"Workin' on it, Captain," the chief engineer replied distractedly.
Another disruptor bolt flashed past the scout. A second. The third didn't miss. There was a brief flare of radiation from the superheated hull and the tiny vessel melted away like disintegrating butter, faster than a splinter of magnesium in a firestorm.
In the transporter room four lights all commenced blinking at once and several gauges did unnatural things. Lieutenant Commander Scott, after several abortive attempts to alter the reading above one particularly significant dial, launched into an impassioned diatribe concerning the Klingon's ancestry, origins, probable spiritual destination, morals and general lack of good taste. His outburst did nothing to improve the readouts, but it was decidedly therapeutic. Scott's only disappointment was that the Klingons could not listen in.
Actually, if they had been able to, it is doubtful Scott's aspersions could have made them any madder than they were already.
"They got him," Sulu muttered angrily.
"Maybe not." Kirk bent to the intercom. "Scotty? Scout's gone . . . disruptor bolt. The pilot?"
Scott's voice came back full of confusion. "I don't know, sir. That blast must have hit his ship at the crucial second. You should see some of these instrument readings, Captain. In college we once did an experiment which involved dropping an egg from a thousand meters up onto a concrete platform. That's kind of what the integration parameters look like now, sir.
"I think I got him out in one piece. The trick now's goin' to be puttin' him back that way."
"Scotty, you pro . . ."
"Captain!" Kirk turned at Sulu's warning shout. His gaze went to the screen. The Klingon cruiser was turning, turning in a wide arc and heading directly toward the Enterprise. It began to accelerate.
Spock raised an eyebrow. Kirk's eyes widened.
"They're confident of something," Spock theorized. There was a beep from his own console, and he glanced back to study a computer readout.
"Silhouette and class identification confirmed, Captain. Imperial battle cruiser Devisor, Captain Koloth commanding."
The Klingon warship continued to close the distance rapidly. But just before it entered effective phaser range, it sheered off, keeping the distance between them. A strange blue halo formed at the ship's bow, faint at first but growing steadily in size. It thickened until it had the consistency of blue smoke. There was a sharp flash, and the tenuous blob leaped away from the Devisor toward the Enterprise.
Arex stiffened in his seat as the screen was filled with expanding blue cloud.
"The new weapon, Mr. Spock?" Kirk asked.
"Some kind of solidified field effect, Captain." He was studying sensor readouts. "It will contact us in precisely four seconds." His hands tightened on the console edge. "It appears capable of producing a most remarkab . . ."
There was a lurch as the Enterprise rolled forty-five degrees on her port side. It swung upright again. All on-board lights had gone out momentarily. Now they flickered dimly on, operating on stored power.
". . . disruption," Spock concluded.
External hull scanners revealed that the Enterprise was now cloaked in the wavy blue field.
Disruption of another kind had affected the main transporter room. Both the instrumentation and Chief Engineer Scott were producing some startling effects.
Sulu was working controls hurriedly. His face wore an expression at least one part panic. "Captain, our engines are dead."
"We have been struck by some kind of projected stasis field," Spock reported evenly. "Our matter-antimatter generators are disabled. So are the impulse engines. We seem to be completely paralyzed. Most remarkable."
"I'm not feeling in an admiring mood," Kirk shot back. "All phasers . . . fire."
Sulu attempted to respond. His worried frown knotted tighter. "Phasers don't work either, sir."
"I might note that my admiration does not preclude a desire on my part for retaliation, Captain," Spock explained. "I must observe, however, that the photon torpedoes will probably not respond, either. It appears that this field is capable of neutralizing all high-order field and warp functions."
"We could always throw rocks," Uhura suggested.
"This new Klingon weapon must be one of surprising power if it can so thoroughly immobilize a large starship like the Enterprise," Spock continued, speaking to no one in particular. "The energy drain must be enormous. Almost insupportable, I should think." No one was listening closely.
Kirk was at the com again. "Scotty, did you retrieve that pilot yet?"
"He's still in the beam, sir, but I can't integrate him. All transporter systems have been interrupted."
