VIII
The Enterprise had not “stopped” in the usual sense, of course—it was not as if she had run into some vast interstellar wall or into anything else. She had simply performed a normal maneuver in a decidedly abnormal fashion . . . the physical effect of which had mimicked a body in motion coming to a complete halt. The actual physics were rather more complicated.
In contrast, Kirk’s reaction was refreshingly simple.
“What the hell was that?”
No alarms were sounding, which was a relief not only to him but to everyone else on the bridge. In the alerts’ absence, everyone hurriedly referenced their individual specialties in search of another possible explanation.
It was Sulu who was able to respond almost immediately: “Engineering manually dropped us out of warp, sir.” Unnecessarily, he added, “Without the usual interstitial planning.”
“No kidding.” Puzzled as well as angry, Kirk addressed the chair’s pickup. “Mr. Chekov, did you break my ship?”
In Engineering, there was confusion but no panic. Something had definitely gone wrong, but insofar as any of the techs could tell, nothing was broken . . . at least, nothing that had produced any obviously deleterious side effects. Technicians scrambled to identify the problem and find a solution. As one of them hastily informed Chekov, finding the former might take as long as preparing the latter. It was with that unhelpful preliminary report in mind that the acting chief engineer rushed to respond to the query from the bridge.
“Sorry . . . sorry, sir! I don’t know what happened! Nobody does . . . yet.” He glanced over a shoulder. With a minimum of talk, the full engineering team was smothering the area with instruments and equipment. “There is . . . was . . . apparently a problem with the core. The usual fail-safes responded with an emergency shutdown—we don’t know the cause yet. But we can’t manually override the automatics—at least not until we identify the problem. Impulse only until then.”
What James Kirk muttered under his breath would have gotten him thrown out of any formal Starfleet meeting of senior officers and a censure placed in his record to boot. However, the circumstances were anything but formal. Besides which, he was the senior officer present. Having verbally expressed his feelings in no uncertain terms, he rose from the command chair.
“Mr. Sulu, remaining time to our destination?”
The helmsman studied his readouts. “Twenty minutes, sir.” His mien dead serious, he turned in his seat. “But that’s twenty minutes in hostile space we weren’t counting on, until we can settle in behind the moonlet we’ve chosen in our final coordinates. We’re through the Neutral Zone and well inside the Klingon sphere of influence.”
“All right, we’d better hop to it.” A quick scan of the bridge revealed an unmanned Science station and its usual occupant missing. “Where’s Spock?”
“I am here, Captain,” the first officer announced as he stepped clear of the lift.
“You’re coming with me to Qo’noS. Change of plans. We’re gonna go down there and get him ourselves.”
“Captain,” Sulu began, “I feel it my duty to point out that depriving the ship of its two most senior officers while in hostile territory contravenes all recommended Starfleet and traditional military procedure going back to the beginning of warfare.”
“And probably not for the last time, Mr. Sulu. In the absence of myself and Mr. Spock, you will be in command. Unless, of course, by making your observation you are indirectly disparaging your own competency?”
Taken aback, the helmsman sat a little straighter in his chair. “No, sir.”
“I didn’t think so.” Looking across the bridge, Kirk next addressed his chief communications officer. “Lieutenant, how’s your Klingon?”
“It’s rusty, but it’s good. toHq, a’ Niq?” She smiled thinly. “That’s colloquial. You want formal?”
Kirk nodded appreciatively. “If we have to deal with any Klingons in person, I don’t think it’ll be very formal. You’re coming, too.” A sudden thought made him pause. “That won’t—be a problem, is it? You two, working together . . . ?’
“Absolutely not.” Favoring Spock with a stern sideways glance, she headed for the turbolift. For his part, the science officer sounded mildly perplexed.
“Unclear.”
Voice and expression exquisitely neutral, Kirk regarded his first officer. “What is unclear, Mr. Spock?”
The Vulcan started to reply, hesitated, got caught up in more than one interpretational conundrum, and finally responded. “A great deal, Captain.”
“Then we are once again in full agreement, Mr. Spock. I’ll meet you in the shuttle bay.”
