When he finally spoke, the words came slow but clear.
"Until we learn more about this creature, Scotty, perhaps we should be prepared to do the same." He paused, but Scott wasn't going to help him out on this one. He'd have to say the words himself.
"Take two of your men and arm the self-destruct mechanism in the engine core."
"Sir?"
"You heard, Mr. Scott. Carry out your orders."
Scott came erect, snapped off a sharp salute.
"Aye, sir!"
An interval of solemn, respectful silence followed as the chief engineer left the bridge. He could have delegated the task to his assistants, but that was not Montgomery Scott's way.
"Mr. Spock, any change in the Enterprise's readings? Anything to indicate what this creature may be up to?"
"Nothing obvious or immediate, Captain. We are registering a slightly higher than normal magnetic flux. It's not dangerous—not as it reads now. However, if it should go higher . . . and the level isn't constant. It appears to be fluctuating irregularly. There is some slight pattern, some half rhythm to these pulsations, but nothing recognizable enough to . . ."
Kirk barely heard the rest. "Like the beating of a heart," he muttered, half to himself.
A light blinked on suddenly on Uhura's board. No one turned immediately to watch her. At the moment, private thoughts were of greater importance.
"Bridge here." She paused, listening. Her life-support aura formed a lemon-colored nimbus around her, contrasting sharply with the red uniform of a communications officer.
"What?" The loud exclamation brought Kirk around. "Thank you, Lieutenant." She swiveled to face the Captain. Her voice was grim.
"Sir, decks five and six report shutdown of all life-support systems." An anticipatory shudder seemed to run through the bridge. "They'd just gone over to life-support belts—there was barely enough time." She paused.
"If you hadn't given the order for full alert, sir . . ." She left the obvious unsaid.
"What about manual override?" Uhura shook her head.
"According to the officers in charge, manual overrides have failed to respond, and—"
The raucous blare of the general alarm drowned out her concluding statements and all other sounds on the bridge. Kirk spoke angrily.
"Cut that, Mr. Sulu."
Flashing lights and siren died quickly. He shifted in his chair. "Mr. Spock!"
"Still checking, Captain," came the science officer's calm, reassuring tones. "Here it is—trouble in the engineering core, Captain."
"Damn. Any injuries?"
"I do not know, Captain. Apparently the alarm was sounded, but no one remained at the engineering communicator to supply answers to queries."
Kirk shook his head in disbelief. Didn't anyone remember his training?
"Bridge to Sick Bay," he began, speaking into the communicator he'd been pounding for the last ten minutes. "Bones, get down to Engineering Central, on the double. No, I don't know what it is, but that's where the general alarm was sounded." Another call switch down.
"Life-Support Central . . . LIFE-SUPPORT!"
"Life Support here . . . Lt. Crandall, sir."
"Get on those dead systems on decks five and six, Lieutenant. Draw any additional personnel you need from other sections, but get on them!" If the hard-pressed Crandall desired to reply, she didn't get the chance. Kirk was already heading for the elevator with Spock close behind.
The lights in the elevators ticking off the different decks seemed to pass with maddening slowness.
"What now, Spock?" he muttered tightly.
"I cannot say, Captain—but I venture to guess that the problems in engineering, as well as in life-support, are due to the conscious intervention of the creature that managed to beam aboard with us."
"Yes, of course—but what's it doing, Spock? Conscious, perhaps, but is it random or guided consciousness that's at work here? What's its purpose? Or does it have one?"
"Xenopsychology is not one of my specialties, Captain. At this stage we can only be certain that its intentions are both destructive and combative in nature—whether guided by intelligence we cannot yet say for sure, though its actions would tend to support such a hypothesis."
The light to the engineering core blinked solid green, inviting egress.
Kirk smiled sourly. "Bones was right about your facility for understatement. 'Combative!' " They stepped out.
This was the real heart of the Enterprise, just as the bridge was her "brain." Awesome energies worked quietly here, tremendous force was channeled, contained, kept domesticated. It was an awkward place to have trouble.
