by Alan Gratz
“You’re guessing,” Bones said. “It’s all conjecture. That message from Nadja—someone’s done something clever with it to mix us up. And what about the kemocite planted in my closet?”
“Nadja spent the night with you here one night, didn’t she? That night I was gone?”
Bones turned pale.
“Did she stop by her room first?” Kirk asked quietly, trying to soften the blow. “Did she bring anything with her?”
“She said—she said she just needed to get her toothbrush,” Bones said.
“But she brought an overnight bag with her or something, didn’t she?” Kirk said.
Bones nodded.
“The kemocite had to be in it. I’m sorry, Bones, but the whole time, she was setting you up in case she got found out. And … there’s more.”
“More?”
“When you were in the brig, Nadja and I followed Daagen to Chinatown. She’s the one who saw him go.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No. But, Bones, Jake Finnegan was there. He attacked me. Kept me from seeing whoever it was Daagen was there to meet. I couldn’t figure out how Finnegan knew to be waiting for me in Chinatown when I had no idea where we were going. She told him. Nadja. Finnegan says she told him to be at that warehouse in Chinatown to attack me. But how did she know where we were going? The only answer is that she was the one there to meet Daagen.”
“You’re saying she’s a member of this secret society.”
“I think so. But I don’t think even Daagen knows what she’s up to. Not by the way he reacted when I told him some of this stuff.”
“But why?” Bones asked. The pain was clearly written on his face now. “Why blow things up, why hurt people, kill people, and make it look like the Varkolak did it?”
“Before the red alert sounded, I was in the library,” Kirk told him. “I looked up Nadja’s public record. Her parents were killed on Vega V when the Varkolak attacked.”
Bones closed his eyes. “Of course. Damn it, why didn’t I see that? She told me she grew up on Vega colony and that she came back to Earth when her parents died. But I never made the connection with the Battle of Vega V.”
“It has to be a revenge thing, Bones. That’s what all this is about. It’s why the entire Federation is about to go to war with the Varkolak. Because of her.”
Bones was silent for a time, and Kirk felt the insistent urging of the flashing red-alert message on their room console. They had to get going.
“Bones?”
“It … it all fits, I have to admit,” he said at last. “I just … I need to talk to her, Jim.”
Kirk offered a hand to help up his friend. “That is definitely step one.”
CH.25.30
Charmed Lives
McCoy and Kirk arrived on the Constitution-class USS Potemkin’s transporter pad in a tornado of swirling subatomic particles. When the transport was complete, McCoy patted himself down to make sure all his limbs were intact and where they were supposed to be.
“Don’t worry, Bones. You’re all there. Physically, at least,” Kirk told him.
“Laugh now, Jim, but one day you’re gonna come through that thing with an extra arm sticking out of your chest and then who’s going to be laughing?”
“Jake Finnegan, I’d expect,” said Kirk.
The other Academy cadets who’d transferred with them filed off the transporter pad to check in with a Denobulan yeoman who stood by the door handing out assignments.
“I’m Yeoman Phozic. Welcome to the USS Potemkin, Cadets. Names?” he said when Kirk and Bones reached him.
“Kirk, James Tiberius, and McCoy, Leonard Horatio,” Kirk told him. “But what I really need to know is where a cadet named Nadja Luther is posted.”
Phozic tapped his PADD. “Weapons room … and sickbay.”
“You mean she’s in one of those places? Here?” Kirk asked.
“No. James T. Kirk, field rank lieutenant, you’re to report to the weapons room. Leonard H. McCoy, field rank lieutenant commander, you’re to report to sickbay. You’re the last group to report in. Hurry to your stations.”
“No, we need—Wait a minute, you outrank me?” Kirk said to McCoy.
“That’s ‘You outrank me, sir,’” McCoy corrected.
Kirk turned back to Phozic. “Look, we need to know where Cadet Nadja Luther ended up. It’s important. Please.”
“Cadet, this is no time to be worrying about where your girlfriend ended up.”
