The Antares Maelstrom

by Greg Cox

  “Eefa is not your concern,” Spock replied. “It is the actions of you and your accomplices that are of relevance at the present moment.”

  “Don’t even think you’re taking this tea. We bought it fair and square, and have customers waiting for it.”

  “One particular shipment of nabbia is of no consequence,” Spock stated. “Your reckless involvement in Yurnian affairs is the crux of the matter. Understand that Starfleet will not allow this to continue.”

  “And you’re going to stop us?” she said. “Get off our tail, if you know what’s good for you. I’m in no big hurry to pick a fight with Starfleet, but I’m sure as hell not going to end up in a Federation rehab colony because of your high-and-mighty Prime Directive.”

  “Not to mention the cold-blooded murder of that man on Yurnos,” Chekov retorted, joining the exchange. “He was no friend of ours, but it was his planet, and you killed him on it. Rehabilitation is the least you deserve.”

  “And we have the Russian too, it seems,” Venus said. “Thanks for reminding me that you two are witnesses to that little altercation. Guess we can’t have you running back to Starfleet to squeal on us, can we?”

  The smugglers’ craft executed a loop, coming around to challenge Galileo head-on. A disruptor blast, much stronger than those previous, nearly threw Spock from his seat. Warning lights began to blink urgently upon the instrument panels. Shields were down to 36.408 percent; that they were now at less than half strength boded poorly for the shuttlecraft’s continued chances of survival if they prolonged the encounter. Spock completed his scans of the smugglers’ vessel.

  “Evasive action,” he ordered. “Break off pursuit.”

  “I’m trying, Mister Spock, but I think they are pursuing us now!”

  Galileo reversed course while returning fire. The shuttlecraft wove back and forth in space, executing a zigzag flight plan to make it harder to target. Disruptor blasts continued to scrape away at their shields, however; Chekov was doing his best, but a percentage of the smugglers’ blasts struck home with varying degrees of accuracy. A glancing blow tilted the shuttle hard to port before the artificial gravity compensated for the angle and stabilized their orientation. An environmental control panel in the passenger cabin overloaded, spraying sparks onto empty seats and crackling loudly until automated circuit breakers kicked in to cut off the flow of power to the damaged panel. An acrid odor lingered after the sparks ceased erupting.

  Spock took control of Galileo’s weapons, retaliating with their phasers. He briefly entertained the hope that the smugglers would choose retreat as well, but evidence suggested they intended to finish the fight. He suspected their motives were as much emotional as they were calculated, but it was the nature of emotions to provoke violent behavior. His own people’s history had proved that millennia ago.

  A disruptor blast struck the underside of the shuttlecraft. The sensation was not unlike a marmot-drawn wagon hitting a bump at high speed. A schematic of Galileo appeared upon a display screen; a portion of the schematic flashed scarlet, relaying bad news about the ship’s structural integrity.

  “We’ve lost the starboard landing pad,” Chekov said, reading the schematic. “I hate to say it, Mister Spock, but I’m afraid we are outgunned.”

  “So it appears,” Spock agreed. Their shields were holding—barely—at a mere 26.021 percent of their desired strength. “Nor do our opponents seem inclined to let us withdraw from the field.”

  He assembled the data he had already accumulated regarding the smugglers, their vessel, and their operations and transmitted it in a packet back to the Federation observers on Yurnos. It was imperative that the results of his and Chekov’s investigation survive even if they and Galileo did not.

  “Feeling the heat, Vulcan?” Venus hailed them to gloat. “Bet you wish you’d stayed out of our business now. We gave you a chance to back off, but you just had to give us a hard time for trying to make an honest-ish living. This is all on you. But don’t feel too bad. Maybe your precious Starfleet will award you both medals . . . posthumously.”

  Chekov switched off the comm, which Spock had little objection to. Venus and her cohorts clearly had no desire to engage in a meaningful dialogue.

  “Mister Spock,” Chekov whispered urgently, even though no one could hear. “Take the helm. I have an idea!”

  He quickly explained his brainstorm to Spock, who deemed it worth attempting. He took control of the helm from the copilot’s seat. “Proceed, Ensign.”