A number of engineers, technicians, and a few security personnel were clustered at the far end of the chamber. They shifted, moving wordlessly aside as Kirk and Spock approached. Dr. McCoy was already there, kneeling next to a partly opened hatchway.
The hatch leading to the maintenance tube that in turn led out to the central core was closed nearly all the way. Nearly, because chief engineer Scott was holding it open. He was pinned securely between the enormous weight of the power-activated hatch cover and the floor. It pressed against his waist, and the lime-yellow glow of his life-support force-field flared redly at the point of contact.
Another few steps and Kirk was able to kneel next to the trapped engineer. Scott looked up at him and smiled grimly. He was in no real pain, as yet. Kirk touched the smooth metal of the hatch cover—its engaged closing mechanism now humming softly, irregularly—and felt as helpless as it was possible for a starship captain to feel.
Spock had detached himself from the group and had moved immediately to the nearby control panel. Now he was conferring intently with the assistant engineer in charge. The assistant was a thin young man with a wisp of blond mustache and an earnest expression. Just now he was perspiring heavily.
Meanwhile Kirk managed to dredge up a smile, somehow. It wasn't much, but Scott apparently appreciated it. He smiled back.
"How are you doing, Scotty?" Kirk finally said to break the silence.
"I'm all right, sir." Kirk reflected on how adversity made liars of all men. Scott's voice was tinged with nervousness, if not pain. "There's a good side to everything, I suppose. If the general alarm hadn't been given, I wouldn't have been wearing my life-support belt. And if the belt hadn't been activated, well—" he grinned faintly, "there'd be two of me now."
"The force-field of his belt won't hold against that kind of constant pressure for long, Jim," noted McCoy softly. Kirk, who was about to admonish McCoy for mentioning it so loudly, reflected that if anyone knew the capabilities and limitations of the belt fields, it was Scott.
"I know that, Bones." He looked over toward the control panel. "Override system, Mr. Spock. Open the core hatch."
Scott shook his head slowly.
"It's no good, Captain. The mechanism's been frozen in the close mode. We tried everything."
Spock looked over from his position at the controls.
"Engineer Scott is correct, sir. Something has jammed all circuits. Very effectively, too."
Think . . . think . . .! Kirk studied the massive hatch cover closely, sought ideas in the intermittent hum of the servomotor.
"Scotty, is there a manual device for handling this baby?"
"No, sir. Its designers never envisioned a situation where it might be necessary to move such a heavy, vital piece of machinery by hand. Security has something to do with it, too. Anyhow, the last command it received was to close. Only the computer can tell it otherwise, sir, and it's blocked, as Mr. Spock says. Nothin' mere muscles can do is goin' to force it backwards against that command."
As he finished, a desperately bright flare of red came from the place where the cover rested against his force-field and waist. He squirmed uncomfortably. The brighter flare was the belt's way of warning its wearer that they were approaching a critical point.
"Gettin' a little weak, sir," he said unnecessarily.
Kirk spun and glared at the w
atching engineers and technicians. "Well, what are you all mooning at? The Enterprise can survive without one hatch cover. We'll have to. Maybe we can jury-rig an emergency radiation shield. Get those cutter beams out, Move!"
"Yes, sir!" replied one of the mesmerized engineers. Then they all seemed to be moving at once, like an army of toy soldiers.
Kirk studied his trapped chief engineer, and Scott smiled reassuringly back at him. Which was damned odd. It ought to be the other way around, he reflected. But that was the kind of person Scott was—always worried about others first. Quiet, more reserved than Spock in some ways, less ebullient than McCoy, Kirk tried to think of some way to make small talk, but nothing that came to mind seemed in any way appropriate.
Despite the fact that starship captains were not permitted the option of being maudlin, for the moment, at least, the alien invader was completely forgotten.
Two of the engineers finally returned and began setting up a complicated arrangement of spools and spheres and silicon spirals on a flexible tripod. Kirk backed away. One of the engineers gave a ready signal. Scott bent his head down to his chest and turned away as much as he could, covering his face with his arms. Both engineers wore thick goggles.
