mr. Spock, I think it’s very curious that the flow tract insulation system failed coincidentally with a one-in-a-million rupture by phaser fire from outside. Would you care to explain that while Potempkin and Lincoln move into position?”
So Rittenhouse suspected a trick. He did, however, move the two starships into Enterprise’s immediate space, probably figuring the deaths of the whole crew, no matter how circumstantial, would be impossible to explain to Command. And he needed friends at Command.
Working even Vulcan patience to the bone, Spock’s voice, clear and resonant, flowed through subspace. “Your phaser fire, Vice-Admiral, cut laterally across the neck of the ship, where, as you know, the flow tract’s main plumbing is closest to the outer skin of the ship. It also happens to be the location of a starship’s insulation system battery core. The chances of such a hit weakening both systems are eight thousand—”
“Potempkin and Lincoln are almost in position, Spock. Give us the coordinates of your sickbay.” Rittenhouse spoke with a triumphant drawl, insulting Spock by cutting him off. He knew he had us.
Burch knew it too. All this time he had been sitting there absorbing it. “Brian,” he rasped, “inform the crew. I’m going to surrender the dreadnought before more lives are lost.”
Bells went off in my head. Finished. Over. No more Kirk to lean on, to draw from.
Yet I still felt his strength. He was still with me, even in defeat. My heart didn’t skip the beat I expected to lose once I didn’t have Kirk’s presence to buffet me. The scaffolding hadn’t collapsed. A true hero would know—take defeat with dignity. Die well.
Burch touched the com button on the arm of his chair. “Pompeii, this is Paul Burch. I hereby relinquish—”
“Wait!”
I found myself beside him, both hands stinging, palms cupped over the com. Burch gawked at me. So did everyone else. So did I, in a way. What was I doing?
The scaffolding held. I knew.
“Just wait.”
We watched the forward viewscreen as Potempkin and Lincoln pulled up to a limp Enterprise and dropped their shields to accept transporter beams.
Brian came down to me. “Piper, don’t prolong it. The fight’s over. Believe me, it hurts me more—”
“Shut up.”
Paul Burch cupped his hand over mine in a wholly patronizing way and cleared his knotted throat to gently say, “Lieutenant, we shan’t give up entirely … we’ll carry our fight on to Command. Perhaps we’ve done enough. But for now, the time has come to end it.”
I heard none of it. Still watching the two enemy starships pull up to Enterprise, I let only his defeatism seep through if not the actual words, and then only deep enough to nudge a response. I turned my eyes slowly to his, and narrowed them, trying to osmose the truth to him since he couldn’t figure it out for himself.
My whisper nailed down the implications, syllable by syllable. “You don’t understand. Kirk knows what he’s doing.”
He frowned. “But Kirk is a casualty.” Then he shook his head. “You don’t think—”
Phaser beams from Enterprise incised the blackness of space.
Potempkin writhed like a choking animal and veered away from Enterprise, her unshielded hulls ablaze with blue lightning and molten shell matter.
Enterprise fired on Lincoln an instant later, not waiting to assess the damage on Tutakai’s ship. Red knives of light scored her primary hull, jumped space and ate at the port nacelle until Lincoln also vectored away. Subspace filled with panicked orders and responses between them and Rittenhouse. But before Pompeii could move in, Enterprise’s shields popped back up and she rose upward, away from her victims.
Burch pushed himself half out of the command chair, only to drop back into it. “How—”
“Kirk’s not hurt,” I said, hoping it wasn’t just a guess. A vision plagued me—him standing just off the viewer while Mr. Spock sang the sad dirge of surrender.
“But how did you know?”
Several answers popped into my head, but they all seemed a little too pompous. No matter how I said it, I would somehow be taking credit for Kirk’s artistic bluff. So I shrugged.
“Don’t drop our shields!” Burch snapped, enthused. “Magnificent! Kirk is a brilliant rogue! I’d never have possessed the … the …”
“Moxie?” I suggested.
“Broxon, what’s the damage on those two?” Terry shook herself out of a trance created by Kirk’s bold deception. “Damage? Oh … oh. Potempkin is moving in again, but she’s keeping her starboard side protected. Lincoln got hit harder. Nash’ll be out of it for a few minutes. Their warp drive is out completely … navigation bank is ruptured … port impulse thrusters are badly damaged. She’s still maneuverable, but she’ll have to come about in a big circle. My scanner shows—”
“Sir!” Ensign Hopton interrupted. “Rittenhouse is ordering Hornet in. He also said something I didn’t understand about getting their phasers operable again. Doesn’t make sense. Pompeii hasn’t been fired on.”
Burch looked at me. “Didn’t you say Chief Engineer Scott had sabotaged their phasers?”
“Yes,” I said. “They must have found it.”
“It’s all right. It bought us time. Take the helm again, Lieutenant. And—thank you.”
Color rose in my cheeks; I felt its heat as I took the helm, with little time to rest in his lauding. Pompeii had found our tampering and bypassed it, able now to use
, not phasers, but photon torps. Before we could breathe again, Star Empire took two salvos at short range. The ship rattled hard. Not a person on the bridge remained standing when the impact dissolved. A second later came sustained phaser fire from Captain Leedson’s Hornet, tipping the dreadnought hard to starboard. Out of sheer empathy I felt our shields weaken as I clutched the deck brace of my chair to keep from rolling. Sparks flew everywhere. Relays snapped, circuits overloaded and burned, filling the bridge with an electrical stench. Somewhere near me I heard feet scrape the deck and people coughing.
“Li Wang!” Burch choked. “Try to lock down the grav compensator! Engage the damage control computers like Piper showed you!”
When the gravity stabilized I pulled my battered, aching limbs back into the helm chair and tried to keep the dreadnought a moving target. It couldn’t be any more dangerous than hovering still in space. At least they would have to work to aim at us.
“Sir, I think we should return fire, okay?” I suggested.
“What?” Burch corporealized through an acrid cloud of green chemical smoke and choked, “Can you make the computer do it, so we don’t waste energy?”
“Well, I can’t speak for the computer, but it should—”
The ceiling exploded over us. A hammer blow of raw force pounded my head and shoulders, flinging me sideways from my seat onto the lower deck level. Electrical eruptions sparkled all around me as panicking circuits searched for power relays and tapped each other, then dueled for supremacy. Each system thought its duty more valuable than the others, and fought to survive, to preserve and implement its programming. In order to get back on my feet, I had to do the same thing. Remember my programming—trained reflexes—survival instincts Star Fleet had drilled into me. How boring they had become on the thousandth-odd training drill, yet today, recalled, they were buoys. I clung to them. Captain, did you ever run on pure training reflex like this? Did you ever have to fight for lucid thought? Tell me you did so I can deal with my human fallibility—tell me anything. Let me hear your voice. Let me know I didn’t guess wrong.