STAR TREK: TOS #7 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

by Vonda N. McIntyre (Novelization)

  “If I thought you knew what you were saying,” Saavik told him, “I would kill you.”

  “What?” he said. “Hell—trust a member of Starfleet to react like that. Try to give somebody a compliment, and look what you get.”

  “A compliment!”

  “Sure. Hey, look, there aren’t that many Vulcans in [176] Starfleet; I figured you were following in your father’s footsteps or something.”

  “Hardly,” she said, her voice and her expression chill. “You could not offer a worse insult to Captain Spock than to imply he is, or even could be, my father.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “I do not care to discuss it.”

  “Why not? What’s so awful about you?”

  “One of my parents was Romulan!” She spoke angrily.

  “Yeah? Hey, that’s really interesting. I thought you were a Vulcan.”

  “No.”

  “You look like a Vulcan to me.”

  “I neither look like a Vulcan nor behave like a Vulcan, as far as other Vulcans are concerned. I do not even have a proper Vulcan name.”

  “I still don’t see why Mr. Spock would be insulted because I thought you were his daughter.”

  “Do you know anything about Vulcan sexual physiology?”

  “Sure. What difference does that make? They still have to reproduce, even if they only try it every seven years.” David grinned. “Sounds pretty boring to me.”

  “Many Romulans find Vulcans sexually attractive. Under normal conditions, a Vulcan would not respond. But the Romulans practice both piracy and abduction, and they have chemical means of forcing prisoners to obey.”

  She paused. David could tell this was difficult for her, but he was fascinated.

  “To lose the control of one’s own mind and body—this is the ultimate humiliation,” Saavik said. “Most Vulcans prefer death to capture by Romulans and seldom survive if they are driven to act in a way so alien to their natures. The chance that my Vulcan parent even lives is vanishingly small.”

  [177] “Oh,” David said.

  “Romulans make a game of their cruelty. A few take the game so far as to father or conceive a child from their coercion, then compel the Vulcan woman to live long enough to bear it, or the Vulcan man to live long enough to witness its birth. That completes the humiliation and confers great social status on the Romulan.”

  “Hey, look, I’m sorry,” David said. “I honestly didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or insult Mr. Spock.”

  “You cannot hurt me, Dr. Marcus,” Saavik said. “But as I am not entirely a Vulcan, it would be possible for me to hurt you. I would advise you to take care.”

  She stood up and strode away.

  Saavik paced through the meadow, wondering what had possessed her to tell David Marcus so much about her background. She had never volunteered the information to anyone else before, and she seldom spoke about it even to Mr. Spock, who of course knew everything. The obvious explanation—that she had wanted to be certain Marcus would never speak in a manner completely offensive to Spock—failed to satisfy her. But she could think of no other.

  She climbed down the bank to the edge of the stream, picked up a smooth rounded pebble, and turned it over and over in her hand. She marveled at the complexity of the Genesis wave. In a natural environment, a water-worn pebble would take years to form.

  She skipped the stone across the surface of the stream. It spun across the current and landed on the other side.

  This was without doubt the most beautiful place Saavik had ever seen. It was all the more affecting because its beauty was neither perfect nor safe. She had heard, far in the distance, the howl of a wild animal, and she had seen the sleek shape of a winged hunter skim the surface of the forest. It was too far away for [178] even Saavik to discern whether it was reptile or bird or mammal, or some type of animal unique to this new place.

  The only thing wrong with it was that she was here against her will.

  She took out her communicator and tried once again to reach the Enterprise. But either the signals were still being jammed or no one could answer. And Dr. McCoy was right, too: Mr. Spock should by now have taken the ship and departed for a Starbase. If he could.

  She climbed the bank to return to the meadow.

  Dr. Marcus, junior, lay on a hillock at the edge of the forest, staring meditatively at the sky and chewing on a blade of grass. The admiral, Dr. McCoy, and Dr. Marcus, senior, sat nearby under a fruit tree, picnicking on fruits and sweet flowers.