For a second time the science officer hesitated. Then he turned and, without further comment but carrying his confusion with him, followed Uhura into the lift. As Kirk moved to join them, he was approached by McCoy.
“Jim,” the doctor murmured, “you’re not actually going down there? As the old adage goes, you don’t rob a bank when your getaway car has a flat tire.”
For an instant, Kirk’s thoughts seemed to wing elsewhere. “Last getaway car I was in I flattened the whole car, not just the tires, and I’m still here.” He looked back at McCoy. “Engineering will have us patched up and ready to disappear by the time we get back.” He raised his voice so the bridge sensors would detect and transmit his words clearly. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Chekov?”
Down in Engineering the first warning sounds had begun to clamor for attention. Readouts were decidedly not cooperating, techs were starting to argue vociferously with one another, and there were too many red lights where a little green would have been far more encouraging. Through it all, Chekov managed the tersest possible response.
“Uh . . . yes, Keptin. I’ll do my best.”
Taking his chief engineer’s hurried response for an acknowledgment rather than a question, Kirk looked once more to the helm station. “Mr. Sulu, you have the conn. Once we’re en route to the surface, I want you to transmit a targeted comm burst at Harrison’s general location. Keep it tight and narrow: It’ll be on Starfleet frequency only; so between that, the fact that it’s going into an expansive deserted area, and a little luck, the Klingons won’t intercept it. They’re not likely to be scanning for Starfleet messages right in their own backyard.”
Sulu nodded his understanding. “Content of message, Captain?”
Kirk considered. “Tell him that we have a bunch of new, real big photon torpedoes pointed at his head and if he doesn’t play nice, you’re not afraid to use them.” At the look of uncertainty that slipped over the helmsman’s face, Kirk queried further. “Is that a problem?”
“No, sir,” Sulu responded solemnly. “It’s just that I’ve never sat in that chair before.” He nodded toward the command position.
Kirk replied reassuringly. “You’re gonna do great. Who knows—with good fortune you’ll probably have a command of your own someday.”
Following Kirk off the bridge, the ship’s chief physician was considerably less sanguine. “You’re sitting Mr. Sulu at a high-stakes poker game, having him take your seat and telling him to bluff with cards he can’t use without running the risk of blowing up his fellow players.” The doors to the lift opened, and the two men entered. “He’s a good man and a fine officer,” McCoy continued, “but he’s not a captain.”
“For the next two hours, he is. And stop talking in metaphors. That’s an order.”
“It’s a southern North America thing.” The doctor’s explanation did not concede compliance.
Kirk made a face as the lift started down. “I’m not sure if that’s a metaphor or not, but whatever it is, don’t do it anymore. We’re a long way from any of the Americas.”
“Too damn bad about that,” McCoy muttered.
On the bridge, Sulu changed seats, dropping into the captain’s chair as a hastily called subordinate took his usual place at the helmsman’s station. Though as a bridge officer, Sulu was perfectly familiar with the chair’s instrumentation and functions, his posture was still tentative. It did not help that all eyes were on him.
Conscious that he was expected to do something besides simply occupy the chair physically, he addressed the comm. Identifying him via his physical profile, internal vitals, and voice, the chair’s sensors responded obediently.
“Acting Captain Hikaru Sulu to Weapons Bay. Load and prepare for firing the torpedoes taken aboard just prior to Earth orbit departure. Coordinate targeting of new weapons via automatic geophysical positioning. Preliminary target should be the center of previously described deserted urban area within the Ketha Province on Qo’noS. Higher resolution of final target area yet to come. Landing team including the captain will be proceeding surfaceward, and I want those torpedoes locked in by the time he leaves the ship.”
Clad in dark gray civilian attire and carrying a couple of bundles of clothing, the landing party of Kirk, Spock, and Uhura strode toward the hurriedly refurbished, compact K’Normian trading craft where it waited in Bay 12. As Kirk had requested, a pair of regular crew awaited them. They had been selected for their security training that, from a potential combat standpoint, put them a level up on their fellow crewmembers. Kirk recognized the bearded member of the pair immediately and smiled. There had been an earlier altercation on Earth, in a bar-cum-nightclub, prior to his promotion. Not a long time ago, but the details remained sharp in his mind. “Cupcake,” he had called the man, with predictably insalubrious consequences.
