XIII
The inevitable came—and went. On board the giant warship, the weapons officer unenthusiastically but professionally inputted the command. When nothing happened, he repeated the instruction not once but several times. Concurrently with his final attempt, a falling whine filled the ship’s bridge—the sound of power dropping.
“Sir,” he reported, at once alarmed and confused, “our weapons won’t fire! Phasers and torpedoes alike are inoperative.”
“Shields are down,” came the startled counterpoint from the helm. “We’re losing power!”
Meanwhile the chief science officer eyed the descending numbers of his multiple readouts and summed up the situation with an exclamation that would have been understood but not duplicated by his counterpart on the Enterprise.
“Admiral—what the hell, sir?”
“Someone in Engineering just manually reset every system on the ship, sir!” declared the weapons officer. “Not only can’t we use our weapons—I can’t even access the relevant instrumentation!”
“What do you mean ‘someone’?” Marcus snarled. “WHO?”
On board the Enterprise, Sulu gazed in disbelief at his readouts. “Their weapons are powered down—sir.”
Deep within the giant ship, a lone figure came tearing around a far corner and down an empty corridor, throwing furtive looks behind him. If he was not being actively pursued at the moment, he knew he soon would be. That he had accomplished what he set out to do was nothing less than a minor miracle. While well aware that his efforts could not pass unnoticed, he hoped that he himself might be able to at least survive. For a little while longer, anyway.
Fumbling with the communicator he had not dared to activate until now, Montgomery Scott stammered into it even as he continued fleeing from his deliberate acts of sabotage.
“Enterprise—can ye hear me?!”
On the bridge of the Federation starship that should by now have been reduced to a rapidly expanding sphere of ragged fragments above Earth’s moon, Kirk’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Scotty . . . ?” He swallowed hard, not daring to believe what he had just heard.
The communications link was weak, but intelligible. Without waiting for a command from Kirk, Uhura was already working to isolate and enhance it. Meanwhile, Spock had hurried back to his station and was attempting to pinpoint the communication’s location. Thanks to their combined efforts, the chief engineer’s next words were far more audible.
“Guess what I found behind Jupiter, Captain?!”
A thoroughly dumbfounded Kirk could scarcely make sense of the question. “You’re on that ship?! ”
“I’m sure as Ifrinn not on the Enterprise, Captain! An’ seein’ as how I’ve just committed an extensive act o’ treason against a Starfleet admiral and sabotage on Starfleet’s newest vessel, I’d bloody well like to get off this bloody ship—now beam me the hell out! You should ’ave me located by now—assumin’ Mr. Spock’s been doin’ his job and not lollygaggin’ about while I’ve been talking!”
The Enterprise’s science officer commented without looking up from his position. “Still fine-tuning for transfer, Captain. And,” he added in his usual monotone, “I do not ‘lollygag.’”
It was left to Kirk to respond to the frantic chief engineer. “Uh, we’re a little low on power at the moment, Scotty. That includes power for the transporter, I’m afraid. Stand by, we’re working on it . . .”
“You stand by!” Scott howled back. “What happened to the Enterprise? If you don’t get me . . .”
Was that the tattoo of boots on metal he was hearing via the chief ’s communicator, Kirk wondered? He shouted a query, even though he knew that the ship’s instrumentation would automatically moderate the volume of his response.
“Scotty? Mr. Scott?! ”
“Call you back,” was the last the captain heard from his ex–chief engineer.
“Scotty?”
There was no reply. Either the chief had been forced to run from pursuit, or else . . .
No. There could be no “or else.” Not now. The Enterprise had been spared, though for how long it was impossible to know. Moving to the back of the bridge, he confronted his science officer.
“Spock, our ship—how is she? Suggestions for immediate operations.”
“Our options remain very limited, Captain. We cannot fire and we cannot flee.”
“There is one option.” Kirk looked toward Communications. “Uhura, as soon as you can re-establish contact with Scotty, patch him through.” His gaze returned to his first. “Mr. Spock, you have the conn.” Turning away, he headed for the turbolift.
Without hesitating, Spock moved to follow. The Vulcan succeeded in entering the open lift before the doors could react to his presence. He was speaking anxiously even as the barrier closed behind him.
“Captain, I strongly object—”
Kirk didn’t give his first officer time to finish the thought. “To what? I haven’t said anything yet. I haven’t proposed anything yet.”