Kirk put his own hands over his eyes to shield himself. There was a soft click. An incredibly brilliant, seemingly solid line of violent, violet light lanced out from the tip of the heavy-duty cutter. It touched one of the thick hinges at the back of the hatch cover.
Immediately the hinge began to glow' a deep red, shading rapidly to white. A moment more and the metal began to flow like gray milk. The hissing of the melting metal was the only sound in the engineering section.
What seemed like ages later there was a dull snap, and the hinge was cut through. The engineers instantly switched off the cutter. Now pressing shut with only a single activated hinge, the hatch cover was canted at a definite awkward angle. Scott was just able to struggle free, carefully avoiding the still white-hot area where the one hinge had been melted away.
Kirk gave him a hand up. The chief was unhurt, only badly shaken.
"Be nice to be able to be in two places at the same time, sir," he commented, "but I don't fancy managin' it in quite this way. In the final reckoning it's a mite too divisible."
Sulu's voice sounded over the open intercom before Kirk could reply.
"Bridge to Captain Kirk."
He moved to stand near the pickup. "What is it, Sulu?"
"Sir, something's taken over the ship's phaser banks! They're locking on the alien starship."
Now what? He dismissed the engineers and security men to their normal duties, then moved to the small wall-screen set close by the communicator. A quick touch and once more they were treated to a view of the magnificent, ancient vessel.
Suddenly, two thick beams of destroying energy licked out. They struck the alien, struck again. Huge sections of metallic lacework were blasted apart. Archwork and shattered pods disappeared as bolt after bolt of phaser energy tore at the helpless derelict. Bits and pieces vanished in a maelstrom of organized destruction.
Torn free and impelled by the force of the phasers' power, segments of the ship began to spin end over end. They dropped out of ages-old orbit, falling into the crushing gravity-well of the waiting dead sun. Kirk's comment came in a whisper.
"The creature has no respect for beauty, either."
"Or history, Captain," Spock added, equally shocked by the invader's actions. "All that knowledge . . . all those potential discoveries—lost forever."
"Perhaps even more, Mr. Spock."
Sulu showed obvious relief when the others reappeared on the bridge. He'd watched the dissolution of the alien vessel and experienced an unusual feeling of impotence as the phaser banks, usually under his control, failed to respond to repeated attempts to halt firing.
Kirk listened to his helmsman's comments as he resumed his command position.
"Phaser banks were off, Captain. They activated themselves. I tried, sir," he half-pleaded, "but—"
"Override systems refused to respond?"
"Yes, sir. How did you know, sir?"
"The same thing just happened in engineering, Mr. Sulu," informed Spock. "The same thing which has affected the life-support systems on decks five and six. About all that can be said in favor of our visitor is that it is not capricious. It is clearly about some private plan of its own. One which we seem quite unable to alter."
"If we only knew what it wants!" Kirk muttered through clenched teeth. The familiar hiss of the elevator doors operating sounded. He turned to see Scott and Dr. McCoy appear.
"No internal damage, Jim," said McCoy, nodding in the chief engineer's direction. "He's fine."
Scott's expression, however, was less encouraging.
"Let's have it, Scotty. Nothing you can say could really upset me any further—not now."
"Sir, we cannot get into the core. All exits are sealed. And that means . . ."
"That you can't arm the Enterprise's self-destruct mechanism. What about cutter beams? They still seem to work. Can't you cut your way . . .?" He paused. Scott was shaking his head slowly.
"They might've worked a little while ago, sir. They're drained of all energy now. Apparently this creature has to sense something in operation before it can drain that something of power, or counter its command source. I don't pretend to understand how the creature does it, but there isn't a cutting or weldin' or seaming tool in the whole engineering section putting out enough juice to rearrange a loaf of stale bread."
"Captain—" Kirk turned his gaze to Uhura.
"What new good news do you have now, Lieutenant?"
