by L. A. Graf
Stung, Kelly drew his slim frame up as tall as he was able. “But I am authorized.”
“Get out!” Chekov kicked the chair back under the terminal desk, and Kelly jumped a good foot in the air. As Sweeney hurried to usher the auditor out the door, Chekov looked around at the startled guards surrounding him and felt a sting of guilt for his outburst. “I’m leaving,” he told them. The first shock of reading the announcement was fading—now anger and grief were rushing in too fast to keep at bay. “If anyone else wants to see me …” He backed through the door, at a loss for how to excuse himself. “… tell them I have something more important to do.”
“Captain’s log, stardate 5711.12,” Kirk said crisply. “The Enterprise has been assigned to patrol the Andorian-Orion border following an exchange of diplomatic hostilities—”
It wasn’t the whir of the turbolift doors that interrupted him—it was the distinctive snarl of Federation Auditor John Taylor’s voice bursting through them. Sulu exchanged gloomy looks with Bhutto. As head of the auditing team, Taylor had spent much of the last few days running the bridge crew through a battery of efficiency tests. In Sulu’s opinion, the last thing they needed was his critical presence during a station departure. “—authorized by Starfleet! And I’m not going to put up with this kind of interference.” Taylor stalked out of the turbolift, trailing Lieutenant Purviance behind him like a large, reluctant satellite. Captain Kirk looked up when they came in, then sighed and tapped off the console recorder.
“Mr. Taylor.” For all its even tone, the captain’s voice stopped the auditor in his tracks. “Do you have a reason to be on the bridge right now?”
“Yes, I do.” Taylor drew himself up to his full, towering height. His scowl carved deep brackets in his aquiline face, making him look older than he was. “I’m here to lodge a formal protest, Captain. Commander Scott has locked me out of engineering.”
“He has?” Kirk glanced past the auditor to Purviance, who nodded in glum confirmation. The liaison officer’s stocky fingers drummed uneasily on the bridge rail, as if he weren’t looking forward to the next few minutes. “Did he say why?”
“I didn’t even get to see him!” Anger fountained in Taylor’s voice again. “He left two technicians blocking the doorway, with orders not to let me pass!”
Purviance cleared his throat, pitching his voice to the soothing tones of a practiced diplomat. “Commander Scott said it’s too dangerous for civilians to visit engineering while the ship’s on active duty. I tried to explain that to Mr. Taylor, but he insisted on coming to see you about it, Captain.”
“Hmmm.” Kirk rubbed a hand across his mouth, not quite managing to hide the smile that tugged at it. “Well, Commander Scott’s order sounds reasonable to me. What do you think, Mr. Spock?”
The first officer glanced up from his science console, his lean face impassive in the reflected reddish light. “The engineering decks do constitute the most hazardous sections of the ship, Captain, apart from the nacelles. However, I would calculate the probability of a random accident to be—”
“—more than Mr. Scott thought civilians should be exposed to,” Kirk finished smoothly. The Vulcan raised one eyebrow, but didn’t contradict him. “Mr. Taylor, I suggest you move your efficiency inspections to another part of the ship.”
“What other part?” Taylor demanded, taking a step closer despite Purviance’s restraining hand. “You refused to let us station anyone on the bridge, or in any of the weapons banks; Mr. Spock asked us to stay out of the science labs; now we aren’t allowed into engineering—”
Purviance tapped on the auditor’s shoulder. “Dr. McCoy said he wouldn’t mind you examining sickbay,” he reminded Taylor.
The head auditor’s scowl grew deeper. “Provided we leave all our equipment outside, because it’s not Starfleet-approved and might interfere with his medical sensors. He’s got Chaiken and Gendron taking notes with manual pens!”
“That certainly doesn’t sound very efficient, does it?” Kirk cleared his throat. “Well then, how about security?”
Taylor’s expression eased a little. “We have made some progress there,” he admitted. “Aaron Kelly says he can probably improve the scheduling efficiency by—”
“Mr. Taylor.” Despite her polite tone, Uhura’s voice cut through the conversation. The head auditor swung around, blinking down at her in surprise. “You have an urgent message coming from Deck Seven.”
