Star Trek - TOS - Battlestations

by Diane Carey

  from the underside of our primary hull and vectored

  out into space toward the Klingon cruisers.

  The captain moved toward the helm console and

  turned briefly to me. With deliberate poise, he said,

  "Hurry."

  The Engineering deck was disturbingly quiet, jarred

  only by rumbles of energy from outside that told us the

  enemy ships had opened fire on us and the K!ingons

  who possessed us. Perren, Sarda, and I were reso-

  lutely silent as we gathered Perren's equipment and

  carefully--so carefully--followed the directions

  Spock fed through to us on how to dismantle his

  elaborate isolation field around the transwarp mecha-

  nism itself. The mechanism made little engineering

  sense to me; it looked like something out of a child's

  coloring book, a quincunx contraption with several

  arms and a central core of funnels and circuitry.

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  Evidently that was the reaction chamber for the tri-

  lithium. I didn't even try to understand it.

  Perren and Sarda worked feverishly to wrestle the

  various attachments into the central feeder unit for the

  ship's energy/matter matrix restoration cowl. Okay, so

  I didn't understand that either. It didn't matter, as long

  as they understood. Even with their combined Vulcan

  strength and a few good shoves from me, the installa-

  tion of transwarp into a damaged warp propulsion

  system was the work of more than three people. I

  didn't bother asking what this or that was, especially

  if, by some miracle, it happened to fit. I followed their

  directions through the most muscle twisting sixty-two

  minutes of my life. It seemed more like six minutes.

  Finally the work dwindled down to minute delicate

  adjustments and all I could do was watch. It was as

  though Perren and Sarda had fallen into a different

  language; though I was watching, their science was so

  specialized that I might as well have been a thousand

  solar systems away. My thoughts began to drift, jarred

  each time the ship shook under us from enemy fire. I

  held on to a nearby pylon and tried to keep hold of my

  self-control. The frustration was building again. I

  hated having to just watch.

  I started thinking about the enemies out there. Tho-

  hans, Romulans, Klingons of every breed, and that

  persistent forked ship whose configuration we couldn't

  pin down. Living beings, tangled in a web of power

  grabbing. Each had a history and a goal of his or her

  own. And so did I.

  Without pausing between thoughts, I suddenly

  blurted, "What's going to happen? When we imple-

  ment this, what's the effect?"

  Only when both Vulcans paused at the same time

  did I realize I'd forced them to face something they

  had been trying not to think about. Not only face it,

  but put words to it.

  They exchanged a disturbing glance. Perten gripped

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  the micropincer he was using. "We . . . have never

  postulated the effect of an accidental imbalance. Our

  efforts, of course, have always been directed toward

  canceling out or circumventing any such occurence,

  with the hopes of eventually preventing them alto-

  gether. We take great care to stabilize the integrity of

  the trilithium before funneling matter/antimatter

  through the field core."

  Spock's face filled my mind, completely unbidden.

  Perren, so unlike him, was turning logic inside out to

  avoid simply saying that he didn't know. Suddenly I

  longed to hear those words; there was something

  reassuring about the honesty in the phrase I don't

  ktlow.

  Anger boiled up in me and I snatched Perren's arm.

  "I've got to understand! You've got to give me some

  idea of what it's going to do to those ships out there."

  Perten jerked away. His eyes flashed with the on-

  slaught of my emotions coursing through him. Long

  black hair waved when he pulled his arm free. I went

  after it again, but Sarda caught my wrist.

  A swell of perception washed through me, cooling

  my nerves, running up my arm, and spreading through

  my body. The anger didn't go away, but like the

  distortion of transwarp flux, Sarda had turned it out-

  ward and away from Perren. For a moment he took it

  upon himself, seeing perfectly well that I was reaching

  the limit of my patience with Vulcan ways. He slowly

  absorbed my need to understand, and with his grip

  forced me to comprehend what could be foretold and

  what couldn't be.

  Seconds passed, long ones. Sarda broke his gaze

  from mine only once.

  He nodded briefly to Perten, who collected himself

  with difficulty and went back to work on the microcir-

  cuits. When the triad of conflict faded to the two of us,

  Sarda turned back to me.

  "Piper," he began, "even we do not fully compre-

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  hend why transwarp works as it does. It is not meant

  to be a weapon."

  Though I knew how deeply he believed that, I

  pressed, "I'm in the command line. I've got to have

  some concept of what that thing's going to do to other

  life forms. The captain has to know."