Spock was not so easily put off. “I believe I can make a reasonable attempt at divining your intentions based on the limited number of alternatives available to us. To prevent Admiral Marcus from resuming the attack that he launched and was only just prevented from concluding, we must somehow either permanently put his vessel out of action or take control of it. Since we cannot take the ship from without, the only way to do so is from within. And as a large boarding party would quickly be detected and met with appropriate counterforce, it is optimum for you to take as few crewmembers as possible.
“Since there is a good chance one is still likely to eventually encounter resistance, it stands to reason that any boarding party will require personnel with advanced hand-to-hand combat abilities. It also stands to reason that a boarding party would benefit immensely from the presence of someone with innate knowledge of the design and schematics of that ship. All of which would indicate that you plan to ally with Khan, the very individual we were sent to destroy and who we decided instead to capture.”
Too perceptive by half, Spock was. Since the science officer had thought everything out so thoroughly, Kirk decided there was no point in trying to deny any of it.
“And we would’ve been destroyed if he hadn’t saved our lives on Qo’noS. Or have you forgotten that a Klingon officer had his foot on my throat and his gun at my head?”
“The disturbing image remains regrettably fresh in my memory, Captain. That was then: This is now. Think, Jim. A man like Khan does nothing without a reason. He is a self-confessed warrior, bred to be a fighter. That means that in addition to knowing ground combat, weapons, and ship capabilities, he is also familiar with tactics and strategy. Faced with possible annihilation, someone like that focuses on survival. I do not for an instant doubt that his saving our lives was a means to an end.” He straightened slightly. “If it is learned that it was done out of altruism, I will resign my commission.”
Though he had already made up his mind, Kirk was willing to listen. Especially to the Vulcan. “A means to what end, Spock?”
“We do not yet know. But for all that he has not chosen to reveal it to us, I do not doubt that it exists and that its nature is not benign. Furthermore, Admiral Marcus’s guilty actions do not in any way invalidate Khan’s crimes.”
“‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Kirk recited as they stepped out of the turbolift and into a lower corridor.
Paralleling his superior as they made their way quickly across a catwalk, Spock was unsurprisingly ready with a rejoinder of his own. “An Arabic proverb attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects.”
“Still,” Kirk mused as they rounded a corner, “it’s a hell of a quote. My feeling is that time validates such sayings, and the longer they hang around, the more validity accrues to them.”
Seeing he was unable to change his friend’s mind, Spock resolved to try another tack. “Very well, then. If you are determined to do this, I will go with you.”
Kirk shook his head. “No. I need you on the bridge.”
A hand, more than humanly powerful, grabbed Kirk by the shoulder and brought him to a halt. “Then in that case I must insist. I cannot allow you to do this. One of my principal functions on this ship is to ensure that, where possible, reason and logic prevail in the making of all decisions. It would not be carrying out my duties if I failed to prevent you from acting in what is patently a self-destructive manner, something I believe you are doing at this moment.”
Human and Vulcan stared at each other. Then Kirk nodded once and replied quietly.
“You’re right.”
Unused to agreement in such circumstances, Spock was uncharacteristically bemused. “Captain?”
“I said, you’re right. Every call I’ve made since this whole business started has been wrong. We’d all be dead right now if it wasn’t for Scotty—who’s just one of the ten people who tried to warn me I was in over my head. So that’s why it’s now on me to go over there—because the one thing I know I can do for certain, and do really well, is punch people. And if that doesn’t work?” He stared hard at his first officer—and friend. “The Enterprise and her crew need someone in that chair who knows what the hell he’s doing. Nothing against Sulu or Uhura or any of the other senior officers, but—you know what I mean.” He swallowed hard. “That’s why you’re captain now, Mr. Spock.” As the Vulcan stared at him, speechless, Kirk stepped back. “I’m sorry I pulled you into this. I’m sorry I pulled the Enterprise and its crew into this. I’m sorry for—I’m sorry for a lot of things.” He smiled wanly. “I don’t know what a great captain would do in a situation like this. I only know what I can do.”
Pivoting on his heel, he accelerated toward another part of the ship.
Watching him go, Spock considered hurrying after him. Surely more argument, more thorough reasoning, would persuade Kirk to change his mind. Careful dialogue with relevant points highlighted would see the captain back in his familiar seat in the command chair. But there was simply no time right now to afford such luxuries as extended contemplation. Turning purposefully, he headed for the bridge.
