Battlestations!, page 19
There was only a little more lighting in here than in the corridor, though these lights were electrical rather than the diogen filament torches that ran through the hallways for function rather than for close work. Evidently Captain Kirk’s handiwork with the electrical system had depleted the power leading to the labs. But that didn’t matter any more. There wasn’t anyone left but ourselves. The work done in these labs was ominously complete.
Sarda appeared beside me. “The communications board should be near the mainframe outlet. They would have no reason to take it with them.” As he spoke, he hunted through the piles of discarded equipment and storage crates. “Yes, here it is. Partially dismantled.”
The two of us lifted the portable console up onto a nearby cabinet. It looked like a computer board with a hangover.
“Can you fix it?” I asked, grimacing in empathy with the mangled board.
“They likely did not intentionally dismantle it,” Sarda said, “but merely cannibalized some parts. We may be able to bypass those and create enough signal to trigger your ship’s transporter.”
“Scanner, what do you think?”
He moved in between us and thoughtfully twisted his mouth. “Doesn’t look too bad. You want me to try?”
My shoulders drooped. I gave him a deadly glare.
“Okay, I’ll try,” he said, and put his hands on the console.
The doctors and I spent several minutes gathering the bits and pieces that fit Scanner and Sarda’s descriptions of what they needed, and the communications console quickly began looking more like its own kind. Scanner pulled up a crate and sat down before the tilted mechanism, and began attempting to contact the automatic pilot aboard Rex. “He’s up there, I know he is,” he muttered self-consciously.
“Can you boost your gain?” I asked.
“Rex’ll answer, don’t worry.”
I couldn’t help it. I still had trouble trusting a ship that looked like the remains of a brewery explosion. I leaned over his shoulder, trying to make sense of the red blips on the tiny screen as they ran through white cross hairs, seeking matched waves. “Maybe you need more power. There’s got to be a—”
Nonregulation bulldozers hit us from behind. We never even heard them coming. Only their vicious warning growls preceded the impact, and only by a fraction of a second. I was struck hard in the middle of my back with just enough balance of force and restraint that I was momentarily stunned but still quite conscious. The room spun, a whirl of pain and faces. My legs withered under me as the pain in my back took hold and my nervous system responded. Something gripped my arms and pulled me up and around, then crushed me back against a pile of crates, and a gnarly hand cupped my throat. For an instant I almost tried to strike back. Mercenaries were only human, after all—
But these weren’t Mornay’s hired guards. These faces hated us well beyond the value of a credit payment.
A Klingon disruptor brushed my cheek. Stale breath wreathed my face.
His head at a menacing tilt, Gelt snarled his satisfaction. “Dance with me.”
With great effort I pulled my eyes from his and confirmed the nightmare: four Klingons at attack stance held disruptors cleanly on Sarda and the others.
“Where is it?” Gelt demanded. “The science you’re making here.”
“We’re not the scientists,” I choked past his grip. I tried to keep the pain out of my voice for the sakes of my friends. “As you can see, they took their equipment and left. We’re not even sure what they were doing.”
Nary a flicker of belief damaged his anathema. “Transwarp,” he whispered. Well, so much for that bluff. “Where is it?”
All right, if he wanted answers, I’d give him answers. “About 35,000 kilometers away from here by now, I’d say.”
His grip at my throat tightened, clawing inward under my ear. My carotid artery pounded, and I had to drag in what little breath he let me have. Starved for oxygen, my lungs began to ache and the pain in my back throbbed enough to make me dizzy.
“Straight up, I’ll wager,” Gelt said.
His smugness enraged me, as it had once before. I bumped my arms against his hard chestplate just to show him how I felt, and forced my voice to rasp past his grip. “That’s right, fossil face, and there’s nothing you can do against a starship.”
There was something intensely satisfying about being despised by a Klingon. Not particularly pleasant, but satisfying anyway. If my mouth hadn’t been rock dry, I’d have spat at him. Past his ugly face, McCoy and Scanner were refining the art of astonishment.