"Cargo holds three, four, and five report shutdown of life-support systems. They've gone to belt-support."
"Terrific—that's just marvelous!" He spared a glance for the emergency telltales located at Scott's station. Spotted among the normal greens and blues were an uncomfortably large number of flashing reds. Even one of the galley lights was winking crimson.
"What the hell would the thing want in the galley?"
"Sir?" asked Spock, failing to sense the irony in Kirk's voice.
"Power is now out on all but key levels. Captain," informed Scott. "I'm getting a strong magnetic flux reading on all out decks."
"Captain!" Uhura shouted. She was staring in disbelief at her instruments. "Something's going through every computer bank on board, every microspool, every tape, every storage bin—and fast!"
Spock had backed slightly away from his station, watching while his dials and checkouts gave back impossible readings. Sulu's hands hovered hesitantly over his own console. The telltales of all the bridge computer systems—navigation, library, communications, engineering—were alive with myriad flashing, sparkling lights. All indications were that information was being processed through them simultaneously at an unbelievable rate.
Then the double-red local emergency lights went on, and the bridge alarm howled. They had very little autonomy left—or time. If Kirk was going to do anything he'd have to do it now. His mind raced. One last computer was as yet uncontrolled, unread, by the invader—a delicate marvel that could also process information with more insight, if not more speed, than all the onboard ship computers put together.
"Spock," he murmured finally, "can you rig a temporary, low-frequency shield, like the one we found on the alien ship, for our own navigation console?"
Spock hesitated briefly. "It would have to be a very small field, Captain."
"That's all right, Mr. Spock. Just the navigation console. I don't expect you to be able to whip up a convenient, invader-proof, bridge defense system in a couple of minutes. We're short on time."
That was enough for Spock. He bent over the navigation console and started to work smoothly, efficiently, among the instruments. Occasionally he asked Sulu for help and advice on this or that particular piece of circuitry or had him depress this or the other switch at a certain time.
Meanwhile, the force-fields of both men flar
ed and gleamed bright as Spock played with local but powerful energies. The resulting radiance and field interaction gave each man a satanic silhouette.
Scott was bursting to complain about the lack of adequate safety precautions for such work, but he managed to contain himself. They had no time to be careful anymore.
After an interval of minutes that seemed like years, Spock stood and walked back to his station. Scott eyed the critical meters on his board and let out a sigh of relief.
"It's activated and in operation, Captain—but only for an area three meters square."
"How's the flux reading there now?" Kirk asked. Spock took his tricorder off a rack and moved back to stand close by the shielded section of console. He played the compact instrument over the affected section.
"Negative reading, Captain. The shielded area is completely normal." He moved the tricorder randomly over other sections of the helm. "Especially now, compared to what the rest of the panel reads. Readings here are rising rapidly."
McCoy took a couple of steps forward and stared at the slightly lime-yellow section of shielded console in disbelief.
"Jim, you don't think this is going to help? Whatever this monster is, it's survived eons alone in a dead, empty hulk. All it has to do here is outlast us and take over."
Kirk's reply was rich with a certain morbid satisfaction.
"No, Bones. It is obviously trapped here by the gravitational power of the negative star-mass. We have already ascertained that it cannot travel freely in open space. Therefore it doubly needs a starship—this starship—to break free. And it must also need a crew to man it. Otherwise it would have left here long ago in the alien vessel we explored. Because—"
Further elaboration was cut off as the room suddenly was bathed in shades of color as brilliant as cut emerald. Something . . . spoke—using the computer speakers. The phrasing was oddly rushed, childishly impatient. But it was not the impatience of uncertainty, for no voice was more self-assured, more fully confident than this.
This is what it said.
"YOU ARE CORRECT, CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK! I POSSESS A GREAT MANY ABILITIES. BUT THE ABILITY TO BREAK FREE OF THE PULL OF THIS GRAVITY-WELL IS NOT ONE OF THEM. SO I DID . . . I DO . . . NEED A STARSHIP. NOW I HAVE ONE."
Star Trek - Log 1 Page 6