Lost in contemplation, it took Khan a moment to look up from his seat and meet Kirk’s steady gaze. Once he was certain the prisoner was paying proper attention, Kirk snapped out a command.
“Tell me everything you know about that ship.”
“To tell you everything I know about your opponent would require more time than remains to either of us, Captain,” Khan replied. “Bearing that in mind, I will tell you that it would be considered a dreadnought class. It is far larger than the Enterprise—but you already know that. It is far more heavily armed than the Enterprise—but you already know that. Special modifications to its warp drive and engine nacelles allow it to exceed, for a short period of time, all accepted warp factors. Modified to be operated by a minimal crew. Unlike most Federation vessels, it is built solely for combat.”
Kirk’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t know that. Listen to me, Khan. I am going to do everything I can to make you answer for what you did that night at Starfleet headquarters.” He paused a moment. “But right now, I need your help.”
“Of course you do. As your Mr. Spock would say, it is patently obvious. Very well. You need my help.” His tone sharpened. “In exchange for what? Or do you think that I’ll give you my assistance out of the kindness of my heart?”
What was it Spock had told him? A man like Khan does nothing without a reason. Wary as he might be, Kirk knew he had to act and act quickly before the maintenance crew of the warship succeeded in overturning Scotty’s timely intervention. Survival first. Judgment later.
“You said you’d do anything for your crew. For your ‘family.’ Help me, and I can guarantee their safety.”
His tone calmly contemptuous, Khan offered a pitying smile by way of reply. “Captain. You can’t even guarantee the safety of your own crew.”
Expecting something of the sort, Kirk was ready with a response. “Yeah, well, I’m working on it. I can’t assure the safety of your people without first securing the safety of mine. That should be plain enough. If Marcus succeeds in destroying the Enterprise, the fact that your crew is cryogenically packed into torpedo frames won’t save them. They’ll be blown to bits just like the rest of us and their component pieces scattered across the solar system.”
Kirk tried not to show the tension he felt. He had the uncomfortable feeling of being engaged in a deadly serious game of chess and always three moves behind. The prisoner’s damnable self-assurance was infuriating, the sense that he was always right. What was worse, a part of Kirk felt that might be the case.
Unable to stand the prisoner’s continuing silence, Kirk glanced across the room at where McCoy was busy at a work station. “Bones, what are you doing with that tribble?”
“The tribble’s dead. A standard medical specimen. I’m injecting Khan’s platelets into the deceased tissue of a necrotic host. You wanted me to figure out what makes the sunuvabitch tick? I’m figuring.”
Kirk turned back to Khan. “So—are you coming with me or do I have to try and do this alone?”
After what seemed like several lifetimes, but in reality was only a moment, Khan’s expression changed from taunting to thoughtful.
The security team Kirk speedily convened was comprised of the best the Enterprise could offer. Armed and ready, they quickly followed the captain and his strangely silent companion down the corridor while Uhura was busily trying to reconnect with the ship’s absent chief engineer. The security team’s presence was to ensure that Khan, now free of the confines of the ship’s brig, did not attempt to veer off on some impromptu venture of his own. If that was his intent, Kirk mused as he studied the man striding along beside him, the prisoner was concealing it well.
On board the ebony warship, Montgomery Scott kept constantly on the move as he strove to evade what had become a remorseless pursuit. Only the vast size of the ship, coupled with the fact that Marcus had crewed it with the absolute minimum of personnel, allowed him to avoid capture. And even though it was of a new and advanced design, much was still familiar to him. There were, after all, only so many ways to lay in service corridors for the engines, only so many options for placing life-support systems. Despite several near encounters with his pursuers, Scott managed to stay several steps ahead of them. On more than one occasion, he had activated an empty survival suit or its support framework, fooling ship security’s sensory detection apparatus into making it appear he was on a deck he had only recently vacated.
Listening intently for any sign that those on his trail might be drawing close again, his nerves more than a little on edge, Scott nearly jumped out of his boots as his communicator beeped for attention. Flipping it open, he all but hissed into the pickup.
“Oi, Captain . . . give a man some warning!”
“Sorry, Scotty. I take it you’re still free to cause trouble?” Kirk asked him.
The chief glanced over a shoulder. The corridor behind him was still deserted—though for how much longer, he had no way of knowing.
“Doin’ me best, sir—and still waitin’ to be beamed off this galla.”
“There’s still going to be a delay in that, Scotty. We don’t have adequate power to the transporter room yet. Maybe not for some time. So we’re planning an alternative. We’re coming over there.”
