STAR TREK: TOS #2 - The Entropy Effect

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  She cursed. The bullet had entered almost exactly where the shrapnel had got her two years before. Now she would have to waste a month in therapy; the jigsawpuzzle of bone would never return to its original strength.

  Her blood pressure was way down: she had to will herself not to go into shock. The biofeedback techniques were working. So far she had even succeeded in holding the pain, most of it, back one level short of consciousness.

  She was well aware that she could not stay on her feet much longer. She had lost too much blood, and even with biocontrol, the human body has limits which she had nearly reached.

  The lift doors slid open onto an empty corridor.

  There should be guards at every level! Fury rose in her, fury and shame, because however badly or insignificantly Captain Kirk was hurt, the responsibility was hers alone. Even if no one at all had been hurt, the prisoner had escaped. There was no excuse for that: she had thought her command of the security force was competent, even outstanding. She had watched morale rise from nothing, but here she was, revealed as a sham.

  Face it, Flynn, she told herself savagely, they could have replaced your predecessor with a rock, and morale would have gone up. That doesn’t make you adequate to lead. They ought to bust you back to ensign, that’s where you belong. They were right all the time.

  A lunatic with a pistol was running around loose in the ship, and not so much as a single guard stood at the bloody-bedamned lift doors.

  She stepped out into the hallway. Her feet were numb, as if they had fallen asleep, and her knees felt wobbly and funny.

  Is this shock? she wondered. This isn’t a symptom of shock. What’s going on?

  She took a few steps forward. Mordreaux’s cabin was right around the corner. Clichés about locking barns after horses got loose crept through her mind along with her usual uncertainty about what a horse actually looked like ... or a barn ... she forcibly pulled her attention back. If her people were not at the lift, Mordreaux’s cabin was as good a place as any to begin looking for them. And him.

  Could this be a planned assault? she wondered. Was Braithewaite right? All the security people taken on and eliminated, silently, one by one, in an attempt to free Mordreaux? In logistical terms it made no sense to assault a starship instead of the negligible security of Aleph Prime. Here, an attack force would have to get undetected through the ship’s sensors; the force would have to board the Enterprise through warning systems that included several layers of redundancy, and it would have had to do its work too swiftly, too perfectly, for anyone to be left to set off an alarm.

  Mandala stumbled and fell to her knees, but felt nothing. Her legs were numb almost all the way to the hips. She looked stupidly down. That was no help. Somehow she managed to get back to her feet.

  An assault made no sense in human terms; in human terms, it was impossible. But she had learned—one of the first lessons she had learned in her life—that the human consciousness was in the minority, and that limiting oneself to thinking in human terms was the quickest way to prove oneself a fool.

  Still she had seen no one. She could call them on her communicator, but she was too angry to speak to any of her people any way but face to face. And, truth to tell, she did not think she could lift her left hand. All the strength and feeling had vanished from that arm.

  She turned the corner.

  There, in front of Mordreaux’s cabin, several security people gathered, milling in confusion.

  “What the hell is going on?” she said, just loud enough for them to hear. “Mordreaux is loose and you’re all standing around like—like—”

  Beranardi al Auriga, stooping to peer through the observation port of the V.I.P. cabin’s new security door, straightened up. He was head and shoulders taller than his superior. He saw the blood spreading between her fingers and down her arm and side.

  “Mandala—Commander, what—? Let me help you—”

  “Answer my questions” Flynn could just barely feel the heat of her own blood. The pain had gone.

  “Mordreaux is right here, Commander,” al Auriga said. He unlocked the cabin so she could see. She looked inside.

  Lying on his bunk, braced on his elbow as if he had just been awakened, Mordreaux gazed blearily out at them.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What’s all the commotion?”

  “Neon,” Mandala said, “lift, portal, guards?”

  “Commander,” Neon said in her silvery voice, “prisoner, cell, Neon, intersection; alarm.”

  “What ... ?” Flynn’s confusion was not because she did not understand Neon’s unusual English. Neon had said not only that Mordreaux was in his cell, but that Neon had been guarding him when the alarm sounded.