Well, time and circumstance had changed things, most especially their relative positions within Starfleet. A lesser man might have made something of that, sought to impress his current superiority upon a former adversary. James T. Kirk had his faults, but carrying a meaningless grudge was not among them.
Besides, it could be argued that he had been as much if not more responsible for the fight that had ensued than his antagonists.
The crewmember in question barely glanced in his captain’s direction. “Ready to deploy, sir.”
Kirk gave no indication that anything other than a normal relationship existed between them as he passed out two bundles of civilian attire.
“Lieutenants, lose the red shirts—you’re K’Normian arms dealers. Put these on.”
“Sir?” Uneasily, the bigger of the two officers eyed the mass of wrinkled garments that had been handed to him.
“Look, if this thing goes south, if what we’re about to attempt blows up figuratively instead of literally in our faces, there can be nothing tying us to Starfleet. If necessary, we have a complete and completely plausible story to tell the Klingons. Being more than a little interested in armaments and those who deal in them, they’ll be intrigued by the details, and because of our stated profession, more than inclined to listen. If they encountered an unauthorized landing party that said it came in peace, the members of said party would be likely to end up in pieces. But one that sneaks in with the aim of buying or selling weapons—that they’ll understand.”
Uhura spoke up. “But sir, other than our personal side arms—illegally obtained from Starfleet sources, of course—we’ll have no weapons to sell. What will we use to back up our cover story?”
Kirk nodded knowingly. “Not a problem. No K’Normian trader with half a brain would bring his inventory directly to a buyer where it might simply be confiscated.” He indicated his communicator. “If it comes to it, we’ll show them pictures of our ‘goods.’ On my ‘stolen’ Starfleet communicator, of course.” He was brimming with confidence. “If nothing else, they’ll be impressed that we managed to ‘steal’ so much Starfleet stuff. But if everything goes as planned, you won’t have to speak a word of Klingon. We’ll grab Harrison, slip back to the Enterprise, and warp out of here.” He returned his attention to the two attentive officers.
“So—no matter what happens, if anything happens, and we do have to confront some Klingons, there can be no mention of any connection with Starfleet.” He eyed his large, long-ago adversary. “Unless, of course, you want to start a war, Mr. Hendorff?”
“No, sir.” The heavyset crewmember stared straight ahead. “Did that once, sir.” He stared evenly back at Kirk as he recalled the incident in question. “Tried that once in your company, sir. Didn’t work out well.”
Betraying no emotion, Kirk nodded. “Good. I feel the same way.” Reaching out, he patted the crewman on the arm: a gesture both men recalled from a previous meeting undertaken in more primitive circumstances. Both had changed since then, matured. That they still remembered the incident in no way impacted on their present captain-crew relationship.
With Kirk having made his intentions known, no one on the K’normian trader commented as it shot away from the Enterprise.
Coming in behind a cluster of ragged, sheltering moonlets expansive enough to cloud their small craft’s drive signature, they dove toward the imposing, green-tinged planet rotating below. Uhura stared out one of the ports, her mind aswirl. “Qo’noS,” she murmured gutturally to herself. Homeworld of the Klingons. A place she never expected to see outside of file recordings, much less visit in person. A glance showed Spock, seated forward beside the captain, similarly studying the planet they were approaching. What was going through his mind at this moment? What wondering, what anticipation of new sights and discoveries, what anticipation of possible marvels they might encounter?
Naw, she told herself. He’s focusing on the task ahead. Always focusing on the task ahead. It was sometimes an—issue between them.
Not the time nor place to ponder it, she told herself firmly. In her mind, she was already reviewing basic Klingon greetings and responses in the event she would be required to employ them. The trick with speaking Klingon was not even the rough glottals or sometimes peculiar grammar. It was getting them to say anything at all before they tried to hit you with something large, heavy, and lethal.
It was several minutes before Spock finally felt confident enough in his reading of the K’Normian instrumentation to make a first report.
“I am detecting a single advanced sentient life sign in the Ketha Province. Given the information provided by Mr. Scott and the clear differentiation between this readout and what would be expected were it of Klingon origin, my conclusion is that it is most likely John Harrison.”