Gelt’s lips peeled back in hatred as he fanned his gun arm outward and barked at his nearest fellow tarantula, “HIck Qorck! Toogh!”
As soon as his hand was free, Gelt ripped open his belt guard and pulled out the kind of dagger that’s so mean looking it draws blood with appearance alone. And it was still in a sheath! Gelt wanted to see the blade, though. With a snapping motion, the sheath struck the floor and bright silver glinted between his face and mine. “Your friends are corpses,” he said. “But you … you are what we call bortas choQ. Do you know the words?” His hand pressed tighter on my throat. His teeth were gritted, his whisper one of hunger. Only his lips moved. “Revenge meat.”
The blade rasped wide. Now there were claws on it. Never let it be said that Klingons had no sense of drama.
I tensed, waiting for the impact. Die with a Klingon blade between my ribs?
The room erupted into flaming lances. From a hidden alcove came a burst of phaser fire. First one Klingon, then another were blasted across the room into heaps. Not really understanding, I reacted first and thought about it later. I jammed my knuckles hard into Gelt’s right eye as he turned to look. He howled, and lost his grip on my throat.
Two more Klingons were sighting down at that alcove, exchanging disruptor fire for phaser bolts while trying to take cover behind a table and a lighting stand. Sarda dropped back onto a counter and brought his legs up, and nailed one of the Klingons in the side of the head with both heels. The Klingon went down, but rolled over and staggered up again, to be caught by a phaser shot. He skidded into Gelt’s legs, and both went down.
Free now, I fought to stay up on thready legs. Gelt was trying to get up from an awkward position, tangled with his unconscious cohort, and I knew I had only seconds. I reached upward, grasped a heavy air-conditioning unit from a newly carved wall outlet, braced my feet on the wall, and heaved. It stuck. With an inelegant shift of my weight, the unit jolted loose and I pulled it down on Gelt’s head, adding what strength I had left to the already weighty object. Gelt convulsed once, and went limp.
I slumped against the wall, gasping. My vision dissolved into a black tunnel before I could assimilate what was happening with the last Klingon. My ears roared, then whined, then began to accept the gift of blood and air again. I hung a hand on the open collar of my flight suit, glad it wasn’t a turtleneck.
I hadn’t realized I was slipping down the wall until Dr. McCoy’s voice beside me was accompanied by firm support from both sides. “Are you all right?”
Scanner was there too. “Did he cut you, Piper?”
I shook my head and blinked down at the fuzzy shape of a Klingon disruptor, still clenched in its owner’s hand. “How come,” I rasped, “we’re the only ones obeying … Argelian law?”
A sigh of relief fell from Scanner. He looked first at the inert form of Gelt, then at me. He shook his head, struck by my raw invertebrate-level hatred of Klingons. “You know, I think you must have some tribble in you,” he observed.
My vision was starting to return now that I could breathe. I coughed once, mostly to make sure I wouldn’t make a fool of myself when I answered them. With an indelicate shove, I straightened up. “Scanner, get back to work.”
“You all right, though?”
“Sure … go on.” I pushed him back toward the communications console. Not very convincing; I was still leaning on Dr. McCoy, surprised at the strength in his slender form.
What had happened? Had I been imagining it when I saw Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock being beamed away? Were they here? Had the cavalry come in again?
I blinked and took deep breaths, willing my vision to clear.
But the form in the alcove was neither Kirk nor Spock.
Perren moved somberly from the archway. The phaser was still held upward, but he was looking down at the last of the Klingons, now a quivering lump at his feet. He was carrying a nondescript metal case by the handle, which left his right hand free for the phaser. Now he looked up and made a fleeting eye contact first with Sarda, then me. Clutching the metal case tightly, he moved out of the alcove, keeping his back to the wall and the phaser firmly raised.
I moved away from McCoy. Walking was an effort. My back throbbed where Gelt had bludgeoned it. I didn’t stop until my own crew were all behind me. Sarda came up at my side, though, and I knew there was nothing that would wave him back.