  Chekov opened a new channel on a specific frequency.

  “Hailing U.S.S. Enterprise. This is Galileo. Do you read me? This is Ensign Pavel Chekov, hailing Captain James T. Kirk.” He placed unusual stress on the captain’s name. “Please respond, Captain Kirk.”

  “Chekov?” Vankov responded from Yurnos. “I don’t understand. What do you—”

  “Good to hear your voice, Captain Kirk,” Chekov said hastily. “We have good news to report to you and Enterprise.”

  Chekov’s scheme depended on Vankov swiftly grasping and playing along with the ruse. To his credit, the anthropologist caught on quickly. He lowered his voice an octave and assumed a more authoritative tone.

  “Kirk here, Ensign. What is your report?”

  “Your plan is succeeding, Captain. We have engaged the smugglers, who have taken the bait. We are leading them toward you now. You may emerge from hiding behind Yurnos’s moon. Come and get them!”

  “Affirmative, Ensign Chekov! We are on our way. Keep them busy until we get there!”

  “Don’t worry, Captain. We’ve got them right where we want them.”

  Spock did not know whether to be impressed or appalled by Chekov’s mendacity. He was clearly developing a talent for it, perhaps in emulation of a certain James T. Kirk, who had been known to bluff his way out of a difficult situation. Chekov had evidently been paying attention to his captain’s tactics.

  The deception had the desired effect. The barrage of disruptor beams terminated abruptly as, according to Spock’s sensors, the smugglers abandoned their pursuit of Galileo and took off in the opposite direction. It appeared that even the possibility of facing off against a Constitution-class starship was enough to make them lose their appetite for combat.

  Spock could not fault their logic in that regard.

  “Well done, Ensign. A creative solution.”

  “Thank you, Mister Spock.” Chekov watched the smugglers’ craft speed out of sensor range. “I have to say, though, I hate letting those villains get away, after all they have done.”

  Spock understood how the young man felt, but he kept his focus on the larger picture.

  “Apprehending the actual smugglers was never our priority. Halting their activities on Yurnos was our mission, and I believe we now have enough information to make that possible. We discovered who and where they were getting the nabbia from, we determined how they were smuggling the tea off the planet, and, perhaps, we convinced them that Starfleet is no longer blind to their activities, which may be enough to discourage them from returning to Yurnos altogether. In addition, we now have full scans of their spacecraft, including their energy signatures, so it is unlikely that they will be able to elude Starfleet for long. In short,” Spock concluded, “there is no logical reason why they must be captured at this particular point of time.”

  “I know, I know, Mister Spock, but it still goes against the grain.” He gave Spock an apologetic look. “It is an emotional thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You might be surprised, Ensign, but as we explained to Eefa on the beach not too long ago: sometimes the most logical thing to do is to step away from the fight.” He turned the helm back over to Chekov, confident the young officer would not be so foolish as to take off in pursuit of the smugglers. “For the record, Chekov, I do not fault you for possessing human emotions, but I do commend you for having the discipline and maturity to control them.”

  “Thank you, Mister Spock. That is high praise, coming from you.�
��

  He raised the blast shutters to permit them a better view of vast depths of space before them. The smugglers’ craft was nowhere to be seen.

  “Shall I set course back for Yurnos, sir?”

  Spock shook his head. “I think not, Ensign. We have accomplished enough there for now. Set course for Baldur III . . . and the Enterprise.”

  Thirty

  The Antares Maelstrom

  Entering the Maelstrom was not like crossing a line in the sand. The turbulence was fairly mild for the first one hundred kilometers, but increased dramatically the farther Fleetness flew into the roiling plasma currents, which tossed the shuttle back and forth as Sulu struggled to keep it on course despite the violent forces buffeting the vessel and threatening to carry it every which way. Seated at the helm, Sulu was grateful for the safety harness holding him in place during the increasingly rocky ride even as he eyed the status reports with growing concern. The engine and thrusters were already straining; the shields were being battered by contact with the supercharged plasma, working overtime to protect the ship (and Sulu) from lethal amounts of heat and radiation, not to mention random energy discharges. The temperature was already rising within the cockpit, as if he wasn’t already working up a sweat just trying to stay on the Lucky Strike’s trail. An obnoxious crackling noise penetrated the shields and hull, abrading Sulu’s nerves.