Kirk nodded with satisfaction. “Then he’s stayed in one place and hasn’t tried to ingratiate himself with his unknowing hosts. That further confirms that he’s hiding here and hasn’t formally defected. If the latter was the case, then he’d be surrounded by Klingons or, more likely, not feel the need to sequester himself in an abandoned city. That makes our job a lot easier.” He addressed himself to the secured, tight-beam comm.
“Mr. Sulu, I think we’ve found our man. Let him know we mean business.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Sulu fought to conceal his nervousness. It would help, he felt, if the ship’s doctor would retire to his own department and quit hovering in the vicinity of the captain’s chair. But ordering McCoy away would betray an uncertainty Sulu much preferred to keep hidden.
This isn’t how it’s done, he told himself. Very un-bushido. Sitting up straight in the chair, he addressed Communications. The officer who was substituting for the absent Uhura was immediately attentive.
“Narrow beam, as previously programmed. Frequency as indicated. Pinpoint our broadcast to that exact location.”
Uhura’s replacement complied. “Channel is open and ready for transmission, sir.”
With a terse nod, Sulu turned back in the chair and addressed the comm.
“Attention, John Harrison. This is Captain Hikaru Sulu of the U.S.S. Enterprise. We are aware of your present location and in position to bear on it from a distance. A group of highly trained officers is on its way to your location. If you do not prepare and agree to surrender yourself to them immediately upon their arrival, I am instructed to unleash an entire payload of advanced, long-range, undetectable torpedoes that is currently locked on your location. I must inform you that we are prepared to do this despite any possible diplomatic fallout or other reaction from the Klingon community.” He paused, his voice tightening. “If you test me, you will fail.”
There being nothing more to say, nothing he could think of to add, he sat back in the chair. Had he used the correct tone of voice? Could he have been simultaneously more forceful and more persuasive? A glance showed the doctor still standing nearby. Pursing his lips in a manner most familiar, McCoy peered down at him.
“Mr. Sulu. Remind me never to piss you off.”
A quick nod and Sulu turned forward once more. The smile that played across his face was slight, but full of meaning.
It was not a smooth descent. While the K’Normian controls were similar enough to be familiar, Kirk’s experience at personally piloting a shuttle-size ship all the way to a surface touchdown was limited. Which was to say, he had never done it before except via simulations. Qo’noS’s characteristically turbulent atmosphere did not make his task easier. The compact craft bucked and rocked in the rough air. Between the fact that he remembered a good deal from his studies and Spock forgot nothing, the two of them managed to wrestle the unsophisticated but sturdy craft past towering but abandoned structures that pierced the heavy cloud layer.
It wasn’t long thereafter that they could make out individual structures on the ground. The dense complex of enormous, long-abandoned buildings extended as far as they could see. It must have been some plague, Kirk mused, to induce the Klingons to flee from so much costly infrastructure. It appeared that not a single building remained intact. Some had walls as well as windows blown out, though whether by weather or attempts by Klingon medical controllers to draw a physical line around the plague that had caused Ketha Province to be abandoned, he could not tell. If the latter, he would hardly be surprised. It was likely that Klingon plague control was as subtle as the rest of their cultural and scientific methodologies.
Easy enough to understand why Harrison had chosen this place as a potential refuge following his assault on Starfleet. Who would be foolish enough to try and run him to ground on the Klingon homeworld?
Spock was doing yeoman work, making use of the K’normian vessel’s comparatively straightforward instrumentation, running it through his own tricorder and somehow obtaining useful results.
“We will arrive at Harrison’s last verified location in three minutes, Captain.” He looked over at Kirk. “It is unlikely he will come willingly. By way of contrast and with considerably more certainty, I calculate the odds of him attempting to kill us rather than surrendering at ninety-one-point-six percent.”
Kirk’s reply was dry as the empty avenues between the ruined buildings below. “Fantastic. I can always depend on you for encouragement in a difficult situation, Spock.”
The science officer was not deterred. “You can always depend on me for an accurate appraisal of any situation, Captain. Most would consider that a more useful response.”
“Unless they’re Vulcan,” Uhura suddenly put in from behind, “and they don’t care about dying.”