"You sure you've got him, though?"
The chief engineer glanced to the transporter alcove. A familiar shimmering of multicolored particles continued to hover there, outlining a rotund, vaguely humanoid form. And that was all it did, growing neither stronger nor weaker.
"Gauges indicate seventy-three percent solidification attained, Captain. But I need at least another eighteen percent to assure successful final integration. We're going to need more power for that, sir."
"Hang onto him, Scotty." For what? They were at the mercy of the Klingon ship, unable even to run. He hammered the arm of his chair once, twice.
"Captain," Uhura broke in, adjusting her earphone, "message coming in."
"Put it through, Lieutenant."
He forced himself to relax. Even managed a half smile . . . which lasted all of two seconds. But at least he was able to keep himself from shouting angrily as the image of the Klingon bridge formed on the screen. Most of it was blocked out by a single figure.
The Klingon commander turned from speaking to someone off-screen to smile ingratiatingly into the pickup. He was fighting natural instincts to achieve a patina of politeness.
"This is Captain Koloth of the battle cruiser Devisor. Have I the honor of addressing the renowned Captain James Kirk, who . . ."
"You're not calling to laud my reputation," Kirk interrupted him firmly. "Release my ship."
"Of course, Captain, of course. Gladly, happily." He positively oozed good fellowship. "There is only one small thing we require. You must turn over to me the pilot of the little ship we were escorting."
"Didn't look like you wanted to escort him very far," Kirk observed. "In any case, I haven't got anybody to give you. Your last bolt dissolved him along with his ship."
Koloth assumed a sad smile. "I beg to differ with you, Captain Kirk, but our sensors distinctly recorded certain powerful energies at work on board the small ship at the moment of disruption. Computer analysis identifies same as a transporter beam of a type well known to be mounted on your class cruiser.
"As there are no other ships of your class in this immediate area save yourself, I must therefore assume the beam came from your ship. This in itself is not an arguable thing, but sensors further indicate a probability of better than half that the pilot of the scout was successfully removed before his vessel unfortunately self-destructed."
"You lie about as well as you navigate, Captain Koloth," Kirk countered. "In any case that ship was of Federation registry, operating well inside Federation boundaries—something you might also take notice of. The pilot is under our protection."
Koloth's face turned the color of a bad apple. He appeared to be trembling slightly. Somehow the captain was maintaining an iron control over his emotions. Something vital was necessary to force such restrictions on him.
It was.
"Captain, this person has committed ecological sabotage against the Imperium. If I have to take him by force I will."
"Temper, temper, Koloth. The first Klingon to step aboard this ship uninvited will be the last Klingon. Mr. Spock, full internal security alert."
For some reason, Kirk's final refusal seemed to calm Koloth. Even to widen his smile. "I'm afraid, Captain Kirk, that you’ll find your hand weapons do not operate any better than your major armament."
Uhura had no
ticed something on her board and leaned over to whisper it to Spock. "Mr. Spock, I'm losing contact with our robot grain ships. They are not held by the stasis field and so they are continuing on course."
"What was that?" Kirk asked, looking over at the science station.
"I repeat, Captain," Koloth continued, "you must turn over to us the . . ."
"A moment, Captain. This situation calls for consultation with my officers."
Koloth looked disgusted.
"Ah, your archaic democratic principles? You have a few minutes, Captain, no longer. My patience is growing thin. If by that time you have not beamed the pilot over to us we will destroy your ship piecemeal as it sits helpless within our field."
"All right, Koloth, all right. You've made your point. Just give me a few minutes to talk this out." He rose from the chair, turned to Uhura.
"Lieutenant, cut off reception."
"Yes, sir." She complied as Kirk walked over to stare at the readouts above her.
"As you can see, sir," she commented, gesturing at the monitoring gauges, "they're moving off."
"Then they still have power. Can we control the robot ships, Sulu, in our present state?"
"Affirmative, sir," the helmsman replied a moment later. "Our remote guidance system is a low-order field effect and not affected by the Klingon stasis."