“She’s not his girlfriend, she’s mine. And finding her may be the only way we can stop this war from happening. Now look her up, Yeoman. That’s an order,” said McCoy.
Yeoman Phozic seemed to understand all at once that McCoy did, in fact, outrank him, despite the differences in their ages.
Kirk gave McCoy an impressed look as Yeoman Phozic hurriedly tapped at his PADD.
“Luther, Nadja. She was assigned to the Farragut, but … it says here she didn’t report for duty. She’s listed as AWOL. The Farragut warped out without her.”
Kirk leaned over the transporter console and clicked the intercom button. The transporter chief started to object, but Kirk cut him off.
“Captain Mitchell, this is Cadet Kirk. I’ve got some information that could stop this war with the Varkolak before it even begins. There’s another cadet, her name is Nadja Luther, and she’s a part of a secret society at school. She blew up the president’s shuttle, and she set off that bomb at the medical conference and made it look like the Varkolak did it, all because her parents died in the Varkolak attack on Vega V. She’s still on Earth, and she’s getting away.”
There was a pause, and the four men in the transporter room held their breaths. Finally, the captain’s slightly putout voice came back to them through the comm.
“This is all very fascinating Cadet … Kirk, is it? But this isn’t the time. In case you hadn’t heard, there is an alien armada headed for Earth, and the Potemkin is a ship of the line, and belongs with the defense fleet. Now close this channel and report to your station!”
McCoy saw that Kirk was about to talk back and hauled him out into the corridor.
“But, Bones!” Kirk protested.
“Let it go, Jim. He’s not interested. You heard him. The armada’s on the way. The talking is over. Everybody’s ready for war. How did you know who the captain was, anyway?”
“I know all the captains in the fleet. Who’s this ship’s chief medical officer?”
“Dr. Thomas Arnet.”
“See? You know your business, I know mine.”
Kirk steered them down a side corridor of the ship.
“Wait a minute? Where are we going? The turbolift’s that way.”
“You’re not going to sickbay, Bones, and I’m not going to the weapons room. We’re going back down to Earth.”
McCoy pulled Kirk to a stop. “Are you out of your confounded mind? They’re never going to let us transport down.”
“I know. We’re going to steal a shuttle,” Kirk said, moving off again.
“Oh. Good. I thought we were going to do something stupid.”
“Nadja’s behind all this, Bones. If we warp out of here with the fleet, there’ll be a war. She’ll have gotten exactly what she wanted, and she’ll have gotten away with it too. If we catch her in time, maybe we can put everything right before the shooting starts.”
“Jim, the deck officer isn’t going to let us—” McCoy lowered his voice as they passed a Potemkin crewman in the hall. “He isn’t going to let us just waltz into a shuttlebay and borrow one for a joyride.”
“Probably not. I don’t suppose you’ve got a hypospray on you, do you?”
“Oh, sure. I just walk around with a hypospray filled with anesthezine, in case I have to knock out somebody.”
“Do you?”
McCoy turned and gave Kirk a look that said a very exasperated “no.”
“Well, I hate to do it, then, but I’ll probably have to fight him. Just
… be ready to run.”
“Fantastic.”
The door to the shuttlebay whisked open ahead of them, and McCoy took a deep breath. What they were about to do would either end up getting them a commendation or landing them in the brig. Or maybe both.
The deck officer had his back to them as he moved crates onto a hoversled. Kirk put a finger to his lips and snuck up behind him. He tapped the officer on the shoulder and raised a fist, ready to strike—then stopped suddenly when the officer turned.
“Leslie!”
“Kirk? What are you doing here?” Leslie asked. He frowned at the punch Kirk had been about to throw him.
“Bones, this is my friend Leslie. He and I fought the Varkolak. Before that, we were furniture together.”
McCoy had no idea what Kirk was talking about, but he let it go. They might get out of this without a fight yet.
“Leslie, we need a favor,” Kirk told him. “A big favor.”