  "We would tell you, if that information could be

  gained without actually using the imbalance." Glints

  of blue and yellow light from Perren's snapping panel

  flickered in Sarda's bronze hair and in his troubled

  eyes. Guilt gnawed at him. Would he ever have peace

  from it? "The wave effect," he tried again, "is a reality

  solvent. We may liken it to pouring water on a sand

  castle. The sand remains, but.. 2'

  The transwarp contraption trilled to life, singing an

  electrical song, and saved him from having to find the

  words for the terrible vision he saw. For a moment we

  simply watched the equipment whirr and glow and

  hum.

  Sarda's expression filled with omen. "We cannot

  allow hostile hands to possess this."

  "And we shall not," Perren agreed, that rebellious

  thorn sur facing again.

  My opinion stuck its neck out again. I couldn't stop

  it. I glared at Perren. "You should're thought of that a

  long time ago."

  Sarda watched me, silent.

  Perren retreated to his work. The instrumentation

  whistled and chirred happily under his hands. Even

  poorly hooked up, fed into a damaged system, the

  transwarp mechanisms showed the effort of years of

  work.

  "I can complete the calibrations," Perren said.

  "Correlating the flux ratios of transwarp drive with the

  sensors must be done from the sensor control room."

  Sarda gathered the necessary computer disks and

  said, "Contact me there when you're ready to begin."

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  "Very well," Perren said. "It may take several more

  minutes to make the correct calculations."

  Sarda only nodded. He knew all that, apparently. As

  he stood up, his amber gaze caught fast to my ow
n and

  I felt that wash of telepathy again. Was I really feeling

  it, or had I learned to imagine it as I came to know him

  better? He'd never confided in me about whether or

  not these mental waves were normal for Vulcans--if

  he even knew. I hadn't asked, and a good thing too.

  He might be supremely embarrassed if my feelings

  were induced by his inability to control that inherited

  telepathy. He seemed so different from Spock, as

  different from Spock as Spock was from Perrenm

  Sarda, even more different from most Vulcans who

  came to Star Fleet. Very few of Sarda's fair-haired

  clan ever roamed from their home planet, yet he was

  here, rare, and of great value to me. As we stood

  together over a mechanism that might either save or

  destroy us, I found myself hoping he never would

  learn to control the soft inner communication.

  "Where will you be?" he asked.

  My answer was deceptively simple. "Where I'm

  needed."

  "I know you will do well."

  "Thank you. For everything."

  His expression remained stoic, but he dropped his

  eyes, then raised them again. "And I thank you," he

  said, almost whispering.

  "Good luck," I responded.

  Before we got into a chain reaction of thank-yous,

  he wisely dipped away and left the area. I lingered

  there long after he was gone.

  Below me, Perren drew my attention when he

  paused and put a hand to his lips. I knelt down.

  "Something?"

  His brows came together in contemplation. "This

  arrangement must be coordinated from the bridge, at

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  the engineering subsystems monitor. If you can do

  that, I can monitor and adjust the intermix according

  to your readouts from pulse to pulse."

  "I can do that," I told him. I could do it, if only I

  knew what he was talking about. Let's hear it for blind

  optimism.

  Perren's face went blank for a moment, then twisted

  in confusion.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "I'm unsure about the sensor

  output system. I can correlate the thrust ratios for

  warp drive, but I do not know how to adjust them to

  run through the sensory."

  It sounded like a bigger problem than I could

  solve--surprise, surprise---and I bit my lip before

  making a wild assumption. My feet were tingling when

  I stood up. "I know who does. I'll contact you when I

  get to the bridge."

  I started toward the exit. Before reaching the door,

  though, I remembered my charge from a higher au-

  thority--a trust I wouldn't betray.

  Perren saw me turn, saw the tangle of emotions in

  my face, the sensation of being torn between two

  distinct duties. Even though I said nothing at all, the

  problem was obvious.

  He read my hesitation--even I couldn't say ff he

  read it correctly--and paused fine-tuning the

  transwarp to seal his credibility with a promise. "I

  give you my word."

  The throb and hum of Enterprise's sensor system

  trying to accept the new energy of transwarp became

  the pulsing of some great heart. I absorbed Perren's

  promise. Think like a Vulcan.

  With my tone, I charged both of us to fulfill the vow.

  "I accept your word."

  The hangar deck was cool with freshly circulated

  air, sweet with the lingering odor of the antisomnial. I

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  swung around the corner of the alcove where the Arco

  sleds were anchored down, and was only superficially

  surprised to see Sarda there, kneeling beside Scanner.

  He'd evidently decided to make good use of those

  extra few minutes Perren said he had. He was holding

  Scanner in a sitting position against the attack-sled's

  folded solar wing.

  I knelt beside Scanner, but my question was for

  Sarda. "What are you doing here?"

  His gaze was penetrating. He didn't want to explain.

  "Deviating."

  That was all I was going to get, too.

