by Greg Cox
Chekov remained baffled. “But . . . we will drown first.”
“I believe that is the intention, Ensign,” Spock explained. It was evident Eefa saw the bay as a passive way to dispose of them that would spare her having to actually shoot her victims or look them in the eyes. “And yet she has not fully thought this through.”
“What?” Eefa said. “What do you mean by that?”
Spock faced her calmly. Although the smugglers had taken his phaser with them, he remained armed with his most potent weapon: logic.
“Your weapon,” he pointed out. “I have had ample time to examine it and it is clear that it is only capable of firing one shot at a time, as one would expect from a flintlock pistol of that type. There are, however, two of us. Whichever one of us you shoot, the other will be able to retaliate before you can reload.”
Eefa swallowed hard. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two men.
“You’re both chained up. You think I can’t handle a bound prisoner on my own?”
“A bound prisoner with nothing to lose and who has been trained in combat by the adepts of Collu S’Avala,” Spock said. “Chained or not, we are both formidable foes. Rest assured that the surviving individual will be able to subdue you with ease, although the restraints may force your attacker to resort to more ruthless methods than they might otherwise employ. I cannot guarantee that you will not incur serious physical harm.”
Eefa aimed the pistol directly at Spock.
“Won’t do you much good if you’re the one who gets shot between the eyes.”
“Perhaps,” he replied, “but I will be just as deceased if I drown myself at gunpoint. This way, one of us will survive to, as you say, settle scores.”
Anguish contorted her face. She appeared on the verge of tears.
“You’re just trying to confuse me!”
“Not at all,” Spock said. “I am simply spelling out the incontrovertible mathematics of the situation. You cannot win here. Even if you pull the trigger, you will be defeated . . . and will have committed murder to no end. Where is the sense in that?”
“So what do you expect me to do?” she asked sourly. “Surrender? Even though you’re in chains and I’m the one holding the gun?”
“Precisely,” Spock said. “It is the only scenario in which you emerge unharmed.”
Checkmate, he thought.
“My comrade is right,” Chekov said. “You can kill one of us, but only one of us, or you can trust us to leave you in peace. Those are your choices.” He shrugged. “I know which one I would pick.”
A subjectively long moment passed as Eefa wrestled visibly with the dilemma. Spock wanted to think that the inexorable logic of his argument would sway her, but he had long ago stopped expecting non-Vulcans to behave logically while under emotional stress. There remained a significant probability that she would fire the pistol at one of them—and most likely him. He braced himself for that possibility.
“Curse it.” She lowered the gun. “I guess the old saying is right after all. ‘Sometimes falling is the only way to land on your feet.’ ”
Spock wished he’d known that saying. It might have rendered this tense encounter shorter.
“You win,” she said. “What do you want?”
“Unchaining our hands would be a good start,” Chekov said.
Eefa laughed bitterly. “Can’t help you there. Woji had the keys to the lock . . . and they went with him.”
“Terrific,” Chekov said dourly. “Just our luck!”
“Do not abandon hope just yet,” Spock said. “This presents a difficulty, but not, I think, an insurmountable one.” He approached Eefa. “If I may have your communicator?”
“Communicator?”
“The device you use to speak with Mars and Venus and their gang.”
The smugglers had taken their devices, so Eefa’s communicator was the only one readily at hand.
“Oh, you mean the voice carrier.” She contemplated the device in her grip. “What do you want that for?”
“It is difficult to explain in your terms. Suffice it to say that it has other uses.” He turned his back to her, presenting his open palms. “I may be able to use it to engineer our release.”
To his credit, Chekov grasped what he had in mind. “A sonic vibration?”
“That is the idea, Ensign.”
Eefa snorted in exasperation. “The more you speak, the less sense you make, but if it will get you out of my hair faster . . .” She strode over and placed the communicator in his hands. “There! Work your marvels with it if you can.”
“Thank you, madam. I hope to do exactly that.”
Spock recalled the Capellan triblade found among the contraband collected by Jord and Vankov. Once, on Capella IV, he and Kirk had triggered a rockslide by using their communicators to induce a sympathetic vibration in solid granite. That feat had required two communicators working in tandem, but Spock was not attempting to bring down a cliff face here, merely to induce a sonic vibration sufficient to turn the tumbler in a primitive lock. He simply had to tune the communicator to a frequency capable of producing the desired resonance effect.
Granted, manipulating the communicator with his hands chained behind his back posed a challenge to his dexterity and concentration, but nothing beyond his abilities. That the controls on the simple communicator given to Eefa were quite rudimentary, lacking any specialized features, made the task somewhat easier.
“Let us attempt to undo your lock first,” he said to Chekov. “Please bring it within reach.”
“Of course.” Chekov backed toward Spock, so that the men had their backs to each other. He raised his bound wrists so that Spock could get at the lock. “Excuse me, sir, but if you don’t mind me asking: Are we quite certain this is safe?”
Spock had no intention or expectation of shattering Chekov’s wrists. He placed the borrowed communicator directly against the lock to maximize the sonic resonance.
“You are in no danger, Ensign. You may feel a slight vibration, nothing more. Ask rather whether this experiment will succeed.”