  Saavik hesitated to invade their privacy, then recognized that if Dr. Marcus and Admiral Kirk wished to be alone, Dr. McCoy and David would have gone elsewhere. She started across the field toward them. She had several ideas she wanted to propose to the admiral. Anything would be better than standing idly by, in paradise or not, while the world they had come from dissolved into hell.

  Admiral Kirk seemed so very calm and relaxed. As she neared the group, Saavik unfavorably compared her own reaction to the Kobayashi Maru simulation to Kirk’s composure in the face of real death or permanent exile.

  Saavik wondered again how Lieutenant James Kirk had reacted to the simulation that had shaken her own assurance. Captain Spock had said Kirk’s solution was unique, and that she must ask the admiral herself if she wished to know what it was.

  “That’s what I call a meal,” Kirk said.

  “This is like the Garden of Eden,” Dr. McCoy said with wonder.

  “Only here, every apple comes from the tree of [179] knowledge,” Dr. Marcus said; then added, “with all the risk that implies.”

  She leaned forward and put a bright red flower behind Admiral Kirk’s ear. He tried to stop her, but not very hard, and finally submitted.

  Jim Kirk felt a bit silly with a flower stuck behind his ear. But he left it where it was, picked a handful of bright purple blossoms from a thick patch nearby, and began to braid them together into a coronet. Noticing Saavik’s approach—and her pensive expression—he motioned for her to join them.

  “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

  “The Kobayashi Maru, sir,” she said.

  “What’s that?” David asked.

  Dr. McCoy explained. “It’s a training simulation. A no-win scenario that tests the philosophy of a commander facing death.”

  “Are you asking me if we’re playing out the same story now, Lieutenant?” Jim picked another handful of flowers.

  “What did you do on the test, Admiral?” Saavik asked. “I would very much like to know.”

  Dr. McCoy chuckled. “Why, Lieutenant, you’re lookin’ at the only Starfleet cadet ever to beat that simulation.”

  “I almost got myself tossed out of the Academy, too,” Jim said. He thought about the time, took out his glasses, and looked at his chronometer again. Not quite yet.

  “How did you beat it?”

  “I reprogrammed the simulation so I could save the ship.”

  “What?”

  Jim felt rather amused to have startled Saavik so thoroughly.

  “I changed the conditions of the test.” He smiled. He was not a wizard computer programmer himself; fortunately one of his Academy classmates not only was, but [180] could never resist a challenge. It was Jim, though, who had staged the commando raid—or cat burglary, since no one figured out what he had done till quite a while later—on the supposedly secure storage facility where the simulation programs were kept, in order to substitute his version for Starfleet’s.

  “The instructor couldn’t decide whether to die laughing or blow her stack. I think she finally flipped a coin. I received a commendation for original thinking.” With a smile, he shrugged. “I don’t like to lose.”

  “Then you evaded the purpose of the simulation: you never faced death.”

  “Well, I took the test twice before I decided to do something about it, so I suppose you could say I faced death. I just never had to accept it.”

  “Until now.”

  “Saavik, we each face death every day
we’re alive.”

  Now it was time. He picked up his communicator and opened it.

  “Kirk to Enterprise. Come in, Mr. Spock.”

  “Enterprise to Kirk, Spock here.”

  Saavik started violently and leaped to her feet.

  “It’s two hours, Spock. Are you about ready?”

  “On schedule, Admiral. I will compute your coordinates and beam you aboard. Spock out.”

  Everyone was staring at him in shock. Kirk shrugged contritely.

  “I told you,” he said. “I don’t like to lose.”

  He joined the flower garland into a circle and placed it gently on Carol’s hair.

  “Energize,” Spock said to Transporter Chief Janice Rand. She focused the beam on the party in the middle of Regulus I, increased the power to compensate for several kilometers of solid rock, and energized.

  Spock had deduced Kirk’s assumptions and intentions. The science officer was curious to know the results of the second stage of Genesis. He suspected that parts of what had been created within the [181] planetoid would be most interesting, considering the odd sense of humor of the team of Madison and March.

  He hoped to be able to see it himself and, seeing it, honor the memory of their lives and their work.