The chief’s eyes grew wide. “Excuse me, sir. Must be some problem with the communications link. I dinna think I heard you clearly. You wanna do what? ”
“We’re coming over there,” Kirk repeated into the communicator, “even though we’re going to have to do it without the use of the transporter. All the Enterprise has left that’s still functioning are the independently powered maneuvering thrusters. Not enough push to get us to the moon, much less Earth. But enough to fine-tune ship position inside a spacedock—or move us closer to where you are. Sulu’s shifting the Enterprise into position even as we speak.”
“To this ship?” The incredulity in the chief’s voice came over clearly via the communicator. “How?”
Kirk looked over at Khan. The prisoner spoke without hesitation. “There’s a cargo door: hangar seven, access port 101A. This hangar is equipped with an internal manual override system. You need to locate the manual override to open the airlock.”
Audible via the communicator’s speaker, the chief’s response was thick with suspicion. “And who is this I’m supposed to be taking orders from? Are you crazy?”
Quickening his pace toward the shuttle bay, Kirk fought to contain his anticipation. “Take my word for it, Scotty: Just listen to him. It’s gonna be all right.”
“Oh, I’m listenin’, Captain,” came the engineer’s reply. “You bet your mas I’m listenin’. Let me see if I heard this straight: You wanna shoot out of the Enterprise’s garbage chute, then I’m supposed to open an airlock—to space—whereupon I dinna know what happens to you because before you get inside I freeze and die and explode!”
Instead of disputing the chief’s breakdown of their intentions, Khan replied in a reasonable but firm manner. “And yet it will be your captain and myself who are speeding towards you at four hundred meters a second. If you don’t find and activate that manual override, it is we who will smash into the outer hull like insects on a windshield.”
“Och, aye,” Scott responded, his tone dry as moor heather on an August afternoon. “Well, I certainly don’t want you to get hurt.”
On the bridge, Spock leaned close to where Uhura sat at her station.
“Lieutenant, from our current position is it possible to establish contact with New Vulcan?”
She stared back up at him, ensuring she had heard correctly. “I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you.” Moving away, he slid into the vacant command chair without hesitation. “Mr. Sulu, where are we?”
Trying to monitor a dozen readouts at once, the helmsman replied succinctly. “Almost there. I’m aligning our ship now.”
“What is the status of the enemy ship?”
“Their main systems are still offline,” the helmsman replied, “but sensors indicate gradual restoration is in progress.” He glanced back at the command chair. “I can’t predict how much time we have until they’ve reestablished weapons or drive capacity.”
Spock nodded once, tersely. “Let us hope their ability to reinstate onboard functionality is exceeded only by Mr. Scott’s uniquely individual aptitude for inducing chaos.”
Having donned the silvery EV suits, Kirk and Khan now could only wait in one of the side personnel airlocks for clearance from the bridge. It was not long in coming.
“Captain,” Sulu declared over their suit comms, “your departure vector is now aligned with the specified cargo door on the other vessel. But there’s nothing we can do about the intervening debris field.”
Debris field, Kirk reminded himself with a start. Of course. While much of the wreckage resulting from the warship’s assault on the Enterprise would have been blown away into space by the violence of the attack, some would have become trapped between the two vessels, bouncing back and forth until the momentum imparted to the fragments by assorted explosions had dissipated. It would drift there until drawn off by the moon’s gravity or knocked away by collision with other bits of drifting rubble or some other solid object.
Such as outward-flying EV-suited bodies. EV suits equipped with backpacks capable of only minimal maneuverability. Since the packs were designed to provide only a limited amount of propulsion, the distance between the two vessels required that they rely on the boost they would get from the garbage chute’s own expulsion capability. Otherwise it would take so long to reach their target that the gigantic warship would likely have restored power and weapons capability before they even got to her. They had to make the crossing as fast as possible—which meant incurring the risk of contact with the intervening debris field.
“We’ll have to maneuver around anything we encounter.” As Kirk spoke, he was staring at the circular door in front of them. Outside, beyond, lay an unknown amount of detritus of varying size and potential danger, a hostile vessel—and a great, great deal of nothing.
Frantic yet somehow reassuring, Scott’s voice reached him, neatly patched through by the ever-competent Uhura. “Stand by. Stand by.” There was a pause, then, “Yeah, okay—I’m here.”