“I have faith in you, sir.”
“This is a matter of frequency, not faith, but your vote of confidence is duly noted.”
Spock activated the communicator, which transmitted the sonic vibration to the lock keeping Chekov chained. As it happened, a degree of fine-tuning was required to achieve the proper resonance, but he was soon rewarded by the click of the locking mechanism disengaging. He withdrew the communicator, being careful to make certain it remained tuned to the correct frequency, and tugged the lock open.
“You may proceed to liberate yourself, Ensign.”
“With pleasure, sir!”
With the ends of the chain no longer secured to each other, Chekov swiftly managed to extract one hand from the bindings, allowing him to free his arms for the first time in hours. He appeared to take considerable satisfaction in unwinding the chain from around his wrist and hurling it onto the ground with some force.
“You did it, sir!” He grinned at Spock. “It worked!”
Eefa looked on in amazement. “Well, I’ll be cursed. Seems you knew what you were doing after all.”
“To do otherwise would be illogical,” he replied. “Now then, Ensign, if you would kindly return the favor?”
“Aye, sir.”
Chekov repeated the procedure with no difficulty and assisted in removing Spock’s chains as well. Although his reaction to having his arms freed was less emotive than the young human’s, Spock was also pleased to have a full range of motion again. He massaged his wrists to aid their circulation.
Eefa held out her hand. “Might I have my property back?”
“I’m afraid that is not possible,” Spock said. The Prime Directive required that he confiscate the device lest it cause the Yurnians to progress too quickly. “If it is any consolation, you will have no further need of it. Your smuggler friends will soon be out of business, at least if we achieve our aims.”<
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“They’re not friends of mine.” She spat onto the beach to express her disgust with her former business partners. “Fine. Take my ‘communicator’ if you must. I’m sick to death of this whole cursed business.”
Spock was glad to hear it.
“But how are we going to catch up with those murdering Cossacks?” Chekov asked. “They made a clean escape!”
“Not before revealing more perhaps than they intended,” Spock said. “I believe I know how the smugglers plan to get the nabbia off the planet undetected, but we will have to move quickly if we wish to confirm this. We need to return to Galileo with all deliberate speed.”
“But that must be kilometers away,” Chekov said.
“Just so, which means we cannot linger here.” He turned to Eefa. “I am afraid, madam, that we will have to commandeer your wagon for a time.”
“Why not?” she said sarcastically. “You’ve taken everything else.” She appeared too defeated to offer more than a token protest. “Would you care for the dress off my back as well?”
“That will not be necessary,” Spock said. “Your wagon and livestock will be returned to you if at all possible.” He glanced at the trail leading back up to the road. “Can you safely walk back to Wavebreak from here?”
“If I have to.”
“That would be for the best,” Spock said. “I apologize for inconveniencing you, but what comes next is not for your eyes.”
She threw up her hands. “Serves me right, I suppose, for dragging you here in the first place.”
Spock did not challenge that argument. “Live long and prosper,” he addressed her, “by honest means.”
The marmots grew restive as Chekov claimed the driver’s seat at the front of the wagon. Spock calmed them by stroking their ears as he had seen Jord do, then climbed onto a padded wooden bench beside the young navigator.
“Are you confident in your ability to control these creatures, Ensign?”
“Of course, sir. Russians have a natural way with animals. Everyone knows that.”
“Perhaps, but these particular animals are far from Russian.”
Despite his reservations, Spock unlocked the wheels. Chekov snapped the reins and the marmots started forward eagerly. He succeeded in steering them toward the slope, although how much of that was due to the young human’s skill at driving the wagon versus the rodents’ own heartfelt desire to escape from the cove was debatable. Spock opted not to question their progress as long as they were heading in the right direction.
The wagon rapidly ascended the trail, leaving Eefa behind. The route was just as bumpy as Spock recalled, but more easily endured now that they were no longer mere cargo in the back. They soon reached the larger road above, where the marmots vigorously attempted to turn toward Wavebreak. Chekov pulled on the reins and engaged the brake.
“Which way now, Mister Spock?”
“A highly relevant question, Ensign.”
Time being of the essence, Spock did not wish to return to the mill by way of Wavebreak if a more direct route was available. He contemplated the starry night sky; it was theoretically possible that they could chart a course back to their shuttle by the stars alone, but their unfamiliarity with the local roads and byways complicated matters. He regretted that they could not risk enlisting Eefa as a guide without compromising Jord’s and Vankov’s secrets. He and Chekov would have to find their own way to the mill—and Galileo.
“Are we lost, Mister Spock?”
“Only to a degree,” he replied. Perhaps the wisest course would be to return to Wavebreak after all. Spock was confident they could retrace the route they had taken from the mill to the town. “We may need to let the marmots have their way—”
A thundering noise, as of many heavy paws pounding against the road a short distance away, intruded on their discussion. Spock turned to see several uniformed Yurnians riding toward them atop racing marmots. A warning shot fired loudly into the air.
“Halt . . . in the governor’s name!”
Twenty-One
Baldur III
“What do you need from us?” Kirk asked from the Enterprise.