"Koloth made no mention of them. There's a chance he's so concerned with us he has forgotten about them. Bring them back, Mr. Sulu—and have them ram the Klingon ship."
"Captain . . ."
Kirk looked over at his first officer.
"You cannot afford to lose that grain," Spock insisted. "The situation on Sherman's Planet . . ."
Kirk cut him off. "I can afford even less to lose the Enterprise, Mr. Spock. Once he gets what he wants, do you think Koloth will let us go to report this serious violation of Federation territory? Why should he, considering where he's got us?"
Sulu was working furiously at his instruments as Kirk took his seat again. "Open the hailing frequency again, Lieutenant Uhura." The screen cleared quickly. "Captain Koloth? We've reached a decision." He paused a moment for effect and to give the robot ships a few seconds more to gain on the Devisor.
"I'm going to give you one last chance to release the Enterprise."
Koloth, assumed an expression of incredulity. "You're going to give me one more chance?" His voice dissolved in Klingon laughter—hacking, unmelodious, unamusing. Apparently someone off-screen said something equally unamusing, because Koloth abruptly was listening hard and looking to his left. He was frowning when he turned back to Kirk.
"It won't work, Captain."
Koloth's face disappeared and the screen went blank. Kirk was not sorry to see him go. He smiled slightly himself. The threat was working, otherwise Koloth would still be there, gloating.
Their counterattack was crude and primitive and would have appalled the men who had designed the Enterprise's offensive weaponry. This didn't change the fact that it was working. Either of the robot ships could make a very thorough mess of the Devisor.
Sulu expanded their field of vision. At the same time, two new azure bubbles began to form at the Devisor's bow. They grew rapidly in size. Again the brief flare splitting them off from the mother ship and then they were moving away in opposite directions, toward the onrushing robots.
"Incredible," Spock was murmuring, "utterly incredible . . . the amount of energy that must be required to maintain those fields."
Sulu switched to a deeper pickup to follow one of the blue fogs as it headed toward an approaching grain carrier. As they watched, it suddenly seemed to flutter, uncertain as an albatross coming in for a landing. Fluttered, wavered . . . thinned . . . dissolved.
So did its companion cloud. So did the major field surrounding the Enterprise. The starship gave a little shudder as it was released from paralysis.
"I thought so," commented Spock with barely a hint of satisfaction in his voice. "They couldn't maintain it. They didn't have enough power. Even a ship twice the size of the Devisor . . ."
Kirk wasn't really listening. "Keep phasers locked on target, Mr. Sulu. But hold your fire until they fire first. Give them a chance to back off."
"Aye, sir." The helmsman kept his face turned away so his Captain wouldn't see the undiplomatic, predatory gleam in his eyes.
Flashes of a deeper blue erupted from the Devisor's prow . . . her main disruptor batteries this time. The first barrage destroyed the propulsion units of one of the robots, missing the huge cargo module. A second attack missed the other carrier, badly.
"Apparently their battle capacity is way down," Spock observed. "They only damaged one ship. Missing two unscreened drones at this range indicates a definite lack of offensive power—for the moment, at least."
As if in confirmation, the Devisor turned away from the Enterprise in a sweeping curve, away from the remaining charging drone.
"Veering off," Sulu noted formally, locked to his console.
Spock was bent over his hooded viewer. "Sensors indicate their power cells are almost exhausted. I doubt they possess more than minimal deflector capability. We could destroy them at will."
Kirk nodded. "Yes, and I bet Koloth knew exactly what he was asking of his ship. He took a tremendous gamble, and he lost.
"Right now I'm more curious in finding out just what he felt was worth the loss of his ship and an interstellar incident bordering on an act of war. Something has made them awfully angry. They really wanted that pilot." He relaxed as the Devisor passed out of disruptor range and turned to the com.
"Mr. Scott . . . can you integrate that pilot now?"
"It will still take a few minutes, Captain," came the tired reply. "He was scattered to hell and gone, but he's locked in solid. I just need a little time to double-check integration."