  Scanner's face was clammy as I touched it and

  turned him to me. "Scanner? Look at me. Are you

  okay?"

  He blinked past the pain left over from artificial

  sleep and unnatural awakening and moaned. "If this is

  life after death . . . I'll take death." He folded over,

  and only Sarda's grasp kept him upright. When he

  raised his head, his face was pale and his eyes glazed.

  "You got... trouble upstairs."

  Good. Sarda had been filling him in, probably trying

  to distract him from his own discomfort.

  I took him by the shoulders. "Scanner, listen to me.

  We've tied the transwarp into the warp drive and

  we've got to correlate the thrust ratios with sensor

  issue. Can you tell me how to do tl,at?"

  "Aim it... you mean?"

  "Yes, aim it."

  "Yeah... oh, worm guts... they killed me, Piper."

  He let his head sag back against the solar wing. Pinch-

  faced, he fought the gaspy breath of nausea and

  cramps. Sarda and I shared a glance of penetrating

  empathy and waited.

  "We'll get you to sickbay," I promised.

  "Can't y'just... bring sickbay down here?" Scan-

  ner closed his eyes tight. When they opened again,

  , some of the color was returning to his face, as well as

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  his wits. "Yeah... that transmitter on the bridge... a

  dead jellyfish could work it. Y'all can do it easy."

  "Gee, thanks. How?"

  "Same way you aim sensors, except . . . push the

  impulses through weapons override . . . even if the

  safety system says you can't." I frowned. "It'll burn out."

  He took a choppy breath. His cheeks flushed with

  heat. "You can't stop that. It's all there is. That crazy

  transwarp hookup won't last long anyway. You

  might's well force a human heart to breathe air."

  Cramps took hold of him again, piercing all three of us

  and making me realize what Mr. Scott, with his hands

  full of starship, was going through. Scanner pressed

  his arm under his ribs. His free hand made a loop

  toward Sarda. "Tell her, Points."

  Sarda's lips flattened, a strange reflection of his

  hand on Scanher's arm as it gripped tighter. He felt

  responsible; I sensed it simmering. "Probably true,"

  he admitted.

  Obviously, none of us had possessed the courage to

  say it before this. The captain's plans suffered as I

  waded through the truth. Enterprise's systems were

  sturdy, but not meant to funnel the shared energy we

  would soon demand of them, the hazardous intermix

  with its deliberate irabalances. In perfect condition,

  possibly--but not with the damage I'd inflicted. The

  K!ingons were towing us closer by the minute to the

  system's edge where, at warp speed, they could easily

  rush us into their home territory. Time now worked

  against us. All we had was this one chance. Mutual

  disablement.

  'TI! tell the captain," I said. "
We'll make it work

  somehow."

  Scanner managed a weak smile. "I was hopin'

  yaw!'d say that."

  "Sarda, can you manage with him? I've got to get

  back to the bridge."

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  Sarda nodded. "I'11 contact you from the sensory."

  I started to get up, but faltered when Scanner caught

  my sleeve. When I looked down, he said, "Don't let

  the bastards beat us, Piper."

  My hand caught his and squeezed. "You count on

  it."

  Comforted, he slumped back against the solar wing.

  I didn't stay to help Sarda get him on his feet. The

  bridge of Enterprise was waiting--and all the clocks

  were ticking.

  Make it work, make it work, make it work...

  255

  Chapter Twelve

  "Risk is our business."

  --Return to Tomorrow

  THE BRIDGE WAS organized chaos. Captain Kirk was

  leaning over the helm, his medieval costume incongru-

  ent with the geometric surroundings, doing the jobs of

  ten. The scarlet lights of Alert status were distorted by

  blasts of color energy from enemy ships as they swung

  by, lashing out at each other, and catching us in the

  crossfire. Iridescent damage on the nearby Klingon

  cruisers lit up our faces. To my right, Mr. Spock was

  bending over his readout hood, its blue light on his

  face clashing with the scintillas from the main viewer.

  He had to hold on to the edge of the console to keep on

  his feet as enemy fire cut at our battered deflectors. He

  and the captain were alone on the bridge.

  As I came out of the turbolift, a strange thought

  flushed over me. Getting to the bridge hadn't been

  easy, and I'd been thrown down at least twice as the

  ship was rocked by battle turbulence. I'd had to ignore

  the groggy, nauseous crewpeople just coming around

  after having had their lives risked for them. When the

  turbolift doors opened, ;,t occurred to me that precious

  few of those people were authorized to come to the

  bridge. Yet here I was, privileged to be at the hub of

  decision, alone with Captain Kirk and Commander

  Spock.

  Kirk spoke into the intercom, correlating something

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