Kirk laid it all out for him as quickly as he could. Nadja, the secret society, the explosions, the sabotage, the wrongful imprisonment of the Varkolak. “We’ve got to go after her, Leslie. And for that, we need a shuttle.”
Leslie looked queasy, then straightened. “You know, I just remembered,” Leslie said. “I … have to go to the bathroom.”
“Thanks, Leslie. You’re a pal,” Kirk told him.
“The Indomitable is prepped and ready to go,” Leslie said, walking away. “And I never saw you.”
Kirk and McCoy hurried over to the shuttlecraft Indomitable. “And you said no one was going to let us waltz out of here with a shuttlecraft,” Kirk said. He had the door closed and the shuttle lifting off in moments.
“We lead charmed lives, Jim. Charmed lives,” McCoy told him.
The Indomitable passed through the Potemkin’s shuttle-bay’s force field and into the black of space, and Kirk steered it toward Earth.
“Shuttlecraft Indomitable, this is Captain Mitchell of the USS Potemkin,” the intercom blared, making them both jump. “This is an unauthorized departure. Return to the shuttlebay immediately.”
“I hereby retract my comment about us leading charmed lives,” Bones said.
Kirk clicked a button. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that, Captain. Nadja Luther’s still on Earth, and if we can catch her—”
“Cadet Kirk! If you do this, your career is over. Do you understand? You won’t just be kicked out of the Academy. You’ll be court-martialed for going AWOL during a state of war. I’m giving you one last chance. Turn that shuttle around now and get back to the Potemkin.”
Kirk clicked off the transmission and kept flying for Earth.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve studied all the captains in Starfleet. I know their MOs. Mitchell’s going to let us go. Just watch.”
The shuttle rocked as the Potemkin opened fire on them with its phasers.
“Or not!” cried Kirk.
CH.26.30
Any Landing You Can Walk Away From
The Academy grounds were chaos. Cadets ran to and from dorms, pulling on uniforms as they reported to transporter rooms and shuttlepads. Instructors ran with them, shouting orders and reporting for duty themselves. Shuttles lifted off over trees in the distance, heading up into space and across the bay to the Presidio, where Starfleet Command was located. Announcements and news reports blared from every console and public viewscreen.
Uhura and Sulu met Spock in the shadow of the statue of Admiral David Farragut in the middle of campus. All of them had their PADDs in hand, watching the movement of the tracer hidden in the replica Varkolak phaser Spock had constructed.
“It’s still moving,” Uhura said.
“Do we intercept?” Sulu asked.
“It would be better if we could first see what the cadet intends to do with the device,” Spock replied.
“Catch her red-handed,” Uhura said.
“If I understand the colloquialism, yes. That would be ideal,” Spock confirmed.
Right about now, Uhura began to appreciate Spock’s calm under pressure. She wouldn’t want to live without emotions all the time, but there were definitely moments she wished she could switch them off, like a chip in her head that could be deactivated.
Spock tapped at his PADD. “As an Academy commander, I have the authority to reassign you. Cadet Uhura, you have been assigned to the communication pool on the USS Lexington. Cadet Sulu”—he tapped again and raised an eyebrow at what he saw—“Cadet Sulu, you have been assigned as the relief helm officer aboard the USS Excalibur. A well-deserved posting, if I might add.”
Sulu looked stunned. Uhura was too. Relief helm officer was a big deal for a cadet right out of the Academy, let alone one still in the Academy.
“Relief helm? On the Excalibur? She’s a Constitution class,” Sulu said with wonder. He shook himself out of it. “But I’ll stay here, of course. This cadet has to be stopped.”
“Your dedication to duty is admirable, Cadet Sulu,” Spock said. “But your duty as a helm officer on a ship of the line takes precedence. I am releasing Cadet Uhura from her assignment, but not you. There is a shuttle leaving for McKinley Station in thirteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds from shuttlepad six.”
“Are you sure?” Sulu asked, already backing away.
“Quite certain, Cadet,” Spock told him. “I sincerely hope events do not require you to replace the Excalibur’s helm officer, but if they do, pilot well.”