“Thank you,” I said.
Perren nodded a single, simple nod. “You’re quite welcome.”
Disturbing moments shuttled past as we wondered if we were captive again. Five of us against one Vulcan and a phaser … incalculable odds indeed.
Perren, perhaps sensing that, provided the answer. “I have no intent of challenging you,” he said, not quite able to mitigate the edge of warning in his tone. He moved sideways, toward the door, the rich green quilt of his tunic making a shock of color against the gray stone. “I am sorry our goals cannot harmonize.”
“Neither do yours and Professor Mornay’s,” I told him, also moving slowly toward the door, hoping he wouldn’t feel threatened yet. “Mornay intends to use Enterprise as a test ship for transwarp. She doesn’t care about the safety systems or the lives of the crew.”
“The crew will be beamed down when we reach our destination,” Perren said. “They will live.”
“They may already be dead,” Dr. McCoy spoke up forcefully, a distinct blade of professional experience giving credence to his statement. “Mornay’s either lying or fooling herself about how easy it is to provide an antidote. Narcotic gases shouldn’t be played with, and to her it’s all a game.” He nailed the words to Perren’s chest with a hammering truthfulness.
“She’s finished with safety, Perren,” I carried on.
“If transwarp fails, she’ll take over 500 people with her into interdimensional hell, and if it doesn’t fail, the crew of Enterprise is already forfeited. She’s fooling you. Don’t let her.”
Doubt flickered on his fine Vulcan features, but only a flicker, and soon controlled. He swallowed stiffly. “Ursula has planned carefully. The narcotic is not lethal.”
“She’s a theorist,” Merete interrupted in the toughest tone I’d ever heard from her. “She’s not a medical specialist. No one can learn how to handle hypnogeneticides overnight. It takes months just to isolate correct dosages. Are you going to believe her or Dr. McCoy?”
Perren wrapped his arm around the metal case, and I was stricken with the undeniable image of a child clutching a stuffed toy. For many seconds he never moved, nor even blinked. The inner battle slimmed his eyes and drew his blade-sharp brows together. Beside me, Sarda tensed with a kind of empathy only Vulcans could understand, a remote kind of blending in which the integrity of personal privacy was constantly at risk.
The wild, impossible victory against a sister ship recurred in my mind, and Captain Kirk fed me one of his favorite tactics from the reaches of my memory. Push, push, push till it explodes in your face.
“You’re being used,” I insisted. “She’ll turn on you. Hundreds of lives will be the cost.”
“Piper is right, Perren,” Sarda said. “I entreat you, believe her.”
He hadn’t used the word “correct.” He had said “right.” A subtle difference; a moral difference.
Perren stepped over one of the unconscious Klingons and reached the doorway, then hesitated. He seemed unwilling to leave us until he had made his conclusions and then explained them to us. That alone showed me his unsureness. His need to explain proved to me that we were breaking through.
“I must tread a center course,” he said finally, and not without some diffidence. “I must stand by my calculations and my hardware. I am willing to do so for the sake of my goals. This—” He waved his phaser once over the fallen Klingons. “—is the sort of event I am trying to stop.” The twitching bodies of our enemies, still caressing their weapons, illustrated his point neatly. “Ursula underestimates Vulcans. It is a perfect cloak for me to wear.”
Sarda stepped toward him, now standing slightly to one side between me and Perren. “It is illogical to sacrifice the lives of an entire starship crew,” he said, reverting to simple didactics.
“It is illogical to sacrifice all I have worked toward on the basis of a danger that is only theoretical.” Perren’s voice jumped a shade toward that irritation I’d heard before. “If the starship crew is already dead, then they are no longer a factor. You are free now. I shall neither help nor hinder you. There is nothing your ship can do against a starship.” He looked from me to Sarda, the change evidenced by only the barest tightening of his mouth. “I regret that we must part.”
Sarda remained absolutely still. Only I, standing so near to him, perceived the advance of his tension and his efforts to hold himself back. “We need not part,” he said.