  No wonder no ship has ever crossed the Maelstrom, Sulu thought. Calling it hazardous is an understatement.

  And this particular vessel didn’t help his odds any. True to its name, Fleetness was built for speed, not endurance, typical of the Zephrytes, who, as a culture, were notorious for their impatience. The shuttle was fast, enabling him to catch up with Lucky Strike, more or less, but flimsy by Starfleet standards; certainly, it was not designed to stand up to these extreme conditions. As a sudden swell of plasma jolted Fleetness, accompanied by a blinding electromagnetic flash, Sulu resolved to never again take for granted the Enterprise’s sturdy construction, multiply redundant backup systems, and top-of-the-line engineers.

  Where is Scotty, now that I need him?

  The view beyond the shuttle’s front ports was a seething, prismatic vortex that was psychedelic enough to give a Medusan a headache. Sulu dialed up the filters to protect his eyes from the glare. Unable to establish visual contact with the Lucky Strike, he could make out only a vague silhouette on the sensor display and try to maintain a fix on the other ship’s warp signature. There was no point in attempting to track its ion trail, as any residual particles would be immediately swept away by the fast-moving currents; it would be like trying to follow a trail of bread crumbs in a hurricane—while trying to survive the hurricane at the same time.

  Warning lights flashed on the shuttle’s board, signifying that the shields were already on the verge of collapse. The Maelstrom was too much for Fleetness, which was succumbing to the tempest even faster than Sulu had anticipated. Once the shields went down, other systems were bound to fail as well, leaving nothing but the shuttle’s hull between Sulu and oblivion. The only question was what would kill him first: a hull breach or a life-support failure?

  Exiting the Maelstrom was not an option. At the rate the shields were crumbling, he wasn’t going to make it back to regular space before Fleetness was torn to shreds. Forget saving Helena and the other people aboard the Lucky Strike. The rescuer was now in need of rescue, with only one chance remaining to him.

  “Sulu to Lucky Strike. Mayday!”

  * * *

  “Sulu?”

  The SOS was faint and difficult to decipher, given all the interference from the Maelstrom. Helena had to turn up the volume and adjust the settings on her customized earpiece to make out what Sulu was saying, but once she fully grasped the danger he was in, she immediately broke subspace radio silence to reply.

  “Hikaru, this is Helena. Stand by for rescue.”

  “Come again?” Dajo called out from the captain’s chair, which pivoted toward Helena. Seat belts kept them both from being tossed by the turbulence. “I told you not to respond!”

  “Sorry, Captain, but this is an emergency!” She tersely informed him of Sulu’s desperate circumstances. “That shuttle’s not long for this universe. It can’t stand up to the Maelstrom.”

  Not that the Lucky Strike was having an easy time of it. Bigger and more solidly built than whatever secondhand shuttle Sulu had scrounged up, the Lucky Strike was faring better than Sulu’s ride, at least so far, but Helena wasn’t going to breathe easy until they were safely through the Maelstrom, especially since the fabled Passage was proving more elusive than expected, considering the absolutely “authentic” and “reliable” charts Dajo had discreetly acquired back at the station. Helena had her doubts about those charts, and the Passage in general, but she would have to worry about that later, after Sulu was safe. Rescuing him took priority, at least as far as she was concerned.

  “That’s not our fault,” Dajo protested. “Nobody asked him to follow us into the Maelstrom!”

  “It’s not about assigning blame,” Helena said. “A man’s life is in danger. That’s all that matters now.”

  “But what are we supposed to do about it? We don’t have a shuttlebay.”

  “Which is why we have to beam him aboard before it’s too late.”

  Dajo reacted in alarm. “But that would mean dropping out of warp and lowering our own shields . . . in the middle of the Maelstrom!”

  “Just for a few seconds.” Helena couldn’t believe they were wasting time debating this. “For Athena’s sake, are you seriously proposing that we just fly on and let Sulu die?”