“I will, Commander. I will!” Sulu called, taking off for shuttlepad six at a run.
Uhura wheeled on Spock, her ponytail whipping behind her. “What am I, chopped liver?” she demanded.
Spock frowned.
“You release me from duty and not Sulu? I know he’s good at what he does, but so am I!”
Spock seemed to understand at last.
“Indeed,” said Spock. “You are the finest linguistics student at the Academy. But if we fail to apprehend Nadja Luther and convince Starfleet and the Varkolak of her complicity in these events, Cadet Sulu’s talents will, unfortunately, be in much greater demand. Stay with Luther. Follow the signal. That she is transporting the device in the midst of a crisis is telling.”
“Wait, you’re not coming with me?”
“While I have the authority to change your assignment, I do not have the authority to countermand my own. For that, I will first need to speak to my watch commander.”
“Forget your watch commander, Spock! Just come with me! This is more important!”
Spock raised an eyebrow, still cool as could be. “Go AWOL? In the middle of a crisis? No. Without obedience to the hierarchy of command, we would have chaos. I will go through the proper channels and, if successful, I will join you. If I am denied, I will take my assigned post on the USS Intrepid.”
Uhura wanted to growl. Spock was too damn rigid for his own good sometimes! This was one of those times when some human emotion and initiative would be better than his Vulcan logic.
“But, Spock, what if—”
“I assure you, Nyota, you are more than capable of doing this alone, if need be. I have absolute faith in your abilities—and in you.”
Uhura got butterflies in her chest. For someone who could occasionally say the absolute wrong thing, Spock had a strange knack for every now and then saying the absolute right thing. She stood on her toes and gave him a quick kiss.
“I won’t let you down,” she told him, and she ran off to follow the signal.
Smoke filled the shuttle’s small cabin. Sparks flew from the navigation console. Kirk did everything he could to keep the pitch of the Indomitable’s nose up and not bring them down in the middle of San Francisco harbor—or worse, on top of the Golden Gate Bridge—but the shuttle was on its last legs after the pounding Captain Mitchell and the Potemkin had given it.
“You have a serious problem with authority figures, do you know that, Jim?” Bones told him.
“Physician, heal thyself.”
“I’m trying to, damn it!” Bon
es had been caught when one of the consoles exploded. He was trying to treat the burn with the shuttle’s med-kit, but he couldn’t aim straight. “Keep it steady, why don’t you!”
“Tell that to the port thrusters that went out five minutes ago!”
Kirk wrestled the thrusters under control and alerted shuttlepad four’s deck officer of their imminent emergency landing. One of the landing struts crumpled under them as they hit, and the shuttle skidded along the tarmac, but Kirk and Bones were able to hang on without being thrown. When the shuttle finally came to a stop, they sat where they were for a moment, waiting to see if anything else would explode.
“Well, any landing you can walk away from, eh, Bones?”
Bones looked ashen. “That’s it. I quit Starfleet. I don’t care if my ex-wife is somewhere on Earth. It’s a big place. A big place that doesn’t move.”
Kirk slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Come on, Bones. You don’t have to quit. They’re going to court-martial us out.”
“Speaking of,” Bones said. He nodded through the viewscreen, where a group of redshirted officers were hurrying their way. “Are they engineers or security?”
“They really need to have different colors for different jobs!” Kirk said.
They hurried to the shuttle’s door and pulled up when they found a redshirted officer already waiting for them.
“Wow,” he said. The outside of the shuttle was burned and scarred from where the Potemkin’s phasers had punched through their shields. “Have you already seen action with the Varkolak?”
“Not exactly,” Bones told him.
The other redshirts were drawing nearer. “You there! Hold on!” one of them called.
“Got to get a message to the admiral!” Kirk lied, and he and Bones took off at a run.
Their first stop was Nadja Luther’s dorm room, for lack of a better place to start. Bones figured if she was getting away, she’d want to take some of her things with her. If it was Kirk, he would have just legged it, but then he had never been too possessive of his stuff.