In case someone was now eavesdropping on the frequency, the chief did not elaborate. Kirk knew it could only mean that Scott had successfully reached and entered hangar seven.
On the Enterprise bridge, Sulu continued his masterful manual tweaking of the ship’s maneuvering thrusters. While the alignment he was seeking was actually easier to secure than that required to back a starship into dock, knowledge of that fact didn’t prevent him from perspiring. Only when one readout turned green and the word LOCKED appeared on its neighbor did he allow himself to relax even slightly.
“Captain, the trash exhaust you are presently occupying is aimed at the personnel portal of hangar seven on the other ship. You are good to go. Provided the other vessel does not alter its current position, I should be able to hold this alignment as long as necessary.”
“Copy that,” Kirk replied. “Scotty, you ready for us yet?”
On the warship, the chief slowed before the very door he was supposed to open. Even though he knew he was in one of the smaller hangar entrances, the barrier’s size still gave him pause.
“Whoa, hold on a sec now. This airlock door I’m lookin’ at is very wee. I mean, it’s small. Only four meters or so in diameter. And you’re comin’ straight across this way? It’s goin’ to be like jumpin’ out of a movin’ car, off a bridge, an’ into a shot glass.”
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk tensed as he prepared himself for the forthcoming release from the airlock. “That’s okay,” Kirk assured the chief via his suit’s comm. “I’ve done this before.”
Turning to him, Khan raised an eyebrow in a disarmingly Spock-like manner. “You’ve done this before?”
“Yeah,” an increasingly tense Kirk told him, “it was vertical. We jumped onto a . . .” His words trailed off, along with the memory, and he returned his attention to the barrier directly in front of them. “It doesn’t matter.”
Khan eyed him a moment longer, then gave a mental shrug and addressed his own suit’s comm pickup. “Mr. Scott. Did you find the manual override?”
On the massive warship, Scott was racing frantically down the empty, disarmingly vast corridor that was hangar seven. “Not yet, not yet! I’m in the hangar. Give me a minute. A lot o’ this is familiar, but there’s a lot that’s new to me, too. Too much that’s new!”
Looking to right and left, he searched desperately for a manual control panel. It should have been . . . there. It wasn’t. Turning in a frantic circle, he thought he saw the console. A quick check revealed plenty of differences from a panel with similar functions on the Enterprise—but enough that were familiar. Several in particular were virtually identical. They were all he needed—he hadn’t come here to stand in a suit and manually bring a shuttle aboard.
So intent was he on studying the controls that he didn’t notice a portal open at the back of the hangar and behind him.
On the Enterprise bridge, Spock felt he could no longer ignore reporting what he was seeing on the monitors. “Captain, before you launch, I feel I must restate that there is considerable debris still drifting between our ships. At your calculated departure velocity, contact with even a seemingly insignificant fragment would be cat—”
“Don’t say ‘catastrophic’!” Despite the best efforts of his suit’s automated internal climate control, Kirk was sweating. “Are we good to go or not?”
“Yes, Captain. If you choose to define ‘good’ as taking into account—”
Kirk interrupted the science officer’s unnecessary and decidedly unwanted explication by checking in with the chief. “Scotty, you ready for us?”
“Give me two seconds!” came the decidedly frenetic response. Under his breath and away from the communicator, the chief added to no one but himself, “Ya mad bastard!”
On the bridge, McCoy leaned toward the command chair and its occupant. “Tell me this is gonna work.”
“I have neither the information nor the confidence to do so, Doctor.”
McCoy’s expression twisted as he straightened. “As always, you’re a real comfort.”
Lying prone in the disposal chute, Kirk heard what he desperately wanted to hear from the chief. “Okay, okay—I’m set to open the door.”
Kirk glanced over at his companion. “You ready?”
“Are you?”
Damn the man! Kirk thought to himself. How can he be so calm under such circumstances? How human is he? Recalling McCoy’s comment about the prisoner’s blood summoned forth a host of questions—none of which Kirk presently had the time or inclination to ask. But later, when this was all over . . .
He addressed his suit’s pickup. “Okay, Spock—pull the trigger.”
“Yes, Captain . . . launching activation sequence on three . . . two . . . one . . .”
The airtight door in front of Kirk and Khan opened. There was a silent blast of compressed air from behind them that was intended to ensure that no refuse drifted back into the circular opening, and both men shot out into space as if blown from a cannon.
Into space, where pure tangled menace awaited.