  “I’m simply thinking of the safety of this ship and our passengers,” Dajo insisted, a trifle defensively. “Look at where we are. We’re already taking our lumps from that murderous tempest outside. Even dropping the shields for a moment is going to take a bite out of the ship and its systems, when we might need everything we’ve got later on.”

  “That’s a risk we have to take.” Her temper flared. “I defended you to Sulu, Captain. I told him you couldn’t be a saboteur, that you weren’t the kind of man who would deliberately harm people. Was I wrong about that, Mirsa? Are you going to prove me a liar?”

  They glared at each other across the bridge, while the rest of the five-person bridge crew looked on uncomfortably. She wondered whose side they’d take if she had to stage a full-on mutiny for Sulu’s sake. Was she the only one willing to stand up to Dajo over this?

  Don’t make me do it, Mirsa. Prove to me that you’re just a scoundrel, not a sociopath.

  “Fine,” he caved. “But you owe me one, Helena.”

  “Put it on my tab.” She sighed in relief as she got straight to work. “First Officer to Transporter Chief. Prepare for emergency transport, pronto!”

  * * *

  The shuttle’s deflectors were holding on by a thread, while vital circuits were burning out at a rapidly accelerating rate. Noxious fumes polluted the atmosphere inside the cockpit, forcing Sulu to resort to a breathing mask again. The artificial gravity wobbled erratically, making his stomach do flip-flops. Thrusters fought against the plasma currents to keep the shuttle from being swept away from the Lucky Strike. Sparks exploded from an overheated sensor panel; Sulu threw up an arm to shield his face. White-hot sparks scorched his sleeve. Groaning metal confirmed that the hull’s structural integrity was failing.

  “Sulu to Lucky Strike,” he said. “Sooner better than later, if you don’t mind.”

  “We’re on it,” Helena responded. He could hear the worry in her voice despite the static. “Not going to lie to you, Hikaru. This is going to be dicey. I can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to lock onto you through all the interference between us, let alone beam you through the soup.”

  “Understood.” Sulu winced at the thought of his atoms being strewn across the Maelstrom. “Not much choice about it.”

  “Nope,” she agreed. “Grabbing your shuttle now. Hold tight.”

 
The ship shuddered as a tractor beam from the Lucky Strike seized hold of Fleetness in order to keep the shuttle in a fixed position relative to the larger ship. The bump was difficult to distinguish from the general turbulence, but Sulu thought he felt the difference. That the beam’s grasp put more strain on the shuttle’s much-abused hull was something he chose not to think about. The abused metal was more screaming than groaning now. An unnerving vibration passed from the floor to his own frame, rattling his bones.

  “Got you.” Helena spoke quickly as though worried about losing contact with Sulu. “We’re going to need you to boost the transponder signal from your personal communicator as high as it will go, while we do the same with our transporter’s confinement beam.”

  He flipped open his communicator and set the signal for maximum. “Done.”

  “Good. I’m already patched into our transporter chief. Schultz, are you ready?”

  “Just waiting on your order,” a masculine voice answered.

  “Ready to drop shields?” she called out to somebody else aboard her ship. “We need to do this in synch. Split-second timing!”

  Her signal was breaking up, but Sulu made out a hasty assent in the background. A quick glance at a cracked status display revealed that the shuttle’s shields were at 0.46 percent and falling fast; they were dropping whether Sulu was ready or not. Bulkheads buckled noisily. Microfractures in the hull started to suck the smoky atmosphere into space. He gripped the communicator tightly, holding on to to it for dear life. He shouted over the whistling wind and shrieking metal.

  “Helena! Now or never!”

  Without waiting for her prompt, he reached out and shut down the shields.

  What was left of them, that was.

  * * *

  Sulu staggered onto the bridge of the Lucky Strike, escorted by a guide from the ship’s transporter room. Despite Helena’s fears, he had arrived with all his atoms in place, as far as he could tell, but the turbulence shaking the ship made it difficult to keep one’s balance, so he occasionally had to brace himself against a wall or doorway to stay upright. His legs felt a little rubbery as well.