The object of her ire turned in his seat. “I am sorry, Lieutenant, but I am not certain that I could hear clearly what you said.”
She raised her voice, more than was necessary. “I’d be happy to speak up on a wide assortment of subjects if you’re ready to listen to me.”
Fully engaged in piloting their craft, Kirk quite sensibly chose to say nothing in the hope the conversation would take another, more professional tack, or even better, die out completely.
It was in vain.
“Lieutenant,” Spock replied firmly, “I would prefer to discuss this in private.”
Uhura was not in the least dissuaded. “You’d prefer not to discuss it at all, is what you’d prefer.”
Painfully aware they were very close to touchdown, Kirk felt he had no choice any longer but to intervene. “Whoa, guys, are you really gonna do this right now?”
“As our current circumstances require undivided focus,” Spock put in, cutting off Kirk, “I suggest that—”
Now it was Uhura’s turn to interrupt. “What doesn’t seem to require ‘undivided focus’—sorry about this, Captain . . .”
“That’s okay,” Kirk mumbled. “I can land this thing myself. No reason for you to be involved just because you’re on board.”
“. . . is us,” she went on, as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Or maybe she had heard everything, divined both his sarcasm and the implicit criticism, and had chosen to ignore both. “Two seconds, Captain. At that volcano, you didn’t give a thought to us, did you? About what it would do to me if you died, Spock.” She was fighting to keep her emotions out of her voice—and failing. “What I got out of it was that you didn’t feel anything, you didn’t care.”
Try as he might, Kirk found that he couldn’t focus wholly on the instruments. Knowing that this close to the surface, final touchdown would be handled largely by the ship’s automatics anyway, he stared at his first officer. Normally that would have had no effect: Spock could outstare a cat. But whether it was Kirk’s intensely thought but unvoiced Say something to her, you idiot or just something rarely utilized within Spock himself, the Vulcan finally responded.
“Your suggestion that I do not care about dying is incorrect. A sentient being’s optimal chance of maximizing their utility is a long and prosperous life.”
“Great,” she muttered.
“In my particular instance, I hold an additional responsibility, given the small number of survivors of my kind. I therefore would greatly prefer to survive for as long as possible in order to be of use not only to Starfleet, but to the Vulcan diaspora.” He paused. “But it is true that I cannot deny what you say regarding ‘emotions.’ In truth, as I faced my likely demise, I did not feel anything. This is not because I did not wish to do so—especially as regards to certain personal relationships. It was because it was the most personally efficacious course of action. I chose not to feel anything upon realizing that my life was about to end because it was the least disturbing course of action open to me.”
Readouts were starting to flash and several to beep as instrumentation signaled they were on final approach to the designated landing site.
“To even consider the idea of one’s death affecting a loved one would be so painful,” the science officer continued, “that the only logical option in that moment would be to choose to feel nothing instead. This was recently confirmed for me as Admiral Pike was dying. As I tried to comfort him, I briefly joined with his consciousness. I experienced what he felt at the moment of his passing. There was a surprising dearth of pain. In its place there was anger. Confusion. Loneliness. Fear.” Though he could not see Uhura, who was seated facing away from him, he looked back in her direction as he spoke. “Nyota, you misunderstand my choice not to feel at that moment as an indication of not caring, while I assure you the truth was exactly the opposite.”
It made no sense. Uhura was more unsettled by his response than she would have cared to admit. No sense at all—unless, of course, you were a Vulcan. Seeing it from his perspective . . . How often had she tried to see things from his perspective? Where the first officer’s thoughts were concerned, she was an outsider trying desperately to look in. Would it always be so? Could she surmount such a logical gulf? Or would it be possible, somehow, some way, for the two of them to meet in the emotive middle?
She was in the process of formulating a reply when an intense flash streaked across their bow, rocking them violently while briefly blinding everyone inside.
“What the hell was that?” Kirk blinked furiously, fighting to regain his vision.
There was equal confusion on the bridge of the Enterprise as contact with the K’normian trader was lost.
Sulu turned sharply toward Communications. “What happened? Where’s the signal?”
“I don’t know,” responded the tech on station. “It cut out—I’m working to get them back.”