“I’ll take it here,” Taylor said without bothering to ask Kirk’s permission. Purviance rolled his eyes, and Uhura pointedly glanced at the captain, waiting for his reluctant nod before she patched the contact through.
“Mr. Taylor, this is Kelly.” Sulu recognized the agitated voice of the other male auditor. “We’ve got a problem in security.”
“What’s the matter, Aaron?”
“I’m not sure, sir, but Lieutenant Chekov has thrown me out and told me never to come back.”
Sulu bit his lip, exchanging amused glances with Uhura. It was too much to hope that Chekov would manage to get rid of the auditors with Spock’s urbane politeness or Scotty’s shrewd maneuvering. The Russian simply attacked the problem head-on and with blunt force.
“What should I do, sir?” Kelly asked, after a moment’s silence on the intercom.
Taylor’s aquiline face hardened with determination. “Proceed to the next stage of operations, Aaron. I’ll be down to join you shortly.” He turned back toward Kirk, swaying slightly when the Enterprise cleared the last of the station gantries and swung out into open space. “Captain, it’s clear we’re being systematically stonewalled by your crew. I demand—”
Wheeling stars traced fiery strands of light across the viewscreen as the Enterprise came around to her new course. Sulu ignored the familiar pitch and roll, instead checking some last minute course adjustments that Bhutto had relayed to his console. He heard the navigator gasp, and looked up in time to see the viewscreen burst into fire-bright static. An instant later, every station on the bridge erupted with alarms.
Chapter Five
SULU COULD BARELY HEAR the captain’s voice above the battering roar of warning sirens. “Spock,” Kirk shouted, “what’s going on?”
The Vulcan bent over his panel, eyes narrowed against the chaotically strobing light it threw back at him. “It appears we have been hit by some kind of subspace radiation pulse, Captain. It has disrupted all computer circuits.”
“What about these alarms?” Kirk demanded. “Have we taken that much damage?” Sulu heard the howl of decompression alerts amid the other jolting noises, and realized why the captain sounded so urgent.
“I do not believe so.” Spock glanced up at the hissing explosions of red and violet fire on the screen. “Even what we see now on the viewscreen does not reflect outside reality, only the interference from the radiation pulse. The alarms are reacting to electromagnetic surges within the bridge stations, not to structural damage elsewhere on the ship.”
Sulu wrenched his eyes away from the meaningless static on the viewscreen to find a similar dribble of electronic nonsense crawling across his helm monitor. With a shock of very primitive horror, he suddenly realized that he was blind, deaf, and dumb to the outer world—and still piloting the Enterprise through it. “Captain, I’ve lost helm control,” he said sharply. “I’m cutting impulse power—no, wait a minute. I think the helm’s back.” He looked up to find the normal diamond-fires of stars sprinkling the dark screen again. “What happened?”
“The radiation pulse appears to have faded.” Spock toggled his panel controls and several of the alarms fell silent. “The ship seems to have returned to normal, Captain.”
“Then let’s see if we can’t get the rest of those alarms off.” Kirk watched the screen with intent eyes, as if defying it to misbehave again. “Mr. Sulu, is our course still set for sector nine-eighteen mark three?”
Sulu glanced at his console monitor and saw reassuringly familiar figures there. “Yes, sir.”
&nb
sp; “Then let’s get out of here.” Kirk’s voice got easier to hear as a few more alarms went quiet. “Warp six, Mr. Sulu.”
“Warp six.” By habit, Sulu tossed a look up at the viewscreen for one last verifying glimpse of stars before he engaged the warp engines. His fingers froze on the controls, then jerked back as if the dark metal had seared his skin. He flung a hand out to slam off the impulse drive. “Captain, we’re off course!”
“What?” Kirk sprang down to stand beside him, scanning the monitor’s display. “Mr. Sulu, what are you talking about? This heading reads correct.”
