STAR TREK: TOS #2 - The Entropy Effect

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  As the chief engineer approached the turbo lift, a tall thin civilian hurried up: no doubt he was one of the people they had collected on Aleph. When Kirk had not taken Scott into his confidence about the reason for the change in plans, Scott had assumed some essential, vitally secret task had been assigned to them. He had assumed they were working on a strictly need-to-know basis. The assumptions were false, the message was trivial, and Scott had been left in the dark simply because, as usual, no one had troubled to let him know what was going on.

  Scott nodded to the civilian as they got into the lift; he wished he were alone because he felt more like being grumpy in private than churlish in public.

  “Hold the lift!”

  Scott pushed the doors open again and the captain came in. He looked rested; his uniform was fresh: Scott, on the other hand, had spent the six hours since leaving Aleph in the engine room, and he felt grubby.

  “Hello, Scotty,” Captain Kirk said.

  “Captain,” Scott replied shortly. It occurred to him suddenly that the civilian must be nearly the last one to have used the transporter, the person Spock implied had complained.

  “Sir,” Scott said abruptly, “could ye describe to me how ye felt, when ye arrived on the transporter? It would help track down the difficulty.”

  The civilian looked startled.

  “Sorry, sir,” Scott said. “I’m the chief engineer, my name is Scott.”

  “Good lord, Scotty,” Kirk said, “is the transporter on the blink too?”

  “Your transporter worked fine as far as I could tell,” the civilian said. He grinned. “I thought it was supposed to shake you up a little.”

  The doors opened and they all stepped out onto the bridge.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong wi’ it, Captain,” Scott said. “Mr. Spock just this moment told me—”

  Scott stopped short, and his voice failed him as he stared in astonishment at the science officer’s station. There, in his usual place, Spock bent over his computer terminal.

  Captain Kirk and the civilian went down to the lower level of the bridge, where Commander Flynn leaned against the railing waiting for them. Scott followed, but he could not drag his gaze away from Spock, and he stumbled on the stairs. Flynn grabbed his arm to steady him.

  “You okay?”

  “Aye,” he said, irked; he pulled away from her.

  Kirk took his seat and turned back toward Scott.

  “What’s the bad news on the engines, Scotty?”

  “The engines are no’ in very good shape, Captain. I got most of the parts we needed on Aleph, and I can keep things together to do what’s needed as long as the warp drive isna pushed, once i’ is on line again. ’Twould be better to stay at sublight, till we’ve had a thorough overhaul ...”

  His voice trailed off as Spock came down to listen.

  “What’s wrong, Scotty?” Kirk asked.

  “Well, nae a thing, really, Captain—but, Mr. Spock, how did ye beat me to the bridge? I came here direct from the transporter room.”

  Spock cocked one eyebrow. “The transporter room, Mr. Scott? I have been on the bridge since Mr. Sulu left; I have not been near the transporter room for several hours.”

  “But you said there was something wrong wi’ it.”

  “I am unaware of any malfunction.”

  “Ye said it had power fluctuations, Mr. Spock, and that i’ was nearly fixed. But what I dinna understand is how you got up here before I did.” Among the junior officers were one or two inveterate practical jokers, but Spock would never engage in such frivolity, nor cooperate with it. Scott shook his head, as if that would disperse the fog of exhaustion and confusion that surrounded him. Everything would be so much clearer if only he did not feel so tired.

  “Mr. Scott, I have been here on the bridge for some time.”

  “But I just saw ye—I just spoke wi’ ye!”

  Spock said nothing, but he raised his eyebrow again.

  “I did see ye!”

  “Scotty,” Kirk said, “how late did you stay out last night?”

  Scott turned toward his captain. “Captain, that isna fair! I took no liberty—I did naught but work on the engines!”

  “You were supposed to take liberty,” Kirk said, in a much more placating tone. “Scotty, we’re all tired, we’ve all been under a lot of stress for a long time. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for what you saw—”

  “You’re saying I’m hallucinating, Captain! I dinna hallucinate Mr. Spock in the transporter room any more than I’m hallucinating him now!”

  “I’m saying no such thing. I’m saying I want you to get some rest. We’ll talk about this later, if we need to.”