Spock recovered his full vision faster than his companions. Elemental as they were, the trader’s instruments were sufficient to identify the source of the warning blast. A rearward-facing scanner provided unwelcome visual confirmation: The craft that had fallen in behind them was winged, compact, and wholly lethal in appearance.
“A D4-class Klingon vessel, Captain.”
Kirk muttered a curse, adding, “I thought this section of the planet was abandoned and unvisited!”
“It must be a random patrol,” an anxious Uhura suggested. “Medical policing, maybe, to ensure nobody spends time in the plague region, where they could accidently pick up a latent virus and transport it back to a populated area.”
“Hold on!” Wrenching on the manual controls, Kirk sent the K’normian craft sideways and deeper into the clouds that masked the abandoned city below.
Farther back in the ship behind Uhura, a worried Hendorff leaned forward in his harness. “Can we get back to the Enterprise?”
“And lead them right to it?” she shot back. “Thus far the Klingons don’t know there’s a Federation ship in their immediate spatial vicinity. We can’t even head in its general direction without committing to a revelatory vector.”
Kirk didn’t hear Uhura, but he didn’t have to. The last thing they could do was try to return to the Enterprise. Aside from possibly igniting a war, it would mean the end of their mission to capture or kill John Harrison. With the image of a dying Christopher Pike still fresh in his mind, he had no intention of turning to run.
Beside him, Spock continued to monitor the instrumentation as Kirk took the K’Normian vessel through every basic evasive maneuver he could remember from his studies. But try as he might, he couldn’t shake the pursuing Klingon patrol craft—in addition to being at least as maneuverable as the trading vessel, the Klingon crew had the advantage of operating in familiar territory.
Spock did not look up from the readouts in front of him. “May I remind you, Captain, that this ship has no offensive capabilities.”
“Not necessary to remind me, Mr. Spock. I’m all too aware of it. We’re simple merchants, that’s all—though right now, I wish it wasn’t that simple. Give me full power; everything down to emergency backup, all this ship’s fuel cells.”
Spock did not hesitate. “Aye, Captain.”
The compact trading vessel banked abruptly. Intended for basic shuttling between ground and orbit, it was not designed for high-speed atmospheric maneuvers, a fact Kirk seemed to overlook as he wrenched it over and sometimes through the towers of the abandoned cityscape. Repeated blasts from the pursuing ship just missed the fleeing trading craft. That was about the sum total of good luck they could expect, Kirk knew. The next shot would take out their engines or, if they were unlucky and the Klingon gunners especially accurate, the rear half of the evading vessel.
As she leaned forward, Uhura’s attention was drawn to the main readout. “They’re closing fast, bearing two eight five!”
“Dammit!” A glance through the dim daylight showed what Kirk presumed to be the center of the empty metropolis. The vast expanse of ruined towers, tangled metal, and demolished support structures were tightly packed against one another: some by design, others because they had collapsed. Such a concentration would have allowed pedestrians and small vehicles to travel easily between buildings. For a fleeing spacecraft, there was no such access. Unless . . .
Heart pumping wildly, Kirk nodded at the landscape ahead. “There! We can lose them there!”
The pursuing craft was clearly visible on the aft viewer. Though smaller than the D7 battle cruisers the Federation had encountered in deep space, this greenish gray “bird-of-prey” scout ship, with its arched “wings” and its angular markings, reflected its Klingon designers’ penchant for engineering fighting ships that reflected arboreal predators. Numerous flanges, probably serving as cooling elements, festooned the aft portions of the fuselage. To human eyes, the Klingons’ ships were a contrasting meld of elegant and efficient: They were ugly-functional.
Staring straight ahead, Spock spoke up softly but urgently. “If you are suggesting we utilize what might or might not be a passage between the approaching structures, this ship will not fit between them.”
“We’ll fit.” Kirk held tight to the manual controls as he started to angle them sideways.
“We will not.” Spock’s voice rose ever so slightly.
“We’ll fit, we’ll fit!” Kirk whipped the straining trading craft to the left so that it was now flying edge-on to the ground.