The captain’s face was grim as it looked at Scott from the terminal in Galligan’s office. Static and visual snow marred the transmission; Scott blamed the Thunderbird’s compromised circuitry, along with, possibly, any radiation leaking from the self-destructing engine room. He and Galligan and Spears, who were all that remained of the plant’s meager skeleton crew after the rank-and-file workers had been instructed to evacuate, had managed to keep the engineering section sealed off from the radiation so far, but they had changed into protective suits just to be safe, not that the suits would save them when the warp core breached. The hood of Scott’s suit rested on the desk as he conferred with Kirk.
“I thank you for the thought,” Scott replied, “but to put it bluntly, I’m not sure there’s much you can do for us for here at ground zero. We’re doing our damnedest to delay the disaster for as long as possible, but we can’t stop the warp core from melting down eventually. My advice, sir: concentrate on spreading the alarm and evacuating the city as fast as you possibly can.”
A digital countdown on the screen, which Scott had set up on the off chance that he might lose track of the time, informed him that Thunderbird would be going nova in approximately one hour, twenty minutes.
“Already on it,” Kirk assured him, but Scott didn’t need to be told that this was far easier said than done in the scant time available. “Starting with the area directly around the park and Thunderbird.”
Scott understood that Galligan was in touch with his superiors as well.
“We can beam down more technicians to assist you,” Kirk suggested.
“No offense, sir, but that would just be throwing more lives in harm’s way. In any event, we’ve raised Thunderbird’s outer shields to confine the radiation leaks to the ship, so no one is beaming in or out of here until this is over.”
He left unspoken the obvious implication: that with the shields in place, they could not be beamed out. Not that Scott intended to leave his post; he didn’t trust Thunderbird’s automated systems to manage the overheating reactor the way an actual flesh-and-blood engineer could. Countless lives depended on his postponing the breach for as long as he could.
“Damn it, Scotty,” Kirk said. “This is insane. I can’t lose you this way.”
“Wasn’t my plan either,” Scott said with a fatalistic shrug. “But I knew the risks when I signed up . . . and have already made it out of more tight scrapes than the odds would favor. It’s been an honor serving under you, Captain.”
So much for retiring and buying a ship someday, he thought.
“I should have listened to you,” Kirk said. “Never put you in this position.”
“And if you hadn’t, sir, this town might already be a crater.” Scott didn’t want Kirk blaming himself. “I’m where I need to be, under the circumstances. If anything, I should be apologizing to you for not preventing this.”
“Belay that kind of talk,” Kirk said. “Knowing you, Scotty, you did your very best and then some.”
Scott kept an eye on the countdown. Galligan and Spears were keeping watch over the reactor at the moment, but now was no time for long goodbyes.
“Just one thing, Captain. There’s a fine old bottle of single-malt Scotch in my quarters that I’ve been saving for a special occasion, and I’d surely hate to see it go to waste. I’d be obliged if you and Mister Spock and Doctor McCoy would raise a glass in my memory.”
Kirk shook his head. “Request denied, Mister Scott. I don’t believe in no-win scenarios, which means you’re not allowed to either. Find a solution, Scotty. Work another miracle. That’s an order.”
“I wish I could, Captain, but we’re already doing everything we can just to buy the city more time. We’re trying to regulate, if ye can call it that, the reactor with our last remaining crystal, while bleeding off as much excess heat as possible by channelin
g the surplus energy into the ship’s dormant systems, powering up everything from the deflectors to life-support to the long-range sensors and the artificial gravity, but the reaction is still building no matter what we do. It’s only a matter of time before it’s too much for the core to contain.”
Seventy-eight minutes, to be exact.
“And there’s nowhere else you can divert the heat?” Kirk asked.
“I don’t think so, Captain. At this point, we’ve fired up practically everything except the old impulse engine—”
Scott slapped his forehead. He’d been so focused on keeping the warp core from exploding that he had missed one possible solution.
“What is it, Scotty? Do you have something?”
A sly grin crossed the engineer’s face.
“Thunderbird is a ship, isn’t she? Maybe she still has one last flight in her!”
Twenty-Two
Deep Space Station S-8
“You called it, Lieutenant. This man’s brain has been tampered with . . . in a manner consistent with the application of a neural neutralizer.”
Doctor M’Benga scanned Tilton in a private exam room in the station’s overcrowded infirmary. His bedside manner was somewhat brisker than McCoy’s, perhaps as a result of having interned on Vulcan some years ago; a specialist in xenomedicine, he spent much of his time aboard the Enterprise engaged in research rather than treating patients, while filling in for McCoy when necessary. At Sulu’s request, M’Benga had installed Tilton out of sight of the other patients, no easy task, considering the shortage of available beds; the last thing the station needed was for word of the manager’s condition to spread wildly before Sulu had a chance to confirm it. An opaque energy screen blocked light and sound from escaping the exam chamber, while Knox and Johann were posted outside the doorway to ensure that Sulu and M’Benga were uninterrupted. Tilton was stretched out on a diagnostic biobed, staring vacantly at the ceiling, as M’Benga continued to probe beneath the man’s skull via a handheld medical scanner. Restraints held the stricken manager in place.