  Kirk’s expression forbade more comment. Scott hesitated, but clearly he was to be excluded from any further conversation. Spock regarded him quizzically, but failed to offer any explanation for his peculiar behavior.

  Well, then, Scott thought, with the irritation of generations of lower officers kept in the dark by red tape, high brass, and their own immediate superiors: Well then, so there is something unusual going on, after all; this isna a foul-up; this isna a mere courier run. Doubtless I’ll find out all abou’ it eventually. And perhaps I’ll even learn the truth for mysel’ wi’out waiting for anyone to deign to say what it may be.

  He left the bridge, knowing that the science officer was following him with his gaze, assuming Kirk was even now saying privately to Spock, with admiration and respect, “Well, we can’t keep anything from Scotty very long, can we?” and Spock replying, “No, Captain; he has deductive faculties of a power unusual in human beings.” Scott entered the lift to return to his quarters, looking forward to a shower—a water shower, hot water, too—and to the quick drink he had denied himself earlier. Then he intended to take a long nap.

  He still could not figure out how Spock had got past him from the transporter room to the bridge. For that was what he had done, whether he was admitting it or not.

  Back on the bridge, Kirk would have liked to ask Spock what that scene with Scotty had been all about, but he had to turn his attention immediately to Ian Braithewaite.

  “Captain Kirk—are we travelling at sublight speed?”

  Kirk sighed. “Mr. Braithewaite, Rehab Seven is so close to Aleph Prime—relatively speaking—that if we tried to reach it at warp speed, we’d overshoot. We’d strain the engines far past the danger point with such rapid acceleration and deceleration.”

  “Wait, Captain, I wasn’t objecting—I’ve never been on a starship before, I’m glad to have the chance to look around. I kind of hoped I’d experience warp speed once in my life, though,” he said wistfully.

  Kirk began to find it extremely difficult to maintain his irritation at Ian Braithewaite.

  “Well, you never know what opportunities will come up,” he said. “But you asked to discuss security. I thought Commander Flynn should be here, too.”

  Flynn had kept her silence; now she stepped forward to join them.

  Ian pulled a folded slip of paper from his pocket. “This came while you were asleep, Captain.” He handed it over.

  Kirk read it: another Aleph citizen had come down with hypermorphic botulism.

  “Do you think Aleph will need my ship’s medical facilities as backup? Are you worried about an epidemic?”

  “I almost wish I were,” Ian said. “But since my friend Lee was Dr.

  Mordreaux’s defense counsel, and Judge Desmoulins heard the case, I have to think it could be deliberate.”

  “Someone poisoned them?”

  “I have no proof. But I think it’s at least possible.”

  “Why?”

  “At this point I could only speculate. But the coincidence makes me very uncomfortable. And scared. The possibility that troubles me most is that someone might be trying to free Dr. Mordreaux. I think we should intensify security.”

  “Ian,” Kirk said tolerantly, “I can certainly understand why you’re upset. But you’re perfectly saf
e on the Enterprise, and Commander Flynn has Dr. Mordreaux’s security well in hand.” He glanced at Flynn for confirmation, but she avoided his eyes. “Commander Flynn?”

  She looked at him straight on, with her crystalline green gaze. “I’d prefer to discuss security less publicly, Captain.”

  “Oh,” said Kirk, and he understood that she expected him to take a hint—that she was not happy with the security arrangements—just as he had counted on her to take hints since this assignment started. “Well. All right. But after all Dr. Mordreaux is an elderly man—”

  “Commander Flynn,” Braithewaite said, “Dr. Mordreaux is my responsibility as much as yours, and I don’t think it’s fair to exclude me from discussions about him. Captain Kirk—”

  “Kirk!”

  Braithewaite spoke at the same moment as the shriek: for an instant Flynn thought it was he who had screamed Kirk’s name.

  “You destroyed me, Kirk! You deserve to die!”

  In shock, everyone turned.

  Dr. Mordreaux, wild-eyed, stood at the entrance to the bridge. He thrust out an ugly, heavy pistol, and gestured to Flynn and Braithewaite with its muzzle. “You two, out of the way.”