  “Prisoner, bridge, separation,” Neon said.

  Flynn shook her head, trying to clear her mind of an encroaching grogginess. Any number of possibilities spun through her consciousness. An android duplicate. Clones. Clones, hell, maybe he had a twin brother.

  “Barry, get everybody—everybody, roust the night watch out of bed—and search this ship. Double the guard here, and put a watch on the shuttlecraft and the airlocks and dammit even the transporter.” She gasped: she felt short of breath and dizzy. “Mordreaux just shot Captain Kirk on the bridge—or if it wasn’t Mordreaux it was somebody doing a damned good impression. Be sure to warn them that he’s armed.”

  “Aye, Commander.”

  “Where’s Jenniver?” Flynn said. That should have been her first question: she must be going into shock. Her vision blurred for a moment. She closed her eyes and held them shut. “Jenniver’s supposed to be on duty this watch, where is she?” She opened her eyes again, but her vision had not cleared.

  “Sickbay,” Neon said.

  “I’m all right,” Flynn snapped, knowing that was not true.

  “Jenniver, sickbay, illness, intersection,” Neon said patiently. “Mandala, sickbay, intersection; instant.”

  Flynn nodded. Neon spoke precisely, even though the only part of speech that matched between her language and English was the noun. If Jenniver had been hurt in an escape attempt that is what Neon would have said. But Jenniver had taken ill, and was in sick bay. Neon thought Flynn should be there, too, quickly. She was right.

  “Jiffy,” Neon said.

  Flynn closed her eyes again. She felt herself losing her balance and tried to catch herself. She flung out her left arm but it moved only weakly; her hand would not work at all. Pain shot across her shoulders and back and vanished into the numbness in her chest and belly; she staggered against the wall with another jolt, and began to slide toward the ground.

  Need both hands, she thought dully. That’s it.

  Her right hand would not move.

  Startled, she opened her eyes and looked down, blinking to try to see clearly.

  She moaned.

  Delicate silver fibrils, glittering through the gray fog, entwined her fingers like silk, binding them to her shoulder. In a panic she ripped her hand away. The fibrils stretched and popped and twanged, like the strings of a musical instrument. The broken ends writhed across her shirt, and the free strands tightened around her hand.

  Neon came toward her, making a high, questioning noise.

  “Stay back” Flynn could feel the tendrils growing and twisting inside her, spinning themselves like webs around her spinal cord. Neon and Barry came toward her, trying to. help her. “Neon, Mandala, separation, separation! Barry, don’t let anybody touch me without a quarantine unit!” Her jaw and tongue began to grow numb, as the threads crept up into her brain. She struggled to get a few words out. Her knees collapsed and she fell forward and sideways, hardly aware of the impact. A film of fast-growing tendrils blinded her.

  Now she knew what kind of gun Mordreaux had used.

  “Hurry,” she whispered. “Barry ... tell McCoy ... spiderweb ... Captain Kirk ...”

  The tendrils reached Mandala Flynn’s consciousness and crushed it out.

  Spock forced himself not to submit
to his body’s reactions to what had just happened. Though he understood the human concept of soul, and spirit, his perception of what made a living creature intelligent and self-aware was wholly Vulcan, too subtle and complex to explain in human terms or any human language. But he had contacted that concept, more deeply and intimately than he had ever probed a mind before, and he had watched, no, felt all but the last glimmer of it die. If Jim had not broken the hypnotic connection, giving Spock back his will and all the strength he had tried to channel into his friend, Spock too would now be comatose and brain-damaged under the tender, brutal ministrations of Dr. McCoy’s lifesaving machines.

  “Mr. Spock, what happened? Please let me help you.” Uhura came toward him, not reaching out to him, but offering her hand half-raised. Spock knew she would not touch him without his permission.

  Pavel Chekov leaned over his console, crying uncontrollably with shock and relief, for like the other humans on the bridge he too thought Captain Kirk was going to live.