Older and fully trained in his Vulcan controls, Perren had less trouble subjugating his regret. Having been caught up in the rare experience of human-Vulcan friendship, I’d wondered for a long time now what friendship would be like between two Vulcans, if indeed this was friendship and not merely that strange training bond necessary between mentor and pupil. As Spock had pointed out to me, Perren and Sarda had much in common from the beginning—mostly the fact that each had had trouble fitting in to current Vulcan conformity. It must have been comforting for Sarda to find another Vulcan who understood his awkward place, someone of his own race that he wasn’t obligated to explain himself to. I wished I had thought of these things earlier. I’d have been more prepared for what was coming.
Perren nodded, but not in agreement. It was something different entirely. “Then I regret that we part before our objectives can be shared. It remains only for me to wish that you live long and prosper.” He spoke slowly now, without the edgy tone of underlying rebellion that had always been there before. Backing out into the corridor, maintaining his expression, he vanished.
My hand reached out for Sarda, who was already moving.
“Sarda, wait!” I gasped.
He paused at the door, cast a glance back at me, and fitfully gripped the stone for an instant as though hoping to find something to say that would explain. He was torn in half. Even a Vulcan couldn’t hide that much torment.
He pushed himself off the door frame. We heard his boots on the hard floor of the passageway.
“Sarda!” I started for the door.
Scanner’s voice caught me back for an instant. “Piper, I got it!”
I drew an invisible circle around him and the doctors with my finger as I skidded to a stop at the doorway. “Beam up! I’ll contact you!”
Deep Argelian night had thoroughly penetrated the stone building now that most of the electricity had been strangled. I was tired of feeling cold. I’d only felt warm once since leaving Earth, and that was because of a Klingon growling at my throat. Even running through the building failed to heat my blood. The injured muscles in my back screamed with each stride, and my head pounded now whenever I took a breath. At every turn I caught a glimpse of Sarda. He was healthy and fast; keeping up with him was terrible work. At the turn of the last corridor, I gave in to a useless urge and called once again, “Sarda, wait—”
To my utter amazement, he whirled around and stopped. Was he surprised that I followed? Had he forgotten so much?
He turned again, in time to see Perren’s distant form retreat into a smaller building.
I jogged to a halt a few feet from Sarda and steadied myself with a hand on the wall. He turned once again to me, hesitantly at best.
“He’s probably getting the last of his equipment,” I said, drawing a deep breath, “before he signals Mornay to beam him up.”
Sarda gazed once again through the night at the other building, now still and darkened. When he turned back to me, the quandary in his eyes was frightening. His fists balled up. I doubt he was even aware of it.
“I cannot leave Perren in this situation,” he said.
I closed the space between us by another step. “You’re not leaving him. He’s leaving you.”
With a step of his own, he widened the gap. “Piper, you do not comprehend Vulcan complexities. I have no time to explain them to you.”
With a nod I showed him that he was right. Slowly I asked, “Do you really think Perren doesn’t understand what he’s involved in?”
Inner struggle tightened his mouth. “That is no excuse to abandon him.”
My shoulders sagged as I tried to think of logical arguments. But even a partially trained Vulcan knows his own thoughts. If he had made up his mind to forfeit the past for the future, even a hazy future, I knew no power in the universe could pull him back.
When arguments were not enough, when logic could only fail, it was time to go beyond them. My shoulders squared as I backed away a pace, showing him that I was ready to accept his decision.
“Then you’ll have to choose.”
Sarda no longer glanced indecisively at the building that had swallowed Perren only moments ago. His eyes lost their focus as he gazed at me, and I felt utterly unseen. Perhaps he was searching for a way to explain the inexplicable. With my silence I hoped to show him that no explanation was necessary. As for my own message, my presence on this planet would have to speak for itself.
Sarda privately navigated his sea of uncharted emotions without help from me, for I could no longer help him, no matter how much I wanted to.
He raised his chin a fraction. “There is only one choice,” he said, his voice solemn and low.