  The admiral materialized on the transporter platform, and behind him Dr. McCoy and Dr. Marcus, senior, then Lieutenant Saavik and Dr. Marcus, junior, supporting Pavel Chekov between them.

  Spock raised one eyebrow. The admiral wore a flower over his ear, while Dr. Carol Marcus wore a floral wreath.

  The planetoid must be most interesting, indeed.

  Saavik finished saying something interrupted by the beaming process. “—the damage report. The Enterprise was immobilized.”

  “Come, now, Lieutenant,” the admiral said kindly. “You’re the one who keeps telling me to go by the book.”

  Kirk suddenly noticed what Spock was looking at, began to blush, and removed the flower. He gallantly offered it to Lieutenant Saavik—who had no idea what to do with it, as no one had ever given her a flower before—and stepped down from the platform.

  “Hello, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said. “You remember Dr. Marcus—” he presented Carol Marcus, “—and I believe you met David before he also became Dr. Marcus.”

  David Marcus nodded to Spock and helped Saavik carry Chekov down.

  “Certainly,” Spock said. “Welcome to the Enterprise. I was most impressed by your presentation.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Carol Marcus said. “I wish it were turning out better.”

  Even Spock could see the effects of strain and exhaustion in her face; the deaths on Spacelab must of course have affected her far more than they did him, not only because she was human and he Vulcan, but because she had been far better acquainted with the people who had died. Words of condolence were such a [182] trivial response to a loss of this magnitude that Spock refused to attempt any.

  Dr. McCoy went immediately to the intercom and ordered a medical team and stretcher from sick bay.

  “By the book—?” Saavik said.

  “Regulation forty-six-A: ‘During battle ...’ ”

  “ ‘... no uncoded messages on an open channel,’ ” Saavik said; and then, to Spock, “It seems very near a lie. ...”

  “It was a code, Lieutenant,” he said. “Unfortunately the code required some exaggeration of the truth.”

  She did not answer; he knew she was troubled by the difference between a lie and a figurative interpretation of reality. He knew precisely how she felt. It had taken him a long time to understand that in some cases no objective difference existed, and that any explanation lay completely within circumstances.

  “We only needed hours, Saavik, not days,” Kirk said. “But now we have minutes instead of hours. We’d better make use of them.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, unconvinced.

  The medical team arrived, and Saavik eased Commander Chekov to the stretcher. She looked at the flower in her hand for a moment, then placed it carefully beside him.

  “Jim, I’m taking Chekov to sick bay,” McCoy said.

  “Take good care of him, Bones.”

  “What can we do?” Carol Marcus asked.

  “Carol, it’s going to be chaos on the bridge in a few minutes,” Kirk said apologetically. “I’ve got to get up there.”

  “Drs. Marcus,” McCoy said, “I can put you both to work. Come with me.”

  Kirk, Spock, and Saavik hurried toward the bridge. Kirk stopped at the first turbo-lift, but Spock kept going.

  “The lifts are inoperative below C-deck,” Spock said, and opened the door to the emergency stairs. He climbed them three at a time.

  [183] “What is working around here?”

  “Very little, Admiral. Main power is partially restored. ...”

  “Is that all?”

  “We could do no more in two hours. Mr. Scott’s crew is trying to complete repairs.”

  They reached C-deck. Spock and Saavik entered the lift. Kirk was breathing hard. He paused a moment in the corridor, wiped his face on his sleeve, and got into the cage.

  “Damned desk job,” he said softly. “Bridge.”

  The lift accelerated upward.

  Jim Kirk stepped out onto the bridge of his ship. It still showed the effects of the earlier skirmish, but he could see immediately that most functions had been restored.

  Mr. Sulu, at his old place at the helm, glanced over his shoulder when the lift doors opened.

  “Admiral on the bridge!” he said immediately.

  “Battle stations,” Kirk said.

  The Klaxon sounded; the lights dimmed down to deep red.