  The emotions raging around Spock were so strong that he could sense them without the aid of touch, and in his weakened state he needed to get away from them. He could not think logically under these conditions and it was essential that someone do so now. A great deal needed to be done.

  Though tears flowed slowly and regularly down Uhura’s face, she seemed unaware of their presence; outwardly she looked calmer than Spock himself felt.

  “Lieutenant—” He stopped. His voice was as hoarse as if he had been screaming. He began again. “I do need your help. Page Commander Flynn and order her to sick bay immediately on my authority. There is reason to think she has been wounded far more seriously than she believes. She must not delay.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said. As the channels signalled ready, she glanced at Spock again. “But you, Mr. Spock?”

  “I am not physically damaged,” Spock said. It took every bit of strength he had left to walk steadily up the stairs. Behind him he heard Uhura page Mandala Flynn. “Lieutenant, she’s down here.” Beranardi al Auriga’s voice crept close to the edge of hysteria. “At Mordreaux’s cell. She collapsed, but she ordered us not to touch her.

  She’s been shot with a web-slug, dammit, Uhura, she thinks Captain Kirk was, too!”

  Spock slammed his hand against the turbo lift controls. As the doors slid closed, every crew member on the bridge looked up at him in shock and horror and terror-stricken surprise.

  The lift fell, shutting them away. Spock sagged against the wall, fighting for control of his shaking body. A spiderweb: he should have realized it from the first, but it was so peculiarly human in its brutality that he could never have conceived of anyone’s using it.

  Away from the other members of the crew, he succeeded finally in calming himself. When the doors of the lift opened again, he walked out as steadily as if he had not been an instant from oblivion.

  As Spock turned the corner and approached Dr. Mordreaux’s cabin, Beranardi al Auriga punched the controls of an intercom.

  “Where the hell’s the med tech”

  By now the medical section must know about the spiderweb, Spock thought. Sick bay would be in chaos.

  Light shimmering on her scales, Neon crouched over Mandala Flynn as if she could protect her with ferocity. Spock knelt beside the security commander’s crumpled body. Alive, she had given the impression of complete physical competence and power. It was an accurate impression, but it was the result of her skill and self-confidence, not her size. She was a small and slender woman; life had seeped out of her, revealing the delicacy of her bones and the translucence of her light brown skin. She looked very frail.

  “Don’t—” al Auriga said as Spock reached toward her. “She said not to touch her.”

  “I am not under Commander Flynn’s authority,” Spock said. He reached toward her, but hesitated. His hands were covered with Jim Kirk’s blood. Spock brushed his fingertips across Flynn’s temple. The wound in her shoulder still bled slowly; the individual cells of her body still maintained a semblance of life. But she had no pulse, and he sensed not the faintest response from her brain.

  Her eyes, which had been an unusually intense shade of green, had turned silky gray. Spock had seen the same film begin to thicken over Jim Kirk’s eyes as they carried him off the bridge.

  “The danger is past,” Spock said. He looked up, and met the gaze of each security officer. “The web has ceased to grow. Commander Flynn is dead.”

  al Auriga turned away; Neon snarled low in her throat. Spock wondered if he would have to defend Mordreaux.

  Neon settled back on her haunches. “Revenge,” she whispered wistfully, then, in a stronger voice, “duty. Faithfulness, oath, duty.”

  Spock stood up. “Where did you capture Dr. Mordreaux?” he asked Flynn’s second in command.

  “We didn’t,” al Auriga said dully. Slowly, reluctantly, he faced Mr. Spock again. “He was here. He was locked in. Mandala—Commander Flynn ordered me to have the ship searched. For a double.”

  Spock raised one eyebrow. “A double.” Before he considered that unlikely possibility he had to explore the probability that security had slipped up. “Who was on guard?”

  “Neon. It was Jenniver Aristeides’ watch, but she’s in sick bay—Mr. Spock, I’m sorry, I don’t really know what happened yet. I just found out she was ill and I thought it more important to start the search.”