"We'll be right there, Scotty. Kirk out." He rose from the chair. "Lieutenant Uhura, call Dr. McCoy to the transporter room. In addition to anything incurred in delayed transport, we don't know what injuries this person may have suffered before we took him off his ship."
"Very well, Captain." She turned to contact Sick Bay.
"Mr. Spock . . .?"
XII
Both men were silent as the elevator took them toward the transporter room. But their thoughts were similar. Each wondered what had made the Empire send a warship so far into Federation territory. True, the Klingons placed a great deal of importance on revenge. But that hardly seemed a sufficient explanation. Though for a moment, Captain Koloth had been as angry as any Klingon officer Kirk had ever seen.
Ecological sabotage, he had said. Well, to a Klingon that might mean any number of offenses which did not really merit destruction. They would find out exactly what was going on in a very few seconds—from the object of the Klingon's wrath.
McCoy was waiting for them as they entered. Kirk's attention was drawn immediately to the transporter alcove. A sharp silhouette there still shimmered with color.
"Haven't got him yet, Mr. Scott?"
"Just finalizing him now, sir. I've been integrating very slowly. No tellin' what a long delay in transport will do. It's almost fail-safe, sir, but there are still histories of peculiar aberrations bein' produced when such delayed folks were rushed back."
Kirk held his impatience and stared into the chamber. The vibrant glow began to fade and a human shape to emerge. Or . . . was it? There seemed to be a multiple form. No . . . one human, all right. Very stout, round. One human—surrounded by lots of little round stout things, very unhuman. Quite a number of little round stout shapes.
The last of the transporter hue started to fade out and the pilot became recognizable—along with the other beings.
Spock raised an eyebrow uncertainly. "It would appear to be . . ."
Kirk recognized it . . . them, too. Wished fervently—oh, how fervently he did not. His words were measured, reluctant. "I think we know that man."
McCoy broke in.
"I don't want to think abo
ut it!" The doctor bestowed an anguished look on the chief engineer. "Scotty, what you said about delays in transport producing aberrations—I didn't think you meant anything quite this hideous."
Scott had also recognized the figure and was undergoing mild shock himself. "Not again!" he finally howled.
"Cyrano Jones." Kirk finally said it out, making the name sound like a curse. And in a sense that pudgy, falsely Falstaffian figure surely was.
Cyrano Jones smiled at them. He beamed. He expanded, fairly radiating good humor, hands relaxed on hips. Faint mewing sounds issued from the region of his ankles.
"And he's got tribbles with him," Scotty groaned.
When the cylindrical transporter effect had ceased, the tribbles Jones had clustered around him immediately spilled across the alcove floor. Kirk and Spock glanced at each other, exchanged telepathic sighs.
Kirk moved to the subsidiary console and punched the switch that would tie him in with the log. He needed a couple of minutes of enforced order before he could begin to deal rationally with this situation. As if anyone could deal rationally with tribbles. However . . .
"Captain's Log, supplemental. Our rescue of the pilot of the one-man ship being pursued by the Klingon cruiser Devisor has given us important knowledge of a new Klingon weapon—as yet unperfected.
"It has also inflicted on us—for as short a time as possible—the presence of Cyrano Jones, interstellar trader and general nuisance."
"General trader and interstellar nuisance," Scott corrected grimly.
Nudging tribbles out of his path, Jones made his way toward Kirk. "Ah, Captain Kirk. My old friend, Captain Kirk!" He extended his arms to clasp the captain in a fraternal embrace. Fortunately, Kirk had the transporter console between him and Jones.
Kirk turned to the goggle-eyed ensign who had been assisting Scott at the transporter's backup instrumentation. "Seal off this area, Mister, and I mean tight."
"Aye, sir," the man acknowledged, moving to comply.
Kirk's feet suddenly felt unnaturally warm. He looked down and the reason became apparent. Two large tribbles had sandwiched his right ankle. They were rubbing against him from both sides, cooing and purring.
Star Trek - Log 4 Page 18