An increasingly alarmed Spock would have argued further, but there was no time. Inclining their ship to match the slender vertical opening just ahead, Kirk maintained full power as he aimed for the gap. At least, he thought, if he was wrong, he would not have to listen to the Vulcan chide him for a bad decision. As an additional benefit, there would be nothing left of the intruding ship or its occupants for the Klingons to conclusively identify.
Behind them, their pursuer broke off to gain altitude. By the time it would reconnect with its target, they would hopefully have slipped away to another part of the city. Kirk let out a yell as the outermost fringes of their ship scraped against one structure, then another, sending bits of the ancient buildings tumbling toward the ground. Sparks and smoke flew from the edge of the trading vessel, but unlike the structure it was impacting, nothing fell off. At least as far as Kirk could tell, nothing vital. He fought the controls to hold to a course that had mere centimeters to spare.
When they emerged on the other side of the cluster of tall buildings, the pursuing vessel was nowhere in sight. Keeping as low as possible, Kirk brought them around sharply. Using overarching structures for cover, he began to retrace their course, aiming to work their way back to Harrison’s presumed location. With luck, the Klingon patrol craft would assume they were still heading outward and would continue its search in a direction that would only increase the space between them. By the time those aboard realized their error, Kirk hoped to have Harrison in custody and be pushing for Qo’noS’s ionosphere.
“I told you we’d fit,” he noted, gasping for a long breath.
“I am not sure that qualifies.” Utilizing multiple screens, Spock was analyzing the external damage the K’normian craft had suffered.
“You can put that opinion in your report.” Kirk nodded at the instrument panel spread out before the science officer. “Any sign of ’em?”
“No. Which worries me.”
“Relax.” Kirk deftly guided them through a vast, now-empty staging area, further ensuring they would not be seen. Darkness momentarily enveloped the battered craft. “We lost ’em.”
“Or they’re jamming our scanners.” Studying the walls that rose to form a curved roof above them, Uhura was not optimistic.
Kirk’s voice rose slightly. “Or, we lost ’em.”
As they emerged once more into open air, Spock nodded forward. “I suggest slowing to a hover here, Captain.”
“Why?” It took Kirk another couple of seconds to focus on the source of the science officer’s concern. “Oh. Damn.” Muttering under his breath, he reluctantly brought the trading vessel to a halt.
Theirs was not the only craft hovering outside the vast but abandoned cargo facility. Another vessel had dropped down to position itself directly in front of them. There was also one to their right and a third directly overhead. As a technical battlefield englobement, it was lacking in thoroughness, but the presence of now three Klingon patrol vessels was more than sufficient to persuade even Kirk that any attempt to break free of the formation would result in annihilation.
“I thought we only had to deal with one of them,” he growled.
“Your use of the past tense is unfortunately accurate, Captain.” The first officer peered outward through the forward viewport. “I do not think we can escape from this formation.”
Kirk snapped an angry response. “Tell me something I don’t know, Mr. Spock.”
A slight flush appeared on the Vulcan’s forehead. Or more likely it was the fluctuating internal lighting. “Where would you like me to begin, Captain?”
Kirk’s ready reply was cut off by a burst of consonants from the cabin’s communication system. Even for a Klingon, he thought, the unseen speaker sounded more than usually irate.
It was left to Uhura to translate. “They’re ordering us to land. They say any further attempt to flee will be met by immediate destruction.” She looked forward. “Captain, they’re going to want to know why we’re here. We’ll give them the story about being K’Normian munitions runners. They’ll listen politely. Then they’ll torture us, question us, and they’re gonna kill us.”
“Not a good list of options,” Kirk murmured. “So we come out shooting.”
Spock put out a hand to restrain him. “The fact that we are not wearing our uniforms does not release us from our obligations to—”
“Oh,” Kirk interrupted him, “so we just go for the questioning, torture, and death?”
“There are specific procedures to be followed that can—”
Uhura inserted herself between them, if only verbally. “We’re outnumbered and outgunned. Captain, with all due respect, there’s no way we survive if we attack first.”
“More wonderful options,” Kirk muttered. “I’d be open to alternatives if there were any.”
“There is one, sir.” Surprised, both men turned to look at the determined communications officer. “You brought me here because I speak Klingon.” She stared down at him. “Then let me speak Klingon.”