  “Dr. Mordreaux,” Braithewaite said, “don’t make things worse for yourself—”

  In the hypersensitivity of a rush of adrenaline, Flynn saw the pistol steady as Braithewaite started toward Mordreaux. She thought, Wrong, wrong, that is just the wrong thing to do, brave but stupid, damn all amateurs; as the hammer cocked she had already flung herself forward. Her momentum rammed Braithewaite out of the line of fire and carried her to the upper level of the bridge. One more second’s hesitation in Mordreaux and her hand would clamp around his wrist, one more second—Damn Kirk for not telling her what was going on, damn him for making this sound trivial, if he had not she would have kept her phaser on and to hell with general regulations. Another instant—

  The gun went off.

  The explosion of sound surprised her more than the crushing jolt that hurled her to the deck.

  Jim Kirk leaped to his feet. The gun went off a second time, the sound cutting through the cacophonous disorder on the bridge. The bullet smashed into him, engulfing him in a nova-bright haze of pain.

  Mordreaux stepped backwards into the lift and the doors closed, a moment before Spock reached them. The science officer did not waste time trying to force them open. He leaped back down the stairs, past Commander Flynn struggling to her feet, and slapped the paging switch.

  “Dr. McCoy to the bridge immediately! Trauma team, emergency nine!”

  Spock knelt beside Jim Kirk.

  “Jim ...”

  The bridge was in chaos around them. Blood spattered deck and bulkheads and glistened on the illuminated data screens. The security commander, her hand clamped over the wound in her shoulder, gave orders crisply over the intercom, deploying her forces to apprehend Mordreaux. Blood dripped between her fingers and sprinkled the floor beside Spock, like rain.

  The second bullet had taken Kirk full in the chest. His blood gushed fresh with each beat of his heart. That meant at least that his heart was still beating.

  “Spock ...” Jim fought his way up through massive scarlet light, until he forced enough of it away to see beyond it.

  “Lie still, Jim. Dr. McCoy is on his way.”

  Spock tried to stop the bleeding. Jim cried out and fumbled for Spock’s wrist. “Don’t,” he said. “Please ...” He felt the blood bubbling up in his lungs.

  The wound was too deep, too bad, to quell by direct pressure. Spock ceased the futile effort that only caused pain. Jim felt himself gently lifted, gently supported, and the sensation of drowning eased just perceptibly.

  “Is anyone else hurt? Mandala ... ?”

  “I’m all right, Captain.” She started up the stairs again.

  “Commander Flynn!” Spock said without glancing back.

  “What?”

  “Do not summon the lift—Dr. McCoy must not be delayed.”

  She needed to get below to help her people: she needed to, it was like an instinct. But Spock was right. She waited, swaying unsteadily.

  “Mandala, let me help you.” Uhura’s gentle hands guided her around and a few steps forward before she balked.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Mandala—”

  “Uhura,” she whispered, “Uhura, if I sit down I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back up.”

  “Lieutenant Uhura,” Spock snapped, “page Dr. McCoy again.”

  Spock did not want to move Jim without a stretcher, but if it and Dr. McCoy did not arrive in another thirty seconds he was going to carry Jim Kirk to sick bay himself.

  “What happened, Spock?” Jim whispered. “This was supposed to be ... a milk run.” A light pink froth formed on his lips. The bullet had punctured his lungs. His breathing was irregular, and when he tried to draw breath, pain racked him.

  “I don’t know, Jim. Please be quiet.”

  Jim was slipping down into shock, and there was no more time to lose.

  The doors opened and McCoy rushed onto the bridge.

  “What happened? Oh, my god—” He saw Flynn first and started toward her.

  “Not me,” she said. “It’s the captain.”

  He hesitated only a moment, but saw that the blood covering her uniform shirt and spattering her face and hands and hair concealed a high and non-critical shoulder wound; he hurried to Kirk’s side.

  Flynn walked into the lift and the doors closed behind her.

  McCoy knelt beside Jim.

  “Take it easy, Jim, boy,” he said. “We’ll have you in sick bay so fast—”

  Kirk had never been so aware of his own pulse, throbbing like a thunderstorm through his body. “Bones ... I ...”

  “Quiet!”

  “You were right. What we talked about ... I was going to tell Hunter ...”