  “Tactical, Mr. Sulu, if you please.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The viewscreen flipped over into a polar view of Regulus I, showing the orbits of Spacelab, Reliant, and the Enterprise. The two starships were in opposition, one on either side of the planetoid. Reliant’s delta-vee coordinates changed as they watched, revealing that Khan’s ship had begun a search.

  “Our scanners are undependable at best,” Spock said. “Spacelab’s scanners, however, are fully operational; they are transmitting the position of Reliant.”

  “Very good, Mr. Spock.”

  Reliant suddenly accelerated at full impulse power.

  “Uh-oh,” Kirk said.

  It would slingshot itself around Regulus I; unless the Enterprise accelerated, too, and continued to chase and flee the other ship, around and around the planetoid, [184] his ship would soon be a target again. And with the engines in the shape they were in, they could not stay hidden for long.

  “Reliant can both outrun and outgun us,” Spock said calmly. “There is, however, the Mutara Nebula. ...”

  Kirk took out his glasses and put them on to study the displays. He opened a channel to the engine room.

  “Mr. Scott—the Mutara Nebula. Can you get us inside?”

  “Sir, the overload warnings are lit up like a Christmas tree; the main energizer bypasses willna take much strain. Dinna gi’ us too many bumps.”

  “No promises, Mr.-Scott. Give me all you’ve got.”

  “Admiral,” Saavik said, “within the nebula, the gas clouds will interfere with our tacticals. Visuals will not function. In addition, ionization will disrupt our shields.”

  Kirk glanced over the rim of his spectacles at Saavik, then at Spock. Spock raised one eyebrow.

  “Precisely, Lieutenant: the odds will then be even,” the Vulcan said.

  The crew had taken their battle stations, pushing the bridge into controlled pandemonium. The dimmed lights cast strange shadows; computer screens glowed in eerie colors. Kirk watched the tactical display. Reliant was moving so fast it would round the planet’s horizon in a few minutes and have the Enterprise in line-of-sight. Kirk wanted to be out of phaser and torpedo range yet remain a tempting target.

  “Admiral,” Saavik asked, “what happens if Reliant fails to follow us into the nebula?”

  Kirk laug
hed, though with very little humor. “That’s the least of our worries. Khan will follow us.”

  “Remind me, Lieutenant,” Spock said, “to discuss with you the human ego.”

  “Mr. Scott,” Kirk said into the intercom, “are you ready?”

  “As ready as I can be, Admiral.”

  “Mr. Sulu.”

  [185] “Course plotted, sir: Mutara Nebula.”

  “Accelerate at full impulse power—” he hesitated until only a few degrees of arc remained before Reliant’s orbit would carry it within sight of the Enterprise, “—now!”

  On the viewscreen, the coordinates defining his ship’s linear acceleration increased instantaneously by orders of magnitude. The Enterprise sped out of orbit.

  A moment later, Reliant rounded the limb of Regulus, and its course and speed altered radically.

  “They’ve spotted us,” Mr. Sulu said.

  Dr. McCoy had nearly finished the workup on Pavel Chekov when the battle stations alarm sounded. He experienced an all too familiar tightening in his stomach. For a long time, he had believed his reaction was as simple as fear, but eventually, the better he knew himself, he realized that it was at least as much the loathing he felt for having to patch up—sometimes to lose—young people who should never have been injured in the first place. Usually they were not as young as Peter Preston ... but they were seldom very much older.

  At least—to McCoy’s astonishment and relief—Pavel Chekov had a good chance of recovering. The horrible creature had insinuated its long and narrow length into his skull, to be sure; but although it had penetrated the dura mater, the arachnoid membrane, and the pia mater, all the way to the cerebrum itself, it had not, at the time of its departure, actually destroyed any brain tissue. Instead it had nestled itself in the sulci between the brain’s convolutions. No doubt it would have done more damage had it remained much longer, but as it was Chekov should convalesce as if from a severe concussion. McCoy found no evidence of infection. Pavel Chekov was a very fortunate man.

  The ship shuddered around him.

  “What was that?” David Marcus had been pacing back and forth through sick bay, nervous as a cat, [186] haunted. Just now there was very little to do. If they were lucky, things would continue that way.