  “Indeed. What other orders have you given?”

  al Auriga took a deep breath. “The guard’s to be doubled. What I want is what Commander Flynn wanted all along—to move the prisoner to a security cell. Do the orders to keep him here still stand? Is the captain capable of giving orders?”

  “No, Lieutenant, he is not. But those are my orders, and they still stand.”

  “After what’s happened—” The resentment burst out in al Auriga’s voice.

  “The captain understood my reasoning,” Spock said, all too aware that somehow his reasoning had proved faulty.

  “This is crazy, Mr. Spock. He got out before. Even with a doubled guard, maybe he could do it again. He could retrieve his gun from wherever he hid it. The description we got was a twelve-shot semi-automatic, so he’s got ten more of those damned slugs ... somewhere.”

  “The orders stand, Mr. al Auriga.”

  He heard footsteps and glanced over his shoulder before the sound came within the range of human hearing. A medical technician came pounding around the corner. He looked harried and stunned. Blood smeared his tunic.

  He fumbled his medical kit open even before he slid to a stop beside Mandala Flynn’s body. Kneeling, he felt for a pulse and looked up in shock.

  “For gods’ sakes, don’t just stand there!” He jerked a heart stimulant out of his bag, to begin resuscitation.

  Spock drew him gently but insistently away from Flynn.

  “There is no need,” he said. “There is no reason. She is dead.”

  “Mr. Spock—!”

  “Look at her eyes,” Spock said.

  The tech glanced down. It was al Auriga who gasped.

  “That’s the way ...” The technician met Spock’s gaze. “That’s the way the captain’s eyes look. Dr. McCoy is operating on him now.”

  Spock deliberately turned his back on the technician. He would not think of Jim Kirk’s being mutilated further in a useless attempt to save his life.

  A thumping noise startled them all.

  “Let me out, do you hear?” Dr. Mordreaux shouted, banging on the door again. “I didn’t do anything! What am I being accused of this time? I tell you I’ve been right here since you brought me onto this damned ship!”

  al Auriga turned slowly toward the closed door, his body tense with anger. Spock waited to see what the security officer would do; he waited to see if the scarlet-eyed man could control himself sufficiently to take Mandala Flynn’s place. al Auriga suddenly shuddered, his hands clenching into fists, and then gradually he relaxed. He turned to the med tech, who was still standing helplessly besid
e Flynn’s body.

  “Do you have a sedative you can give him?”

  “No!” Spock said sharply.

  The two other men stared at him. Neon, ignoring them all, slid the stretcher from its compartment in the abandoned medical kit and began to unfold it.

  “Mr. Spock,” al Auriga said, “I can’t question him when he’s hysterical.”

  “Dr. Mordreaux has been under the influence of far too many drugs administered for far too little reason since before this trip began,” Spock said. “Unless he is permitted to recover from their actions we will never hear a coherent story from him. Commander Flynn ordered a search of the ship, did she not?”

  “Yes,” al Auriga said.

  “In that case perhaps you should proceed.”

  “It’s begun,” the security officer said. Then he cursed very softly.

  “And we’ve got to find that damned gun.”

  “You have, of course, searched Dr. Mordreaux?”

  al Auriga froze. “Oh, my gods,” he said. “I don’t think anybody has. Neon—?”

  “Prisoner, securities, separation,” Neon said. She smoothed the rippling stretcher into a flat silver sheet and pushed it down till it nearly touched the deck. “Corridor, cabin, separation.”

  “None of us has been near him. Commander Flynn was going to search him, I think, but ...”

  “We had better do so now,” Spock said. “Unlock the door, and stand away from it.”

  As al Auriga unlocked the door, Neon lifted Mandala Flynn onto the stretcher, then floated it, and its burden, to waist height. She moved it nearer the med tech, who took hold of the guiding end of the stretcher and stood looking blankly down at it.

  “Take her to stasis until after the viewing of her will,” Spock said. “Neon: Neon, doorway, offset.”

  The med tech got out of the way; Neon inclined her head in acquiescence and moved to one side of the door, ready to spring in and help if necessary.