“But it’s not.” Voice sharp with disbelief, Sulu watched the stars drift toward them, then tried to give the helm another course. The monitor display never changed. He spared one glance up at Kirk, just long enough to read the comprehension on the captain’s face, then went back to fighting with the controls. A moment later, he heard Bhutto gasp again and looked up to see the lights of Sigma One swing back onto the viewscreen. The Enterprise drifted slowly toward them, running on the slight inertia of her cut-off impulse drive.
“Captain!” Uhura’s voice was urgent. “Inquiries coming in from Sigma One, sir. They want to know why we’ve changed our course.”
“According to the helm computer, we haven’t.” Kirk glanced at the navigation screen to watch their present trajectory build across the screen, a line of red fire that ended abruptly at a solid white square. “Navigation shows us on a direct collision course with Sigma One, but helm insists we’re still on our original heading.”
“Helm’s not responding to reprogramming orders, sir.” Sulu fought an urge to drive his fist through the piloting panel that had locked them onto this heading. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”
Kirk swore and glanced over his shoulder. “Spock, can you bypass helm control?”
“I am endeavoring to do so, Captain.” The first officer’s voice was as imperturbable as ever, but Sulu could tell from the high-speed whirring of his console that he was inputting commands to the ship’s computer at a speed no human could have matched. “The radiation pulse we experienced has apparently caused a complete failure in that sector of the computer.”
“Captain, Sigma One is hailing us again.” Uhura paused. “If our equipment malfunction is not repaired, they say we’ll impact with the station in two and a half minutes.”
“Damn.” Kirk glanced up at the screen, hazel eyes narrowed with concentration. “If the helm computer won’t let us change our heading away from the station, then we’ll have to find some other way to change it.” He spun and went back to his command console. “Bridge to engineering.”
“Scott here.” The background sound of alarms must have told the engineer that something was amiss. “What do you need, Captain?”
“I want to change direction, Scotty, and I can’t use the helm to do it. Is there any way we can maneuver the ship with just the impulse engine controls?”
Scott sounded doubtful. “Well, I could flip the polarization of the impulse engines so that they’ll thrust the ship in reverse. But that won’t give you any maneuverability, sir—that’ll only put you one hundred eighty degrees off the heading you’re already locked onto.”
Sulu scanned his helm screen, then swung around to glance at Kirk. “That would get us clear of Sigma One, Captain.”
Kirk pursed his lips and nodded. “Get to work on it, Scotty.”
“Aye-aye, sir.” There was a pause, and the murmur of distant orders given. “We’ve started on it now, Captain. It’ll take a few minutes to get to all the switches.”
“You have two minutes, Mr. Scott.” A thread of laughter flared unexpectedly in Kirk’s voice. “Be efficient.”
Sulu glanced at the warp drive controls he had almost touched, and shivered. Even a fraction of a second at warp speed would have sent the Enterprise crashing into Sigma One, given the course setting they were locked on. When he looked up again, it was to find Lieutenant Bhutto staring at him. “How did you know the helm computer had malfunctioned, sir?” she asked below the shrill blare of the last remaining alarm.
“I’m not sure.” Sulu frowned at the viewscreen. Sigma One blinked its spidery lights at them, then suddenly went dark. The station commander must have started emergency procedures, closing bulkheads and shutting down power lines to minimize damage from the impact. “A course of mark three should have brought us around toward the Orion nebula, but I didn’t see it cross the screen.”
Kirk gave him a noncommittal look. “Mr. Sulu, at this distance, the Orion nebula should look like any other star out there.”
“I know, sir,” admitted Sulu. “I’m not sure how I recognize it, but I usually can.”
“One and a half minutes to impact, Captain,” Uhura reported quietly. Kirk grunted and turned his back on the blackness of the station with a calm that amazed Sulu. Behind him, John Taylor had retreated to the turbolift doors, his face ashen and his hands clamped on the bridge railing as if he didn’t quite trust the ship on which he rode. Beside him, Purviance just looked worried.
“Any luck with reprogramming, Spock?”
“I have made some progress in restoring computer functions, Captain, but I have not yet managed to restore helm control to the bridge.” The Vulcan never took his eyes from the computer codes scrolling across his screen. “We remain locked on a collision course with Sigma One.”
“That won’t matter if we can throw the impulse engines in reverse.” Kirk hit the ship communicator again. “Scotty, have you repolarized the engines?”