  “You’ll still be able to. Shut up, what kind of talk is this?” McCoy waved the tricorder across Kirk’s body. Jim’s heart was undamaged, but the artery was half severed. The sensor showed a pierced lung, but that was obvious without any mechanical information. The essential thing was to get him on oxygen as fast as possible, then hook him up to a fluid replacer, a heme carrier: he was bleeding so badly that oxygen starvation was the biggest danger.

  “Where is the trauma unit?” Spock said, his voice tight.

  “On its way,” McCoy said, defending his people though he was angry himself that they were not yet here. But he knew he could save Jim Kirk.

  “You’ll be okay, Jim,” he said, and this time he meant it.

  But there was something else, a danger signal from the tricorder. McCoy thought immediately of poison, but the readings were in the wrong range. He had never seen anything like this signal before. “What the devil ...”

  Jim thought he had blood in his eyes. A shimmering cloud passed across his vision.

  “I can’t see,” he said. He reached blindly out.

  Spock grasped his hand, holding him strongly, deliberately leaving open all the mental and emotional shields he had built during his long association with human beings.

  “You will be all right, Jim,” Spock said. He put his right hand to Jim’s temple, completing the telepathic, mystical circuit linking him with his friend. Pain, fear, and regret welled out into him. He accepted it willingly, and felt it ease in Jim. “My strength to yours,” he whispered, too softly for anyone to hear, the words a hypnotic reminder of the techniques he was using. “My strength to yours, my will to yours.”

  McCoy saw Spock’s eyelids lower and his eyes roll back till only a crescent of the whites still showed. But he could not pay any attention to what the Vulcan was doing. The lift doors opened and the trauma team rushed in with the support equipment.

  “Get down here!” McCoy shouted. They hurried to obey.

  They hooked up the trauma unit and oxygen flooded Jim’s body. His starving nerves spread new agony through him. He gasped, and blood choked him. Spock
’s long fingers clasped his hand. The pain eased infinitesimally, but Jim’s sight faded almost to pure darkness.

  “Spock?”

  “I am here, Jim.”

  His friend’s hand pressed gently against his temple and the side of his face. Jim felt the closeness, the strength that was keeping him alive. He could no longer see, even in his mind, but in some other, unnamed way he sensed the precision of Spock’s thoughts, their order twisted by Jim’s own pain and fear.

  Jim Kirk knew that he was going to die, and that Spock would follow him down the accelerating spiral until he had fallen too deep to return. He would willingly choose death to try to save Kirk’s life.

  James Kirk, too, had one choice left.

  “Spock ...” he whispered, “take good care ... of my ship.”

  He feared he had waited too long, but that terror gave him the strength he needed. He wrenched away from Spock, breaking their contact, forsaking Spock’s strength and will, and giving himself up alone to agony, despair, and death.

  The physical resonance of emotional force flung Spock backward. His body thudded against the railing, and he slumped to the floor. He lay still, gathering his strength. The deck felt cool against the side of his face and his outflung hands. The echoes of Jim Kirk’s wounds slowly ebbed. Spock opened his eyes to a gray haze. He blinked, and blinked again: the nictitating membrane swept across the irises, and finally he could see. Spock pushed himself to his feet, fighting to hide his reactions.

  Jim’s body now lay on the stretcher of the trauma unit, hooked up to fluid and respirator, breathing but otherwise motionless. His eyes—his eyes, wide open, had clouded over with silver-gray.

  “Dr. McCoy—”

  “Not now, Spock.”

  Spock felt himself trembling. He clenched his fists.

  McCoy and part of his medical team floated the trauma unit into the lift, while two of the paramedics stayed behind to take Braithewaite, knocked unconscious in his fall, down to sick bay.

  The captain’s body was alive; it could be kept alive indefinitely now.

  But Spock had felt Jim Kirk die.

  Mandala Flynn leaned against the back bulkhead of the turbo lift, closing her eyes and seeking out the damage to her body in her mind. The bullet tracked diagonally from her collarbone in front on the left, across her back and down, and lodged against her lower ribs like a molten bit of lead. As far as she could tell, it had cut through without doing critical damage. But her collarbone was shattered, again: she knew what that felt like.