“We’re almost there, sir.” A faint quiver ran through the Enterprise, whatever noise it made lost beneath the drone of the last alarm. “Engine polarization complete, Captain. She’ll run in reverse of whatever your helm setting is now.”
“Good.” Kirk spun on his heel, striding back down toward the helm. “Three-quarters impulse power, Mr. Sulu.”
“Aye, sir.” Gritting his teeth in silent prayer, Sulu brought the impulse drive on line. With the slightest of jerks, the Enterprise reversed course, pulling away from the station with her usual swift power. Sulu let out the tense breath he’d been holding as Sigma One dwindled from a massive presence in the sky to a retreating patch of darkness against the stars.
“Sigma One is back on line, Captain.” Even as Uhura spoke, Sulu could see approach lights blossom across the space station’s outflung gantries. “They want to know if we require assistance with our helm malfunction.”
Kirk glanced inquiringly at his first officer. “Do we require assistance, Mr. Spock?”
“I do not believe so, Captain.” Spock tapped a final command into his console, then turned toward Sulu. “Mr. Sulu, if you check your helm computer, I think you will find it is now operational.”
Sulu toggled one course adjustment switch and watched the piloting panel respond with a swift flicker as it changed headings. “Affirmative, sir. We can engage warp drive now.”
“Not yet.” Kirk swung around in a slow circle, scanning every panel on the bridge. “Before we go anywhere, I want to know why that last damn alarm is still active.” He paused, facing the security panel and its stubbornly flashing screens. “Well, Mr. Howard?”
The tall security guard looked desperately over his shoulder. “I can’t seem to make it turn off, sir. I’ve tried everything I can think of.”
Kirk’s eyebrows rose. “Then maybe it’s not a false alarm. What seems to be triggering it?”
“According to this, it’s—” Howard checked the screen and his voice faltered briefly. “—it’s an intruder alert, sir.”
The Kongo’s primary engine room glowed in the sickly plasma-light of core overload. Ripples of superheated gas blurred the central warp chamber, and the trans-steel alloy of the engine room walls was pitted and strained by radiation flares. Alarms howled like tortured souls; only the dim black shadows of engineers remained to hear them, trapped forever against the blasted walls in a tableau of startled inaction.
“The core’s pre
tty hot, but I think we can reach it.” The face on the comm screen—seared shiny red, with eyes burned a deep, unforgiving black—was fractured by washes of static. If he’d been calling anywhere farther away than the Kongo’s bridge, no one would ever have seen his transmission at all. “I’m going out the lock in the Number Two Jefferies tube, Mr. Stein’s going out the lock in Number One.” A bloom of brilliant light swelled up in the chamber behind him, and the man ducked reflexively, not even turning around. “We’ll call back as soon as we’re finished. Cecil out.”
Almost on cue, the lights in the narrow communications booth went black, and the comm picture in front of Chekov snapped down to a pinprick, like a star left behind at warp speed. Chekov shook himself out of the morass of horrid images—a corridor-long pile of charred bodies, the twisted engine breaches revealed by the Kongo’s diagnostics, his friend’s face still open to hope even as he turned away from the comm screen to die.
We’ll call back as soon as we’re finished.
Chekov knew now it had been a mistake to call the Kongo for details.
Power flooded back into the comm booth’s system, and, with it, the raucous squall of the ship’s intruder alert. Still too close to secondhand memories of the Kongo’s disaster, Chekov had to fight down a wave of dread as he punched the intercom next to his terminal. “Chekov to Lemieux.”
“Deck Six,” she reported without having to be asked. “Sector thirty-nine.”
Barely around the corner from the booth in which he sat. “Send a team. I’m on my way.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
The empty corridors enlarged the alarm’s voice, battering sound all over the section. Chekov cut down the corridor to section ten while the noise would still cover the sound of his approach. The automatic systems would shut down deck exits, but it would shorten pursuit if he could get the intruder in sight as soon after detection as possible. Chekov rounded the last corner just as a lean, dark figure spun to meet him, the small device in its hand swinging to center on his chest.